'76 Escort RS continual project.

[Joe O'dMoors]

As I was pulling the old fuel line from inside the car, I was relieved to see the majority of the line run, was copper pipe, with a clear pvc outer chafe guard.



The trunk is getting further sorted out.
Decades of repairs and fuel spills back there all to be cleaned up.



A little hazy in the shop as I burnt through layers of paint and rust.

[Brett Wilkie]

Will you be keeping the fuel line running through the interior or relocate it to under the floor?

[Joe O'dMoors]

Yes Sir! I'll be running the new line inside the car again.
I plan to use this car, as intended on a fair amount of gravel/dirt courses so the protected lines will benefit for sure.
The goal is to run stainless braided PTFE hose the entire way.
There's regulation limitations on what one can use for piping, and the stainless should be the easiest to install/etc.

[Joe O'dMoors]

Working my way forward, with the fuel line out of the way and with the fixed fire fighting system out of the car, it was a great time to make sure everything was happy in this spot and do a repaint.
Not surprisingly, it wasn't!
Luckily, nothing but a bunch of surface rust.

All the rust was found by scraping away old sealant and paint.


All was blasted, or ground out and POR15 to the rescue!! Bead blasting inside a car works fantastic, but makes a hell of a mess
Top coats of semigloss epoxy was applied later on.


The rear firewall was patched, and a PTFE hose fitting coupler was fitted. The other 2 holes are for battery Pos and the rear section of the chassis wiring harness.

[Joe O'dMoors]

The fuel line was totally removed from most of the car, but the access to the feed line, where it enters the engine bay was limited.
I've always thought the engine bay needed a refresh, and this was a good time to pull it out for a reaseal, and to respray the bay.
There's also no heat insulation on the area where the exhaust manifold and down pipe run up against the firewall.

The engine getting ready to be pulled.
A very easy job. The car has a quick release bellhousing, so in just a few mins, the transmission is separated,


Here's a temperature shot of the floor after a small drive.


With the carbs off the head, it's easy to get a picture of the fuel feed line.
The line passes through a welded in strengthning plate, so I'll have to run the new line at a different spot.

[Joe O'dMoors]

All of the old fuel line has been removed from the car!


While I'm refreshing the engine bay, now is a perfect time to give the exhaust headers a do-over.
They were originally powdercoated when new, but all of the hard use/gravel has chipped away the finish. They are solid, but look rather sad.
They were half-assed dressed up with some high heat paint a few months ago,

There's a local place that will ceramic coat them.


The down pipe is also solid, but sorry looking.

[Joe O'dMoors]

I was able to pre-clean the headers, so that it will be less work/time at the coaters.
The black coating that's still partially there, was very hard to remove.



And since more bits were out of the engine bay, I gave them a much needed clean.
It's never going to be a concours show car, but I'll make everything look as good as possible.

Before...



After..

[Joe O'dMoors]

I never had the chance to paint the underside of the hood, so it got a good degreasing and prep for matching white epoxy.
The piece is fiberglass, so it's very light, and is of decent quality for a car that's not perfect.



And I'm glad that I'm stripping the engine bay, as nearly everything needs a little attention.
The brake fluids will be happy to be replaced.


The interior is stripped out, with the exception of the dash.
It is good to see how well the floors are doing.
Not bad considering what the car has been doing for most of it's life.
Holes that were hiding underneath the seats.... easy job to MIG shut. Luckily, the supports and rails are solid as can be.

[BigFred]

Thanks for posting your project updates. Very interesting and motivating.

[Joe O'dMoors]

Thank you very much!!!
There's a good amount of work still to do, so stay tuned!!

[Joe O'dMoors]

And speaking of updates!
The trunk ended up being a pandoras box, but got it sorted out after a bit of extra work.
Had to do a little welding back there, but rust is gone and un-used holes welded shut.

Much better...
Everytime I added a coat of paint, it looked better and better...I had to force myself to stop
I hacked off about and extra inch of un-used bolt length on the exhaust back box mount bolts.


Up front, engine out and getting some small bits welded up for added strength.

[Brett Wilkie]

How do you like your welder? I have a similar Lincoln 180 and I quite like it so far.

[Joe O'dMoors]

I absolutely love it!!!
Plenty of power for anything I could ever want to do. And isn't so big that I need a dedicated power circuit for it.
I'd buy another one in a heartbeat if mine was lost.

[Brett Wilkie]

I unfortunately did have to put a dedicated circuit and plug as it is 220Volts but I agree it's a great tool to have although I am still getting a handle on welding thin material without vaporizing it.

[Joe O'dMoors]

For sure worth it, regardless.
Getting a welder has saved me so much money in repairs on my fleet.
I too had a talent for blowing holes into thin metal But had a really thin Japanese car fender in the shop, and practiced on that thing for many hours before I felt comfortable doing some lighter work.
The recommended settings for Amps and wire speed on the door of the welder are sometimes in need of a little trial and error hahaha.


As far as updates go, I decided on going with PTFE fuel line with full metal braid. PTFE is great, as it will survive any fuel I might throw at it.
I got a long roll in, and a bunch of fittings for various angles etc, and was excited to get to work on this, while I was waiting for paint to dry, parts returning etc.
Luckily, the set up I designed, the entire line will have multiple disconnect points, for easy installation and/or replacement and I began measuring out pieces and adding ends for install
..And while watching a video on fuel line installation, the specialist mentioned that he used carbon infused/conductive (black) PTFE line, as the regular line (white)
may have issues with static buildup on long runs.
Some quick research on this, and others had mentioned that sometimes the static buildup is so great, that it will blow small holes through the PTFE portion of the line and leaks can occur. No thank you.

So I scrapped the line build and got in some conductive line.
2 steps forward, 3 steps back.