[njsteve]

Thanks!

I spent last night at my buddy's garage replacing the front to back, underbody fuel line. When putting the tank back in I noticed the last few inches at the tank end were seeping due to old salt corrosion. The hard part is finding the correct line. 1975 was a really weird year for Firebirds and Camaros. It was the first year of catalytic converters so the fuel, vent and return lines kept getting changed in production to route around that super hot contraption on the passenger side underbody. This car has the 3/8" fuel line running down the driver's side of the car and the 1/4" vent and return lines running down the passenger side. You'd think that would be simple to describe in the catalogs but everyone has them backwards. They also describe my setup as having the fuel line on the "B side" of the car. What the heck is the B-side? Wasn't that the other song on a 45 record?

And why the heck do the manufacturers spend all that time making a correct replica of the original line to then go ahead and bend it into a pretzel to fit in a big box? They could at least mark the line to tell you the location and direction to bend it back into the correct position. But nooooo!

Anyway we put the car on the lift and manhandled the new line into place while removing the old line. The fuel line runs alongside the brake line and uses the same retaining clamps. I noticed the wire protective coils on that line were a bit crusty as well.

And in true "Give a mouse a cookie and he'll want a glass of milk..." fashion, I decided to order the underbody brake line section and the vent and return lines. Of course they only sell them in the big kits that have all the other sections that you don't need. (the vent and return lines have a second section that goes from the subframe to the front of the car.) These never rust and rarely need replacing but you can't just order the back halves of the set. Oh well, that will be next week's fun.

Anyway, She sure rides nice now and sits right. I also ordered some carpet samples to replace the JC Whitney sewn-style carpet I installed back in the 1980's before anyone made molded carpet sets. The only problem is that Auto Custom Carpet lists a dozen possible colors for my interior: Beige, Doeskin, Buckskin, and Saddle with a light, medium, and dark version of each one! So for $1 apiece they will send you a sample swatch of each. At least I have the 1973 SD455 sitting next to Gramma's car so I can try to match the sample to an original carpet. The only difference is that the 73 has loop style and the 75 uses cut pile material. Oh well, we will see how that goes next.

Stay tuned!