she runs...
...until gasoline squirts out of the carburetor.

I picked up replacement bolts for my driver's seat yesterday at my local hardware store, McGuckin's. They have an "aisle of fasteners," and a great staff that can find just about any replacement fastener in a matter of seconds. The driver's seat went back in just fine today, and it even slides back and forth just like it should. I also installed the line from the fuel pump to the carburetor last night, after cutting it to accomodate the inline fuel filter. Then I realized I didn't have a replacement fuel filter.

So today I got a new fuel filter at NAPA for $5, then realized I hadn't cut enough room for the filter in the gas line. So I Dremeled it a bit more, and installed the filter and the line. I ran the rubber fuel line from under the cab, along the frame rail, and up to the fuel pump. The key to this, since the flange adapters don't spin with respect to the fuel line, is to screw in the flange adapters first, then attach the rubber line and clamp it down. I need to keep an eye on the fuel line right before it runs into the fuel pump, as it touches the draft tube, and I don't recall how hot that tube gets. If it looks like a problem, I'll get another piece of steel line to run into the pump for a few inches.

After a brief mishap involving gasoline and a plastic cup (note to self: gasoline not only melts plastic cups, it also melts pavement when mixed with the plastic that used to be a cup), I poured some gas down the throat of the carburetor, cranked the engine a whole lot, and . . . nothing. The engine sort of caught, a little, but not really. At my roommate's suggestion, we checked the spark plugs, which were really dirty, but still didn't spark much after some wire brushing. Watching spark between just the spark plug wire and the engine showed that there was enough spark there. So it was off to Checker for replacement plugs. The guy at Checker informed me that the R43 plugs I'd been running were too cool for my engine, and sold me R45S plugs instead. That might explain the plugs fouling every 2000 miles or so, and maybe explains the original problem with the engine dying... But at any rate, with new plugs, properly gapped according to the shop manual, she started right up -- until my roommate yelled "stop!" because there was fuel spraying everywhere. The brass fitting between the fuel line and the carburetor had stripped the threads inside the carburetor.

So tomorrow, I'm going back to McGuckin's, and possibly another hardware store, to see if I can find a brass fitting with the same flange on one side, and a slightly larger thread on the other side, and then I'll take my carburetor top into my roommate's work and tap out the hole.

And in other news, I found a matched set of hornet's nests under the bed side tops at the back of the truck, a nest on the underside of the hood right up next to the passenger door, and possibly another inside the bumper. They're all dead now. I hate hornets.