pres589 (djronnebaum) said:
I don't know if you can put a filter in-line before the pump, so between the pump and the tank, without increasing the likelihood of vapor lock. Gasoline has a pretty low boiling temp and it's made lower like most any fluid by putting it in a situation where the air pressure is reduced. Putting it on the draw side of the pump will create that situation and cause the filter to become home to a vapor bubble. I would keep the filter on the outlet side of the pump.
My 2 cents on all that.
I've been running a clear plastic 5/16 filter before my electric clicky clacky fuel pump for many years with no issue.
While that tank is out, Oreillys carries a tank liner called RedKote and it is the best thing for sealing any remaining rust up and it lasts forever. Best $30 I have spent on cars and old motorcycles.
In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :
The tank on this thing is poly plastic. No rust ever! Also, no replacing the tank ever, since it's no longer available. But this one is in great shape considering it's over 40 years old now.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
The original sock probably failed because it was the original from 40+ years ago. They just deteriorate over time, and ethanol gas probably doesn't help matters. I've seen that happen before on old stuff like this.
Tony Sestito said:
In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :
The tank on this thing is poly plastic. No rust ever! Also, no replacing the tank ever, since it's no longer available. But this one is in great shape considering it's over 40 years old now.
Cool I didnt catch it was plastic. Thats great.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I was more considering the failed new sock. The old one was well past life expectancy.
Secondary important comment, I have successfully repaired a plastic tank with soldering iron plastic welding. small hole, but worked really well. I would be willing to try a large repair,, using old Scalextric brand slot car track cut to strips for filler rod.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
The new sock was completely intact and looked brand new; I forgot to take a picture of it. Looks like it somehow got loose and fell off. I fished it out of the tank and it's 100% intact.
Inadvertently, this past week is apparently Fuel Tank Week at my place. Seriously, check this out:
This is when I did the fuel tank in my old Shelby CSX. This went horribly wrong, and I ended up covered in fuel and high as a kite.
This was when I repainted a gas tank for my Trans Am that I picked up cheap. I was going to use it, but the integrated vent was broken off, so I sold it.
And this is when I installed a new tank and sender on my Trans Am. That came out great.
Anyway, I had a busy weekend doing family stuff, but I still found some time to wrench. The biggest issue was removing the mounting bolts for the tank straps. They had rusted and congealed into non-standard shapes. I realized that the front strap had been replaced at some point, because the bolts had nuts on them and the strap wasn't rotted in half like the other two.
I was able to use a nut splitter on those ones, which took a total of 2.5hrs to get them off. That was a blast.
The other four bolts did not have nuts on them and were original, so I had to use a combo of a cutoff wheel, angle grinder and an air hammer/chisel to cut the remainer of the straps and the bolt heads off. These four took about an hour.
New straps showed up today as well. I picked up some nice hardware to replace the bolts that I had to cut off. It's raining, and I'm playing Sending Unit Bingo, so the tank is not going back in tonight.
I was planning on using my rebuilt sending unit, but I'm afraid that it's in too rough of shape to use, so I'm going to keep using the one that's been in the truck since a couple years ago. I'm doing a few "modifications" to the fuel system while things are down to avoid problems like I've been having, so I'm taking my time with this.
So, fun fact:
The gas tank straps for a 1979 Dodge Warlock/Lil Red Express with an 18 gallon side saddle poly plastic gas tank DO NOT fit a 1979 Dodge W150 Power Wagon with an 18 gallon poly plastic gas tank. I learned this the hard way this week.
Both trucks use three straps for the tank as opposed to the two straps later 80's trucks use. On the Warlock/Lil Red Express, two straps are about 2-3" shorter than the other one. On my truck, it needs 3 of the long straps. I emailed the company I bought them from, but their website now has an expired domain and I'm not sure the email will even get through. Check this out:
As you can see, the straps are different sizes. I'm guessing the difference in beds has something to do with it, since those through bolts mount to crossmembers that run under the bed floor. In case I can't get through to the company I bought them from, I also ordered some couplers and threaded rod to extend the studs that mount to the bed. Those are 3/8-24 and are impossible to find locally. It will be over a week before those show up. In the meantime, I can use the one good strap I salvaged and the one long strap in the kit to mount the tank for now.
I have plenty of other things on the truck to keep me busy for now, but it's an annoying setback. If this was a Chevy squarebody or a similar vintage Ford, I could have gone to any local parts store and grabbed these parts off the shelf. Part of the fun of owning a vintage Mopar, I guess.
That can happen. Sorry about the strap length difference. If you are handy with a welder you can mod the new replacement to the correct length.
I somehow feel '79 is a bit of a midpoint changeover year ob the '72-'93 Dodge truck line. Meaning that some stuff wont fit the way it should on a '78 or '81
Greg
Another thing I've been looking at while waiting for parts to show up is the wiring under the hood. I've been meaning to get around to is cleaning up the wiring mess in this truck since I dragged it home. Wiring on this thing should be simple, and it usually is, but my truck has a plow light harness kit installed.
Instead of things coming out of the bulkhead connector and plugging into the engine bay harness, there's an extra harness (the one with the braided sleeve) that's also plugged in. That harness goes from a switch under the dashboard, through the firewall, and into the harness here. The switch presumably turned the plow lights on and interrupted the headlight power at the same time. Flipping the switch now shuts the headlights off.
Some of these white connectors have a wire that goes into the bulkhead connector and splits it off to the plow harness, like this yellow one I'm pointing at here.
Down toward the front of the truck, that braided harness then splits again with these four wires on each side, presumably for plow lights and directionals.
What I'd like to do is ditch that entire harness to simplify the entire thing and leave less potential for failure. I'm not 100% sure of the best way to do this, but I'm thinking of trimming those "split" connections at the white harness plugs at the firewall and capping off the connectors that need capping. There are a few wires from that plow harness that go directly into the bulkhead connector, so I'm trying to ID what they do at the same time.
Nice solution to that issue.
I'd also rock a jam nut on both sides of the coupler, because fuel tanks deserve belts *and* suspenders.
Mine were to short as well, I think they just make them one size and leave it to you to figure it out. I think I have one kicking around still if anyone needs one.
No pics, but last night, I tried mounting the tank again. My fix with the couplers and threaded rod worked great... for one of the two straps. The center strap actually wanted an even longer strap, so I had to pull that down and cut more rod to make it fit better. I called it quits and gave up around 9PM because it was completely dark and it was starting to rain, so I'll finish it at some point over the weekend. I may swap out the longer strap and put it in the middle instead of on one of the ends, which may help.
The good news is that my fix DOES work. The one that I did bolt up fits great. The funny thing is that no matter if I got three of the long straps or not, I would've needed the couplers and nuts anyway!
After moving the longer strap to the center position, we have a fuel tank bolted back in the truck.
Man, that was a giant PITA, but I'm glad that I went through the trouble. Tank is clean, sender is installed correctly, and the straps fit well now and aren't rotting in half.
Oh, and those valve covers came out pretty great! Remember, they used to look like this:
Now, they look like this:
On the right are the ones that came with the truck. Side by side, you can see that they are slightly different, but they fit just fine.
See?
Oh... whoops... you weren't supposed to see that! 
Think of it as a preview of the "top secret" stuff going down. It's gonna rule.
It's amazing how much of a difference some clean valve covers make. That top end is starting to look really good.
In reply to JeremyJ :
Yeah, just don't look at the rest of the engine! 
I know it's been quiet in here for the past month, but I've been busy. I was under a sort of press embargo, because since this is a BangShift.com Project Truck, I have been in the process of doing something beyond anything I had planned for this truck:
Swapping all of the old fuel and ignition stuff for brand new MSD and Holley EFI bits!
https://bangshift.com/general-news/project-cars/power-laggin/bangshift-project-power-laggin-update-we-decide-to-go-atomic-with-the-old-rig/
It's a long story, but it was decided after dealing with the fuel system and ignition woes for the past two plus years that it was time to blow it all up. Originally, I was going to just do an intake and carb swap, but after talking to our rep at Holley, he said that's too boring and suggested that it would be WAY cooler to try out their brand new MSD Atomic EFI 2 setup, paired with a Weiand Stealth intake and a complete Hyperspark ignition setup, including a CD box, coil, and distributor. Seeing the chance to nuke everything and start fresh with modern components while keeping the vintage vibe of the ol' rig, the decision was made. And the coolest part: we're pretty sure that this is the only 1979 Dodge Power Wagon with this setup on the planet right now.
I'm going to be doing a series of stories on the install over on BangShift, but I'll still post the details here in the coming days like I always do. As a preview, let's take a look at the before-and-after under the hood:
Original engine bay pic:
Present day:
Talk about a transformation! This install was a month long thrash with LOTS of ups and downs, but I can say now that it is running and driving again!
It still needs some fine tuning, and I'm learning how to tune EFI stuff on the fly right now in order not to blow it up. But the sheer fact that this works at all is a monumental accomplishment for me personally. There were times I wanted to push the thing off a cliff during the process. Again, I'll be posting more about all the details soon, but I need to take a break for a bit.
So, now that the cat's out of the bag, I can talk about all of this. 
The EFI install itself was not bad, but VERY time consuming. A pro shop crew with some TV Magic could bang this out in a day, but it took me well over a month to do it in my driveway, mostly by myself. Most of the problems I ran into weren't problems with the EFI or ignition components themselves; I had a mix of issues with the truck itself and was basically writing the book on this swap as I went, so I ran into unexpected challenges here and there.
Some of the stuff I ran into:
-Aftermarket intakes on Mopars do not play nice with stock throttle/kickdown linkage. I found that out the hard way when none of it would fit the new throttle body and intake. Ended up using Lokar stuff: throttle cable, kickdown cable, and mounting bracket all came from them, and it wasn't cheap. Could've DIY'ed a solution, but at that point, I needed the truck running so I fired off the parts cannon.
-While there are plenty of people in Mopar Land that have bypassed the stock ignition components, finding someone who both uses the internet AND has done it to one of these trucks proved VERY difficult to find. And since I haven't seen ANY builds with this particular set of components on one of these trucks, I spent a lot of time with the user manual and poking around with a multimeter until I had a plan of attack.
-I really should have installed the wideband O2 bung when the headers were out. I had to farm that out to a friend, but we got it done with the header in place.
-General things that happen when you touch an old vehicle, like having to replace a lower radiator hose because a pinhole magically developed for no reason and draining the radiator without using the petcock, which remains fused shut. Lots of stuff like that.
It was an all-consuming thrash of a job with a lot of sub-jobs to make it happen, but man, I did it. There were times I wanted to push it off a cliff during the process, but I learned a metric berk-ton about EFI, wiring, fuel systems, and more by just diving in and getting it done.
And speaking of done, it's not quite there yet.
I'm now in the "tuning" phase of the build, and I'm running into some annoyances. I've had to learn how to rescale timing maps using Holley's Sniper software and how to interpret data logs. Watching some videos from Holley's YouTube channel have been helpful, and I've consulted some friends who have experience tuning for tips. I'm now trying to figure out the fuel side of things. I've been getting tip-in lean spikes that I just can't shake, and now I'm trying to find what will fix that. Working with the EFI system is not bad, and they made it very user friendly.
Despite the tip-in weirdess, I was able to take it on a 70 mile round trip last Friday to see my parents, get an inspection sticker (it passed!) and participate in a cruise night. I have been to tons of cruise nights, but this was the first time I parked my vehicle IN one!
Definitely had some interesting reactions, ranging from "Who let this pile of E36 M3 in here?" to "EFI? Sweet!".
I'll be doing more write-ups on the details of the install soon.
Cool.
I tuned my slant 6 megasquirt for 8 years before I was happy / satisfied with it. It's mpefi. Tip in / Accel enrich is the last thing to worry about or tune.
And that 8 years was driving to / from work every day. Dialing in all the bins and enrich's in everything from 90+⁰ summer days to cold driveway starts in mid winter at -5⁰.
I might suggest installing a stand alone wb02 sensor with gauge to monitor realtime afr's while driving or in the software. The physical gauge is nice as you can have the entire map open and see afr's while driving, pull over and stab new values in the bins.
Good luck with it!
Greg
In reply to slantsix :
The Atomic 2 has a wideband that you can monitor AFR right on the screen! No need for another one because it already does it! Also, it data logs those values if you ask it to. Really slick!
I did just figure out one issue: the Lokar throttle bracket I'm using is adjustable with a slotted mounting hole and a set screw that goes against the throttle body to keep it from moving around. Set screw loosened up and the whole bracket moved. Just adjusted it to where it should be again, which improved some things, but messed up others. I will have to tinker with it and adjust the cables until it's right.
