[njsteve]

Back from the frozen garage. It's snowing at the moment.

It took a while, but I got the fuel sender out of the tank without having to remove the tank.

First I siphoned most of the gas out.

The sender on an E-body is on the drivers side of the tank but everything is in the way. I disconnected the left muffler from the hanger under the trunk (after wrapping the exhaust tip in a towel so it wouldn't scratch the valance paint). Once the muffler was hanging about an inch lower, I was able to get to the heat shield that is above it. Once that heat shield was out it gave me a couple inches of room to work alongside the tank. Using a brass drift to avoid sparks, I was able to tap the collar off the sender and then do the obligatory "bent nail puzzle" removal sequence trying to get the sender out of the tank with the exhaust still alongside it. Of course the brass float goes in the opposite direction of the pickup sock, making it an expert level puzzle scenario. Eventually I was able to finagle the thing out from there without removing the muffler or the tank. And as you may recall from previous episodes, the tank can't come out without removing the rear vlance which in no way shape or form or coming off that car without scratching all sorts of other painted parts.

Once I got it out, I tested the original 1970 sender and as predicted, it is inert. So the removal was necessary.

Installing the new sender was just as much fun to maneuver back into the tank with the adjacent muffler in place. I got the sender lead back on, along with the ground strap and low and behold, it actually worked! I put all the gas back in and she now reads 3/4 full. That's all for today from snowy Joysey.