Slick 60's

went to help a friend work on his 65 dodge truck today
he lives way out in the middle of nowhere
on the way home im flying down the road its 95 at least outside all of a sudden my truck just dies.
off to the side of the road and i pop the hood. first thing i notice is no gas in the filter and none in the glass bowl on the fuel pump.
crap i figure my antique fuel pump has given up the ghost

call my friend, he comes down and takes me back home.
i was just going to hook up my spare electric pump to get the truck home but just because i called the parts store to see if they had a pump. he had one 390 pump with the canister on the bottom which fits the 292 in my truck as well.
had the wife drive me down there and picked it up just because he had it and it fit

deduct $42 from the wallet

so we get back to where the truck is and i start the changeout while my wife looks over the fender watching
get the new pump bolted up and hooking up the line when she says
"hey dont get pi$$ed off at this question but why are those 2 little wires hanging down behind the carb"
"huh"
well s.o.b.
the nut holding those 2 wires to the little post on the coil had disappeared ,1 was the power,the other goes to my alternator.

could not have seen that before i installed the new pump so now its on i cannot return it.

now to insert bad joke
wife asks "got any little nuts"

sent her to look thru the tool bag and car glovebox while i finished up the pump
managed to find the nut, had fallen down onto the valley pan
pair of needlenose retrieved it and i put the wires back and of course the truck fired right up again.

why does this type of thing not happen at home instead of 20 miles away in the afternoon heat.

Ice, thank your lucky stars it wasn't -20

But why no gas in the filter or pump bowl?

It could have been worse, you could have been farther away from home and not known anyone in the area. Then again it would have been nice to have seen the wires first.

I had a 69 F-100 back in the day and was on my way to the base one morning and I floored it to pass a car and it went dead as a door nail. as soon as I backed off the accelerator it picked back up. when I would hit the gas again it would do the same thing. I finally pulled off the side of the road and raised the hood and took a look. The wire from the ign. switch to the coil had caught in the return spring to the accelerator linkage. Every time I would accelerate the spring would pull the coil wire back just enough to brake contact, as soon as I would release the accelerator it would go back on enough to make contact. I removed the wire from the spring and pushed it firmly on the coil and the problem was solved.

04sd wrote:But why no gas in the filter or pump bowl?

Yeah! how come no gas? Was you "antique pump" electric? Nice save to the wife.....

Luckily Brian, you are an uber smart guy with a lot of friends/contacts. McGyvers like you usually come out on top when problems arise. Me? I spend 2 hours dismantling the instrument panel before it dawns on me to check the fuse. Presto! Hazards, courtesy light and cig lighter all back on line, LOL.

Day 2 wrote:

04sd wrote:But why no gas in the filter or pump bowl?

Yeah! how come no gas? Was you "antique pump" electric? Nice save to the wife.....

no it was the glass bowl type.

i think the gas in the filter went thru the carb trying to start it, the pump did eventually refill the glass.

either way it works fine now