Beer, Fuel Systems, and Engine mods

"No man is free who cannot control himself." - Pythagoras

 Today I transferred the beer that my buddy and I made in early September.  The beer went from the fermenter into a clarifier.  The fermenter has a bit more volume and head-space than the clarifier, to make room for the krausen - that foamy stuff that develops in the top of the fermenter.

It was during this point in the process that I remembered why I hadn't home-brewed in a long time.  It's a pain in the ass to clean up.  I suppose it's a similar thing with women wanting babies - after a while, they forget the bad parts, and just remember the joy of having a new baby.  So today I got to remember the bad parts.

I had to clean up and sanitize the clarifier, then clean the fermenter, and the keg.  The process took about an hour, and was not enjoyable.  I really hope the beer turns out well.

On to happier things:  Truck stuff has been delivered to the house!

Any guesses what's in the big box that California hates?  That's right!  It's a gas tank to replace the one that was behind the seat, which *also* had no evaporative emission controls!

Does that California-unfriendly tank look good?  Why yes, yes it does!

I ordered all the necessary mounting goods for it as well.  Fuel filler neck, screws, anti-rattle rubber mounting strips, gaskets for the fuel level sender, and a long aluminum fuel line with attachment tabs.  Also there is a gray-colored piece of sheet metal pre-formed to fill in the old filler neck hole in the cab of the truck.

At the other end of the fuel line there will be a replacement carburetor.  I could rebuild the old one, but the new one was just $80, and won't have worn out shafts or float mechanism.  It's very shiny!

OK so... about that carburetor.  It's a 300 CFM two-barrel Ford Motorcraft clone.  It's a direct replacement for the rusty (and leaky) POS that came off the truck last month, below:

I had initially intended to beautify the engine quite a bit, by adding some shiny performance parts.  These parts (in no particular order) included a 4 barrel carburetor, like the Edelbrock carb below:

A polished 4 barrel intake manifold, below:

And some block-hugger polished headers, below:

However, after looking over the engine a bit, it's looking like this is a low performance engine.  It's old enough that the ignition is a distributor with mechanical points, and it's very likely a low compression engine with an economy camshaft.  The cylinder heads are probably poorly designed to take advantage of those shiny bolt-on items.  So... for now, I'm just going to clean it up and get it running.  I will install an electronic ignition system though, because point ignition systems are silly nowadays.

Below:  I don't even remember the last time I set the gap on a set of ignition points!

If I build an engine for the truck, it will be designed to use all those shiny parts - with a good cam, good pistons, good compression, and good cylinder heads.  

With this engine, I will definitely replace the valve covers and sand blast the exhaust manifolds.  The right side got chewed up with battery acid, when the battery flopped over during transport to Idaho.  No hold-downs were in use on the battery, of course.

Something like this would be nice.

We shall see how it goes.  We are in the sweet spot of the year for projects.  Winter (and snow removal) haven't yet arrived, but lawn mowing chores are finished - so there's time for other stuff.