Wassup, ladies and gent, pound and pence, dollars and cents, lots and shrimps, hookers and pimps, this is LRD aka Chief Chinchilla Mr Moo Banzai and all that bullshit - in da house and ripping the action direct. Ably unhelped by doglet Perci P.
Since buying ’Archer’ it has, on occasion, smelt like I was driving a petrol station or had a petroleum swigging hobo living in the boot. Sudden and surprise checks of the boot reveal no such stinky homeless loon with wild popping eyes and a tinfoil hat - which was just as well, as I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to pay the rent.
Donning my best deerstalker, I deduced - though petrol-chemical behavioural analysis in connection with the results of reduction–oxidation reaction of iron and oxygen, plus taking into the account the car is fudgery 23 years old - the petrol tank maybe full of more holes than the Brexit campaign strategy. In previous episodes, viewers may remember that I have redone all the fuel pipework between the engine and the tank, thus ruling them out as the cause of the almighty stink. Checking once again that there really wasn’t a tramp in the car, I ordered a new petrol tank. Via an ordering thing.
Knowing my jack wasn’t very up and downy - it was more downy and would slowly descend over time if left holding something up - probably listening to too much Morrissey or New Chemical Romance had a permanent effect on it - I ram raided the local Hellfrauds for a 2.5 tonnes jack. Here it is in it’s ‘black bastard’ livery.
Having carefully emptied as much fuel out of the car as possible by inviting local tramps round for a drinking game, I reversed the car onto a pair of ramps, jacking it up and put some sturdy axle stands in place to hold it securely in place. This created a pleasing wedge shaped areas for me to imagine I was trapped under a car and only a cat in a robot suit could save me from the bomb (with an alarmingly obvious digital readout) that had been attached to the underside of my car for no particular reason. By now I was pretty sure the fuel fumes were not affecting me. Absolutely not. Fruitbat.
In order to get the tank out, I was forced to endure a series of poorly lit photographs of me rolling about on the floor poking the exhaust pipe and giggling. I removed the exhaust from the cat back to gain access to the tank.
I got side tracked, and checked the rear arches for corrosion - but first I had to remove some of the filth.
I spied what could be a section to be cut out/treated and colour coded it in an attempt to draw attention to it.
Red seemed to alarmist, so I sprayed areas with grey paint in a look that resembles the world's worse camouflage.
After a lot of struggling, I managed to drop one out. Arf, arf.
And this was the resulting hole.
Meanwhile some plastic was getting fiddled with - more on this abuse later…
The bay of E delivered a pleasing selection of jubilee clips which I hoped would come in useful in the fitting of the new tank. If not, I shall annoy the wife by attaching them to random bits of kitchen equipment.
An exclusive photoshoot by our roving reporter: new and old tank side by side. Due to legal reason they could not actually
touch.
This, ladles and jellyspoons, is why the car stinks of petrol sometimes - some feckwit made a hole in the top of the tank! (For legal reasons I must point out it was not made by me, nor any member of the Royal Family or residents of Adelboden, Switzerland)
A bit of twistiness later and I pull this out of the old tank. The filter was inspected and cleaned off with fresh petrol.
So yeah, that’s rusty.
In an epic struggle, that will have shanties and folk songs composed and sung about for years to come, a vent nozzle broke off (well rusted) as I tried to removed the pipe.
Once, I’d dug the broken nozzle out of the vent tube, I subjected it to a flash photo before sending it back on a ferry to whence it came from.
The intense humming of evil continued as a rusted jubilee clip prevented me from moving the fuel filler pipe. A swift visit from a junior hacksaw (it still hasn’t matured despite being in my tool box for years) saw the clip cut and removed. I stamped on it’s prone body, shouting verses of angry oblique Norse poetry at it.
Here endth the lesson. Go in Peace my brethren.
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