Antenna Wrench, Sucking Gas And Fender Removal

The antenna wrench I ordered arrived on Monday.

The antenna wrench is designed to slip over the antenna mast and has various sized spanner openings. My antenna retaining nut requires the largest opening on the wrench.

It was a perfect fit. Loosening it required a little more force than I had expected, but I was able to turn it loose.

Here is the retaining nut and fender mount sleeve. I damaged the retaining nut attempting to get it off before I got the antenna wrench. I tried a few different removal methods described online, but none of them provided enough torque to turn the nut loose.

On a particularly windy day this week I hauled the gas tank outside.

I used the air compressor to blow off the dirt. (The wind helped, too.)

Once I had blown all the loose dirt off, I used a wire brush to scrub any that remained.

The gas tank is clean (or at least cleaner).

Yesterday I used a screwdriver and rubber mallet to loosen the retaining ring holding in the fuel sending unit.

With the retaining nut removed I was able to lift and maneuver the fuel sending unit out of the tank.

If you have never seen a fuel sending unit before, here is what it looks like. The external lines on this unit are rusted but I have found that you cannot get replacement units for the 1982-1984 third generation F-body. I am going to do my best to clean it up and possibly paint it with POR-15 to keep the lines from rusting any further.

With the fuel sending unit removed, my next step was to siphon the gas out of the tank. Looking in the tank I could see the gas was clean. For the most part, the inside of tank is clean also.

Sara and I siphoned the gas directly into our Freestyle.

We lost a tiny bit of gas when we pulled the siphon hose out of the Freestyle, but oh well. We estimate there was about five gallons of gas in the gas tank.

We could not siphon all of the gas out and there was still a small amount left in the tank. I am not sure how I will get the rest out, but for now it is good enough. 

Today after work I decided to take off the passenger fender. I removed the two bolts I had turned in by hand to keep the fender steady while removing the antenna.

Here is a picture of the fender.

I was able to lift the fender up and off of the antenna mast.

Here is the where the power antenna is mounted and you can see where it passed through the frame and out of the fender.

The antenna motor appears to have mud and grass covering the side...since this was inside the fender I am not even going to hazard a guess as to why this is here.

We ordered two more six packs of black POR-15, red caliper paint and a fuel tank sealer kit last night. It is supposed to be here at the end of next week. We also placed another
Project: K.I.T.T. shirt order.

My next plan is to straighten up the garage and work area.