Waking Up My Cambridge---Fuel System Question

[JerseyHarold]

Ed,

I think I'm going to pull the fuel sender and climb in the trunk with a flashlight to see what's in the tank. The original sender disintegrated when I pulled the tank to send it to Gas Tank Renu. The one I have in there now was bought online so I don't know if it works either.

My main fear is that the engine is stuck, so I want to bump it once with the starter to make sure it still turns. I've bad experiences with stuck Plymouth engines in the past.

BTW, I discovered that tuna can lids are the same size as the sender hole...I had two of them in there together (for thickness) years ago to seal the opening temporarily.

[JerseyHarold]

My son and I went out after dinner tonight and dropped in the Sam's Club battery that we bought earlier this summer. I demonstrated what it's like to shift a three-on-the-tree while making appropriate vrrooom-ing noises for the different gears.

Then I got the key (had to dig for it) and tried turning the ignition. Nothing. I tried the lights and they came on, so I tapped the starter relay with a small hammer. Stilll nothing when I turned the key, so I got a jumper wire and went from the battery to the small terminal on the relay, and it cranked itself over! To say that I'm very pleased is an understatement.

There is still a long way to before we get it running (including finding out why there was no juice to the relay...it was working fine years ago) but at least we have an engine that turns.

[JerseyHarold]

We finally got back to the Cambridge today and I pulled out the fuel guage sender and took a look inside the tank. There is a quarter-inch deep layer of thin, amber-colored liquid in the bottom of the tank. It smells, believe it or not, kind of cinnamon-y. If you rub it between your fingers, most of it evaporates leaving an oily residue.

My plan is to add several gallons of gas with a bottle of dry-gas, and crank away to see what happens.

[mackster]

my plymouth was sitting for almost three years...i added gas, new battery and beat the starter and brooom it ran! so i say try it! flathead six engines are tough little engines...

[JerseyHarold]

This one has been in my garage for about 10 years. I did a lot of work to it before then and it was running good when I parked it. My son got interested so that's why we dusted it off and started checking it out.