K.i.s.s.

Hello fellow hudsonites. First off let me say how nice it is to read the helpful words of advice written by all of you. After 30 years of membership in the HET club and reading each and every WTN cover to cover, I almost feel I know some of you. So I thought I’d give you all a “chuckle” about my latest Hudson adventure. I’ve owned my hornet powered ’49 Commodore for over thirty years (its the second car I ever bought) and thought I had a pretty good understanding of the car and its attitudes. But sometimes I forget the cardinal rule of "old car" mechanics….. remembering first and foremost, to keep things “simple”. I recently sold a car to an overseas buyer and with the money figured I’d do a little spiffing up on the old Hudson. New tires, paint, some upholstery, etc. After doing all the body work and prep I was getting ready to take it to the painter when it suddenly just gave up the ghost. I coasted back down my driveway and began my investigation. It quickly became apparent that I was not getting any gas to the carb (and this is where it gets good), so I figured it be an easy fix. I pulled the fuel line from the pump, attached a hose to it and blew into the tank. Hmm…. Little to no resistance, bubbles coming from the pick-up tube, so it’s got to be the fuel pump. Not having a spare. I grabbed the WTN found a supplier and sent for two. Total down time about two weeks. I installed the pump and sure enough, we were off and running. That is until I started up the hill out of my driveway and here we go again, dead car, no gas. Now what are the odds of having a bad pump fresh from the rebuilder? Not good, but just to be safe, on went pump # 2. Guess what? Same problem. Dead car, no gas. So I took a few days off to think about it. My next thought was a “one way” blockage of some sort in the gas tank itself. So just to be sure, I inserted a hose into the filler neck, taped around it (to get a seal) and blew air into the tank…… I had already disconnected the fuel line at the pump and put it into a bucket. Wonder of wonders, plenty of nice fresh gas was flowing through the line. Well, what an idiot I am. I should have figured my cam lobe went flat on me and there wasn’t enough meat left to properly work the pump especially when under a load. So next came the order, purchase and installation of an electric fuel pump. I spliced it in, wired it up, turned the key and watched the fuel filters fill with nice clean gas. Finally, off to the painters we go. That is until I got halfway up my driveway. Dead car, no gas. In a mad fit of desperation on an 85 degree afternoon, I dropped the gas tank and took it to the radiator shop (where they said it’d be a waste of money to do anything as it was in good shape) because I just knew something was flopping around in there blocking the fuel pick-up tube. Needless to say I went home totally dejected, humiliated and frustrated. Now weeks before I had already checked the screen at the inlet to the carburetor and it was clean as a whistle. Not to mention that the carb was rebuilt last summer, so it couldn’t be the carburetor, could it? I connected a rubber fuel line at the back of the car and dropped it into a five gallon gas can. I disconnected the fuel line (this time at the carb instead of at the pump inlet), turned the key and sure enough, plenty of clean fresh gas. So there it is, what you’ve probably been saying since you started reading this, I had a bad float. It worked fine on the level, but with the car at an angle, it stuck closed (for hours, days or whatever time it needed to frustrate me) not allowing the pump to do its job. On with the spare carb I had, up the driveway and off to the painters we go. So the first thing I should have checked, somehow became the last. In the end, over a month later, I’m a couple of hundred dollars poorer, but hopefully a little smarter. Of course you can bet I will tape a note with K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) on the dash every time I work on the car in the future. Happy Hudsoning Everyone. Aaron Amundsen