In my last post, I burdened you with my trials and tribulations about finding a fuel pickup / pump / sending system that would fit the tank I bought earlier. The saga continues…
I received my order in good time – but instead of a pair of tank-mounting straps, I got an intake manifold for a Ford 5.4L V-8! The pickup/sender/pump system fits the tank perfectly, so that’s a relief, but with no straps, we couldn’t begin building the fuel tank mounting system.
So I got online and asked what to do; they sent me a return authorization for the manifold and I took care of that right away. Then I realized that they hadn’t said anything about sending me a pair of straps, so I called them and said I did *not* want a refund; I wanted *straps*! They said okay – and then nothing happened.
I called after about a week, and they checked their records and said they had to charge me shipping for the straps and they were waiting for authorization. Argh. They also said they would refund the shipping charge once the incorrect item had been returned. I told them the incorrect item had *already* been returned, and gave them the FedEx tracking number to prove it. -Oh.- Then they said they had to charge it anyway, so the system would work right and they could release the second shipment. So I authorized the charge on my card.
And waited.
After *another* week, I called them again and pretty much repeated the same conversation as before. This time, they actually went back and forth between me and the fulfillment people, and gave me the impression that I would be getting an email within a few minutes or so with the shipping information.
I never got the email.
How-EV-er, I got the straps by FedEx a couple of days ago! And they’re really fuel tank mounting straps! YAY! So now I can take them over to Robert and he can work his magic on a way to mount the tank in the cargo area of the JeepMonster. And I need to check to make sure that either the shipping charge was never made, or that it was made and also refunded. [Mumble grumble stupid computer systems grumble mumble…]
In the meantime, over the course of a few visits since March 10, Robert and I played around a bit with the placement of the fuel tank and the spare tire:
Robert also (almost) finished the cabin roll cage, began the cargo-area roll bar, and built the sliders:
We mocked up the height and length of the front fenders (seen above with the hood and grille in place, and below as we’re working on it):
He began thinking about a rack for my fuel, water and ammo cans:
And last but not least, he edged the rear bumper a bit closer to completion:
I’m getting more and more excited about this beast!
From The Ground Up 