I bought this car new in '89 ($5800) and it performed admirably for 13 years, racking up 250,000 miles with negligible issues. It hasn't been driven (on the road) since 2002, but it still looks great and I'd like to get it running again (for nostalgic reasons). At the end, in the summer of 2002, it developed a "hard start" condition where it would always turn over fine every morning but would not "catch" and start running. I'd turn the key and hold for a few seconds for several tries (10-15) before it would stumble and bumble enough to "catch" and run. The rest of the day it was fine (including the drive back home from work), but the next morning, same hard starting.
My conclusion was I had a bad fuel pump, so I dropped the tank to remove it. Turned out the tank was a total loss (badly corroded inside) and so I purchased a new replacement ($250). But what ended up stopping me from putting everything back together was the "holster" (or sending unit?) that held the pump in place. On removal, it got damaged - the short rigid fuel lines going into the pentagon-shaped head of the "holster" were pretty rusty and they got crimped as I tried to break the connections free. I haven't been able to find an acceptable replacement (except at the dealer, which wanted $500 for a new one because the pump and "holster" are only sold as one unit).
Does anybody have any ideas what I can do here? Junkyards don't seem to be an option, as most of these cars have long since been crushed, or - if they're still around - also have badly corroded gas tanks and "holsters". This part is very simple - mostly just flimsy sheet metal with the short elbow pipes up top. Seems like I should be able to sandblast it and weld a couple new lines on it, but a few welders I asked to do this didn't want to touch it.
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