Gojo Shower and Gasoline in the Face

Today Jason and I replaced my fuel pump. OMG that was such an ordeal. I do have to say though it was an overall good time. None of that bickering and one person doing all the work that lots of people run into.  It made me REALLY happy that we could work on something as an actual team.

First things first.....I ordered the part I thought I needed off line about 2 weeks ago. Well it turns out I got the in-tank fuel pump as opposed to the in-line (out in the open) pump. Yes that little thing is what I got. =( Totally not going to do the job. Little guy is like 1/5th of the size of the pump I needed. So off to Napa we go. Got the correct part for $170. The nice guy behind the counter gave me a military discount woot woot. Heck I even tried to get more off the price by smiling pretty and bouncing. Nope didn't work but hey I will take my 10% military discount.

So get home and jack up Gert, Jason is doing the whole "man" thing. When we start running in to some awesome design flaws. Like how there are 1200 screws and bolts all facing different directions and you have to figure out exactly which order to take them all off in to get the damn thing off at all. Finally we decided to leave the fuel pump on the metal plate and just disconnect all the wires first from the pump and the accumulator. That way we could put the damn thing down and look at it from the top not the bottom and on our backs. Boy was that a job. Ended up with me under the car pulling wires off and snipping lines. I guess somethings just need a bit of a gentler touch.
However I didn't have on gloves or eye protection (shame on me) and as I was working under there I got absolutely filthy. I am going to have to scrub my little girly hands for a week with a nail brush before I can even show them to anyone. So as I was under there it came to the point were we couldn't get this one hose off. So after much deliberation and a few texts to my favorite Volvo guru for advise, I ended up just cutting the line. I was not aware that this particular line wasn't just a rubber hose....it has a plastic lining. So when I cut, it didn't slice clean and the little bit of gasoline still in the line and under pressure sprayed out at me got me right in the face. Kind of like a hose with your thumb over it. SO SO lucky I covered it with my hand ASAP and didn't get any in my eyeballs. But I did wack my right cheek on the exhaust pipe and now have a little mark. Hope it doesn't bruise =/ 
After that and finally getting the old pump totally off the car and off the mounting plate the rest was fairly easy. Except for the fact that the new pump was a little smaller in diamiter then the old one and we had to figure out something to make it fit snug in the new bracket. Which Jason did and it was all perfect after that.
5 hours, lots of grease (hence why I felt the need for a Gojo shower) at least one bruise later Gertrude is up and running as she should. Now if only I could get a job to afford to feed her......