Alrighty, semi-productive weekend. It runs and drives, but not well. Got the brakes bled, I just had to do a bench bleed for that. I could've done that on the car, but decided to pull it and mess with it out of the car.
I killed one fuel pump due to a torn diaphragm. At the same time, I discovered that my brakes were dragging pretty bad, like couldn't maintain speed in 4th gear bad.
Walked home from the first drive, got the boat tank, strapped it to the roof, and drove home. By the time I got back to the house I was tired and didn't' troubleshoot the brakes much. I kinda figured it was the rears.
The next day, I went out on another test drive. Same symptoms. Made it about a mile before I killed another fuel pump, and the brakes locked. This time, they locked harder and I had to put all my strength into pushing the car backwards down a hill. I discovered this time that it was the front brakes locking up, not the rears as I thought.
I again went home, got the boat tank, and drove it the mile or so home in first and second gear. By the time I got home, the brakes were COOKING.
I jacked the front of the car up and I was not able to turn either front wheel by hand. Here's the weird part...I'm still using the brake light switch that works off line pressure, and the brake lights weren't on. I figured if there was enough pressure in the whole system to lock both front wheels, surely the brake lights would be on. But I digress.
I cracked open the bleeder on the passenger side front caliper and brake fluid shot out like 8-10". I did it again and more spewed out, and after that, both front brakes freed up, and the wheels were super easy to spin by hand. Very weird.
It's acting like bad brake hoses creating a one-way valve, but that doesn't' explain why cracking only one bleeder freed up both calipers. I might be putting too much stock in the brake lights not being on, who knows, but I figure that would be a decent indicator of pressure in the circuit.
I took it back out later that day, and while the front brakes were still dragging a bit, it never got to the point where I had to downshift to second just to keep moving. It would even roll backwards down a slight incline even after a few miles of driving. Still feels like a very slight drag, but nothing nearly as bad as it was.
Before I cracked the bleeder, the pedal felt normal, like you'd have a bit of travel before it got stiff and started slowing down, but pretty quickly it would get super hard at the top of the travel and breathing on the pedal would be enough to stop the car. It doesn't do that anymore, the pedal feels mostly normal.
I really feel like if the problem was with the pushrod setup, I could create this issue sitting in the driveway with the front wheels in the air but I can't. It only seems to happen on the road with heat. I'm going to bleed the brakes some more, my only real working theory is maybe there's air trapped somewhere in the calipers that's expanding and putting a ton of pressure on the pistons once it gets hot. Idk.
As for the fueling problem, I believe my fuel tank vent is also plugged up so after a few minutes of running on the tank, the mechanical pump starts trying to pull against vacuum and that's when the fuel stops flowing. The first fuel pump was obviously bad (torn diaphragm) but when I disassembled the spare I put on, the diaphragm looked fine. I had noticed when I took the fuel cap off that it was stuck to the filler neck and I heard suction when I pulled it off, so that's pretty clear to me. It also started pumping again once I pulled the cap off.
I may wind up having to pull the tank also, I'm getting some super fine rust/sludge past the filter.
Anyhow, here's a video from Saturday, I'll make a little update sometime this week.