Dateline – 05/30/2016 – As you
can see from this post’s title, I made some major headway this weekend, but also
had a bit of an issue. I’ll cover these
in sequence. First, I got the rubber
gaskets from Amazon for the fuel caps and they worked perfectly! Here are pictures of the right hand filler
cap installed! Nice to have something go
easily.
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| Right gas cap closed |
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| Right gas cap open. Note rubber seal. |
Next, I started working on the
power. I bought a new battery several
weeks ago, but had not actually tried it.
So, first I went through and made sure that all the exposed electrical
was taped over so that I wouldn’t short anything out. Next I put in fuses and hooked up the
battery. NOTHING! Grrr!
So I started troubleshooting. I
have a master power switch in the car that goes to a 200 amp relay in the
engine compartment. I looked it over and
thought that I had connected it incorrectly.
I swapped a wire turned it on and POOF!
Smoke everywhere!!!!! It’s
amazing what happens when you put 600 amps through a 16 gauge wire! Yup.
Fried and melted! Literally melted
the copper wire in half that went to ground and melted the wire running from
the coil to the switch along its entire length.
I had to cut apart all my nice wire wrapping to pull the wire out. Fortunately, it melted to surrounding wire,
but did not damage any of it. But I
think my car is going to smell like burnt electrics for a long time!
So, after that I took the solenoid
out of the loop (going to put a manual power cutoff there because I realize now
that a solenoid is still going to draw the battery down) and hooked the power
back up. No "poofs" this time.
Now I decided to see if I could
get power. Some time ago I decided to go
with a power on and starter button instead of using the ignition switch. Well that does not appear to be working
because I could get no power.
Grrrr! So, I took that out of the
loop and now I think I’m going to keep it out.
I was never comfortable with the main power being driven through a set
of relays. I could just see that being a
major failure. So I’m going to go back
to the old system. KISS. I don’t know what I’m going to use the two
push button switches for now, but I’ll figure something out.
So with the old ignition switch
installed, I got power and was able to turn the engine over! Yah!
After frying electrical, I
decided to see if I could get the engine started. First, I wanted to make sure the distributor was
close to the correct timing and that I had the firing order correct.
I had swapped the distributor cap and I wanted to be sure, so
pulled the cap and did a check. All was
good.
Now I needed to line the distributor
to TDC. I needed to turn the engine over
easily, so I pulled the plugs and brought engine to TDC. Looking at the distributor, I noticed it was
180 degrees out. Hmmm. Okay, easy to fix and while I have the
distributor out, I can prime the engine oil by manually running the oil pump. So I pulled the distributor and with a very
long screwdriver, drove the oil pump until it got a lot of turning
resistance. Then I put the distributor back
in at the correct angle, at least I thought it was.
Next I put the plugs back in,
installed the distributor cap, plugged in the wires and then poured some gas
down the carb.
Now the time of reckoning. Will it start? It turned over and BLOOM backfire through the
carb. Every time I’ve seen that, it is
the timing being off by 180 degrees.
Damned! I had it right to begin
with. So once again I pulled the plugs,
only this time I also pulled off the valve cover on the odd (driver side) bank of cylinders and
watched the rocker arms to get into the power stroke, not the intake stroke! Do’h.
That was stupid!
So, plugs back in, wires
connected, gas in the carb and VROOM!
Engine starts and runs for a second.
YA!
I do that a few more times, then
decide to put gas in the tank for the first time. I put about a gallon in the right hand tank,
and knowing that I’ve no fuel anywhere in the lines or filters, I took the top
off the carb and filled up the bowls so that the engine would run long enough
to prime. I started the engine and sure
enough, it kept running! And I had good
oil pressure and the volt meter was showing a good 14 volt charge! I let the engine run until it heated up
enough to start flowing water out the radiator filler, which was uncapped, but that was enough to get it hot and to fill the garage full of fumes
from the exhaust manifolds and exhaust pipes.
Here is a video of the engine running along with gauges showing oil
pressure and amps
So what is left. Well I still have some troubleshooting to
do. The clock is not working. I need to put enough gas in to see if the gas
gauge is working. I need to heat the
engine up to find out if the temperature gauge is working. I also didn’t check the tach to see if that
was working correctly. And I’m not sure
if the electric radiator fan came on or not.
I believe it should be on low at all times and speed up after a certain
temp. Also, I need to check to see if
the left/right fuel switch is working correctly. I did check that the solenoids are working,
but I don’t know if the gauge is working or not. And I have to rewire the ignition to use the
switch again, pull out the relays and wiring.
So, the day started off kinda of
crappy, but ended on a very high note.
