Up goes the front onto jack stands!! Damian is getting pretty good at this task!!
The exhaust pipe is held in place by a bit of board, and the flange tacked on to hold it in the right position...
After undoing the muffler hanging points, the whole pipe was able to be moved out to the side...
Clean and ready to weld!!
First up, Dave welded the easy to reach portion...
The next part proved to be a little more tricky...
With the underside being even trickier still!!
Finally, the welding was completed!! The flange wasn't a perfect fit on the pipe, so Dave had to do a bit of "fill-in" welding, which is why it looks a little lumpy... It's strong as an ox, though!!
Damian grabbed the razor-scraper and started removing the old gasket from the carby...
The carby was reattached, and it wouldn't be long before the engine would fire into life!!
What the hell was that noise????? Dave suggests it's time to open the tappet cover to see what's going on inside...
Yep, looks like a set of tappets!!
Wait a minute!! One of the pushrods had decided it wanted to be free, rather than actually lifting the lifter!! Tricky little buggers they are...
Dave took the opportunity to reset them all, and the tappet cover was back on... 3... 2... 1 the engine started!!
Idling beautifully... Dave throws the timing light on it to check what's going on... The timing is right, the engine idles nicely, but will NOT move from idle... Of course, if you start the engine with the throttle open, it revs nicely, but won't go back to idle... something's not right!!
After pulling apart the freshly rebuilt carby to check for issues (and not having any success), Jason arrived with a carby from a known working engine...
Surprise, surprise, it didn't fix the problem.
Dave's turn to clean the goo from the bottom of the actual carby...
After many hours of trial and error, and a fair bit of cursing, sweet-talking and begging, the issue was found!!
The brand-new electronic distributor that was installed came with instructions... These said that the distributor MUST be installed with either a GT-40R (or equivalent) coil (which was installed, brand new from the shop on Sunday), or a resistance block (located near the distributor or on the guard), or a resistance wire in the wiring harness.
The next bit said "You must ensure you have a full 12 volts at the coil in order for this distributor to function correctly."
Wondering if there was a full 12 volts at the coil, the best way to test it was to run a wire directly from the positive side of the battery to the positive side of the coil... Well, what do you know? The car starts, idles, revs and runs perfectly... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!
Damian grabbed the manual and looked up the wiring diagram... there is a resistance wire built into the wiring loom from the ignition!! The combination of the resistance wire and the GT-40R wasn't working happily, so the boys swapped it back to the original GT-40. It didn't work either.
Switching back to the GT-40R, Damian wired in a switched 12V wire to test the hypothesis... Turning on the switch (thereby feeding 12 volts to the coil), the engine performed perfectly! Turning off the switch, the engine backfired and stopped... This was repeated several times, until all were in agreeance!!
The engine was left alone in the cold, dark shed to have a good think about the grief it had caused. Damian will be wiring in a supplementary wire to provide the required 12 volts to the coil in the near future, at which time, Booger Mobile *should* be driveable!!
It's getting closer!!
your days are soon to be numbered Damien - hopefully!
ReplyDelete.......Up goes the front onto jack stands!! Damian is getting pretty good at this
Love the updates
*Phew* this is nailbiting stuff!
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