My Fourth Engine Build

[Gypsie]

Shhh...You'll wake Neal

[Amskeptic]

Shhh...You'll wake Neal

HEY NEAL HOWS YOUR ENGINE RUNNING??
Colin

[ruckman101]

Snort, huh, uhmm, waking, waking, details, details ... .

Dragging my feet, no insurance for her at the moment anyway, excuses, rationalizations, etc.

Got all the pesky details done but for heater hoses, air filter, and rear skirt. Got the battery hooked up and set to static time things to surprising result. Seemed perfect, had the engine at my timing mark, static timing light hooked up, twisting distributor body until the light went on. Tightened down the distributor, and pulled to cap to see rotor position to cylinder #1 mark and released a small cloud of smoke. Something's not right. The wire on the points going to the condenser had toasted/melted.

I must have it hooked to the positive side of my coil.


sigh,
neal

[hambone]

Bah, Id'a had owls stuck in the tin by now.

[ruckman101]

Had my wiring backwards on the coil. Toasted the points.




neal

[Xelmon]

Holy... That's deep-fried good sir!

[Mike Boell]

It looks like you had good spark.

[ruckman101]

Fresh battery.


neal

[hambone]

BTDT yep

[Amskeptic]

BTDT yep

"'Bout The Damn Time" you started it?

bit the dust time ?

Blimey Toads Destroyed That ?

Battery To Die To ?

Before Talking, Do Think ?

Bitty Twiddly Dumb Twaddle, yep ?

But Trying DidnTwerk ?
ColinYouNewPeople . . . .

[ruckman101]

Ok. Got it figured out. Firing it up tomorrow. Oil is in. Referenced static timing for my distributor. VW 113 905 205T, vacuum only advance. Zero degrees. Could be the reason Ramona's engine met it's demise. I was timing it at what I thought was 5 degrees, but was most likely 7.5. Odd though, dipstick temperature check never suggested it was running too hot. Maybe it was the road time rather than the shorter jaunts into town. And running at 70+ mph.

neal

[ruckman101]

Folks are welcome to come on up and enjoy a bit of mountain retreat. PM for directions.

neal

[ruckman101]

She runs. Did the 20 minute run at 2k rpm. Sounded good. Ran smooth. Started right up. Didn't exactly idle, but got things going and turned in the throttle valve stop screw and she ran her twenty minutes at 2k rpm with very very little vibration. Hit it with the timing light at 2k rpm and was advanced right about the 30 degree point and probably a bit under. Hit the case with a laser temp gun and got temps under 170 degrees about 15 minutes in. The plan was to then back the carb back to idle and check the timing with the timing light, but as the rpms dropped to about 1k, engine died. So it goes. Pulled the oil drain plug, and called it good.

Came in and reviewed my video, (wait for it) and when the engine died trying to take it to idle, the reason became glaringly obvious, but totally missed up to that point. The intake manifold I used has a port for a vacuum hose immediately under the carburetor that I had plugged in the past. It wasn't. Could see vapors drifting out of it on the vid right after the engine died. Major vacuum leak. Doh!!!

Will check the valves in the morning, reset static timing, plug my vacuum leak, add new oil, run her up to operating temp and check the timing with the timing light, then see how the rebuilt transaxle behaves with the new shift linkage bushings.


neal

[Xelmon]

And so it has finally happened! Glad to hear that everything fired up mostly fine. =)

[Amskeptic]

She runs. Major vacuum leak. Doh!!!

Congrats on the start.
Here is my vacuum leak illustration, it is only about 1/4" square in the book, but blows up nicely on the computer screen.