Well, well, well. I had the intestinal fortitude to try and get the Super Ten running.
So far, I have taken care of just about everything else. I tried to put it off as long as I could, but no more.
I bagan by putting gas into the tank and pumping it, using the petrol pump, until it reached the carb. I filled the radiator with anti-freeze and water, checked the oil and gave it a few turns by hand to get the oil circulating. I double checked the rotor in the distributor to make sure that the timing was right.
There was no putting it off any longer... I turned on the ignition and pulled the starter knob.
Nothing.
A sputter once and a while, but essentially, nothing.
With a ready made spare parts supply, namely the Roadster, I then went about swapping parts:
- the carb... nothing.
- The distributor & coil... nothing.
- The spark plugs... nothing.
Ok, enough. Time to try something else.
At this time I pulled out plugs and got out the compression tester. 1st cylinder was a respectible 125 psi. So far so good. 2nd cylinder was 30 psi. Whaaaat!! 3rd cylinder was at 0 (zero). YIKES!!! 4th cylinder was at 0 (zero) WOAH!
Obviously there was a MAJOR malfunction here, but what? I went over the photos that I took during the rebuild to check if the cam was off, nope. I also verified this too by popping off the valve cover. With little to no compression in three of the cylinders I thought that it was either a huge break in the head gasket (but how), an unseen hole in the three cylinder walls (not likely since I would have seen them), the valves were sticking open (how could that happen unless there was debris in the cylinders).
I decided against removing the head right away. Instead, I thought that I would re-gap the valves and try again. .004 for the inlet and .006 for the exhaust (for timing). With that done, I tried the compression again. 125 again in the 1st cylinder. No surprise here. 120, 130 and 125 respectively for 2, 3 & 4.
Go figure that something as simple as a valve clearance gap would make such a mess of things.
With the plugs back in and the ignition on cranked the engine over with the starter.
VROOOM!
Started up right away. An adjustment here and there and she was purring like a kitten. I couldn't help myself and took the car for a spin around the block. Glorious.
That is not to say that there are not a few bugs to work out. I still have a leak in the rad, and the steering is slack, but the car starts and that is a HUGE hurdle.
So far, I have taken care of just about everything else. I tried to put it off as long as I could, but no more.
I bagan by putting gas into the tank and pumping it, using the petrol pump, until it reached the carb. I filled the radiator with anti-freeze and water, checked the oil and gave it a few turns by hand to get the oil circulating. I double checked the rotor in the distributor to make sure that the timing was right.
There was no putting it off any longer... I turned on the ignition and pulled the starter knob.
Nothing.
A sputter once and a while, but essentially, nothing.
With a ready made spare parts supply, namely the Roadster, I then went about swapping parts:
- the carb... nothing.
- The distributor & coil... nothing.
- The spark plugs... nothing.
Ok, enough. Time to try something else.
At this time I pulled out plugs and got out the compression tester. 1st cylinder was a respectible 125 psi. So far so good. 2nd cylinder was 30 psi. Whaaaat!! 3rd cylinder was at 0 (zero). YIKES!!! 4th cylinder was at 0 (zero) WOAH!
Obviously there was a MAJOR malfunction here, but what? I went over the photos that I took during the rebuild to check if the cam was off, nope. I also verified this too by popping off the valve cover. With little to no compression in three of the cylinders I thought that it was either a huge break in the head gasket (but how), an unseen hole in the three cylinder walls (not likely since I would have seen them), the valves were sticking open (how could that happen unless there was debris in the cylinders).
I decided against removing the head right away. Instead, I thought that I would re-gap the valves and try again. .004 for the inlet and .006 for the exhaust (for timing). With that done, I tried the compression again. 125 again in the 1st cylinder. No surprise here. 120, 130 and 125 respectively for 2, 3 & 4.
Go figure that something as simple as a valve clearance gap would make such a mess of things.
With the plugs back in and the ignition on cranked the engine over with the starter.
VROOOM!
Started up right away. An adjustment here and there and she was purring like a kitten. I couldn't help myself and took the car for a spin around the block. Glorious.
That is not to say that there are not a few bugs to work out. I still have a leak in the rad, and the steering is slack, but the car starts and that is a HUGE hurdle.
