Things got fairly busy around here due to a couple unplanned projects that cropped up and consumed a few weekends. On the 10th of November, however, with the day off work, we set about trying to get the car to attempt to fire.
We knew that the fuel pump was out to lunch, so I bought a new Mr. Gasket 42S fuel pump to install in its place. Before installing that, though, we set about to get the timing corrected. The timing was off a full tooth at the crank, so I retracted the tensioner and pulled the belt off again.
Following the service manual’s instructions this time, I got the belt on starting at the crank then looping around the left bank timing pulley. To do that, I needed to pull on it quite a bit to get it to stretch into place. With the timing set correctly this time, we threw a battery on the car to see what would happen. Once there was a good battery hooked up, the starter easily turned the engine over with no strange noises.
The next step was to remove the carb box, spray some starting fluid down the carb, and see what would happen. Sure enough, it coughed to life and sounded fantastic! Of course, it didn’t run very long and we didn’t want to keep washing it down with ether, but we definitely had a running engine.
From there, we moved our focus to that fuel pump. The fuel lines from the tank to the filter to the pump were leaking if you touched them wrong, so I’m going to need to put new fuel line in. The car was basically designed with a desire to catch fire and I don’t want to make it too easy. Interestingly, the fuel in the tank really didn’t smell all that old or bad, and there wasn’t a whole lot in there. Once things were drained out, the next step is to go get some fuel line and then work out how to mount the new pump.