The Challenge is getting awfully close and I still don’t know if the car will do anything other than idle. As the parts all start arriving, however, I’m getting closer to being able to try to drive it for a short test. Using some Permatex 85420 fuel resistant sealant, I bolted the carb box back on.
Part of getting the carb box installed, though, was that the choke cable was all seized up; so much so that I broke the handle.
I used some JB Weld to repair the handle. The choke cable isn’t like the other cables because there’s no spring on the choke. That means that while the other cables are steel cables, the choke cable is actually a relatively stiff wire, since you can’t push a rope. I tried putting penetrating oil down the tube and working the wire back and forth; while I thought that had fixed it, it was still too stiff. The solution that I found was to completely remove the cable from the car and pull the wire completely out of its tube. I ran some Teflon lubricant down the tube, put the wire back in, and now it is pretty smooth. It’s a little weird since I’ve never actually had a car with a manual choke before so I’ve never had to deal with that.
The other brake line finally arrived making my next task to get the right front brake back together and hit it with the pressure bleeder.
The brakes are still not right, so something will need to happen with that still. I’m going to bleed them again once I have the car up on the lift. If that still doesn’t get it done, I may just have to get a new master, which should be doable before it’s time to load up.
I installed the side post battery adapter plugs and hooked up the battery. While Greg held the fire extinguisher, I jumped in, pulled the choke open, and twisted the key. It took it a minute, but it roared to life, no ether required! It was definitely missing on one cylinder, but it was running. And smoking a ton. I can’t tell where it’s coming from and if it’s just burning off at this point, but it does look like the exhaust on the left side isn’t fully tight. And we know that the left turbo seals are a bit leaky.
The Walmart special “Fullway” tires were mounted earlier in the day, so my daughter and I got three of those bolted up – we couldn’t really get to the right rear, so I figured with three tires it would be enough to pull it away from the wall in order to change the fourth. But it was mostly on its own wheels now and at basically the right height. I started it up again put it in gear, and the clutch worked! It slowly crept out of its storage spot and I was able to pull it away from the wall enough to put the fourth tire on. Interestingly, that wheel is only a 6″ wide wheel, as opposed to the 6.5″ E wheels on the other corners. I don’t remember if that was originally the spare or if the car had that to begin with. Regardless, I put it back in the spare carrier even though it’s flat and coming apart.
It’s a little tight in the shop partially because the Maserati was something of a shelf while it was sitting there, but I was able to move it away from the wall enough so that it can be worked on a little more comfortably. Once I have the whole issue with the missing cylinder figured out, it’ll go on the lift.
While the car was running, I started pulling spark plug wires to find the dead cylinder. Pots number 6, 5, and 4 all caused the car to stumble and nearly die when the plug wires were removed, so those cylinders were not my problem. When I pulled the #1 plug wire, however, there was absolutely no change in how the car ran. I tried a different plug wire and the #1 cylinder was still dead. All the plugs were a little blackened, so I hit the #1 with a little sandpaper to clean it up, but that also had no effect. Finally, I switched the #1 and #5 plugs and now it was cylinder 5 that had the miss. I’ve got a full set of plugs on order from Rock Auto and in the meantime, I’ll go buy a single plug from the FLAPS to verify that the new plugs will fix the problem.
Running out of time to get things wrapped up. Here’s what’s left to do:
