OK - Fuel line still a problem - but clear to see

A few more miles today, mainly to get the engine get warmed up again to give the head gasket a re-torque. But had a couple of errands to run at the same time, so made it a useful journey. Confidence growing in the Electronic ignition, and why not really? If it's working its working.

BUT on the way home suffered a breakdown again. It wasn't the electrics!!!! Although disappointing, the great thing is that now I CAN SEE the problem. The run of clear flexible fuel line showed it was mostly air in the line. When pumping through manually you could see the fuel trying to come through but not managing to keep up.

Blowing back up the fuel line is also easier, and after I did that you could see a "cloud" of dark stuff come back up with the fuel when re-priming manually.

So good news is that it was relatively easy to get going again and CLEAR cause. Bad news is that I am still suffering from intermittent fuel blockage.

Clearly the source of the crud is the tank and I am down to a third full tank and I said I would keep her full. But the run of copper pipe is convoluted and up and down with some sharpish bends, so I will still try the full run of clear line from front to back before I resign myself to needing the tank off. Just in case it is mostly the fuel line getting the occasional block and not from the tank itself. (petrol always seems to flow freely from the outlet... )

I have to laugh when I look back at the day I thought my problem was the spark plugs being loose!! Oh such naive optimism!

Most tentative 2 miles!! - Electronic Ignition in. After over 2 1/2 years!!

Finally, Amy is powered by electronic ignition!! (Originally planned this upgrade in Jan 2014!!)

Took the plunge this morning. It was made rather more complicated by the fact that rotor arm was mounted 180 degrees opposite to the original and the distributor cap is also at 90 degrees to it.

Bottom line was that I had to ignore the instructions to a certain extent and add my own thought process to the HT leads order etc... Only really had to be careful to get no 1 right and then follow the firing order, but nevertheless it hurt my brain at 9.00 this morning!

But after huffing and puffing, it's in and running. Warming up the engine was scary cos it invloved a lot of backfiring to start with, until it was warm then I could take off the choke, do some finer adjustment and then finally around the block. Runs very nicely, although it;s not this magic eureka moment.  But certain aspects are smoother.

I think I'll ask for some help in getting it finer tuned this time from some friends in the club.

There is still hesitation on cruising just like she has pretty much always had. With such a major change of ignition system then it has GOT to be in relation to fuel/carb/mixture or something.

But all good so far!!!

Did another 8 or so miles later on, took a picture, on an  old road near town, whilst meeting up with the family and walking the dog.

Apart from the modern vehicles, it kinda looks old-school as my phone is refusing to focus!! So gave the colouring a bit of a retro feel.






Hopefully can get back to normal now. Will be measuring the miles since these repairs and 20 done so far !! And next milestone is that 40,000 is 500 miles away!

Will refurbish the old distrubutior anyway, I have all the parts to make it good as new. Then I'll carry all of that around with me as my "repair" option!!

First 10 miles!!

This is back to the old days with this blog!! Except no mention of thermostats.

Discovered also that the Distributor was LOOSE, able to move relatively easily. Perhaps it got shoved around when the RAC guy was working on things or when I was doing the head gasket. But it wont help things either and needed to re-set it. Did that visually from old photos. Got her running relatively well and did a drive, gotta start somewhere. Some hesitations depending on speed, but other than that, seems fine.

Haven't replaced any components yet, beyond the condenser that was fitted by the RAC guy.

That's next. Probably take the distributor out to do that and give it a clean up at the same time. Buy wont try to fiddle with the finer timing adjustment until then, no point (!) I don't think.

Pondering the electronic ignition again...! That's only be nearly 3 years after buying it!

Onwards and updwards!

Fuel issues possibly identified and fixed

Fuel starvation was definitely one of my issues, wasn't sure the exact cause, but am reluctant to take the tank out when it may not  be needed. I spotted two things that could have contributed (and explained why I could almost always clear it) The metal braided flexible hose that connected the fuel line to the fuel pump was perished inside and sucking air. Didn't notice before. Also the flexible hose at the rear end that I replaced around a year ago I guess had shrink slightly and had worked itself a little loose and was leaking (so could also suck air)

Originally I was concerned that the fuel line was blocked somehow and I was going to replace the copper line with a straight run of clear reinforced hose, but to start with I am just going to see how things go with this setup:

Shock horror to the purists, I have done away with the braided hose with the Banjo union completely and just connected direct. Surely I'm not the only one to have ever done that bodge??!!

So she's running fine again now, but the ignition system yet to be overhauled. New points, coil, condensor, rotor arm, dizzy cap arrived from the owners club, so bit by bit....!!

Head gasket 4 done. Reset the Clock!

Refitted the head gasket after work. Making use of the long evenings like I used to the last time I had something major to do.

Started around 5.00pm, All done and drove around the block at about 7.30pm.

About an hour prep, checking the head and cleaning up. All looking fine on that front.

Then about an hour actuallt fitting the head, connecting up hoses etc..

The Hylomar red didnt hurt last time so used it again!

Then 30 minutes torquing, warming up the engine and re-torquing.

Still got other issues to look at, but a basic functioning engine helps!!

And to round off the day - Head Gasket 4!!

Well, at the time of doing the last head gasket, I didnt expect it to last and it was a bog standard one, so to cap off all my niggles, I confirmed that the head gasket has also gone.

Some of the misbehaving I hadn't mentioned on the journey home was some rough running, and a bit noisy. (over and above actually breaking down there was also poorer than normal acceleration and a background noise that I couldn't put my finger on at the time)

For some reason it was nagging at me so I checked compression. 2 & 3 ZERO compression. Head Gasket failure strikes again!!!

Took me about an hour to tear down the top end. Bit of clean up and refit with the reinforced head gasket that I have had laying around waiting to be used for nearly 2 and a half years.. so wont complain too much. Roughly 3,500 miles since the last one and combination of other issues plus really hot weather just got too much I guess.

So -

1. Head gasket is easy, will probably have that done during the evenings this week
2. Some electrical spares needed, no problem. 
3. Still seems like I have poor fuel flow  to fix
   (may mean removing the fuel tank)

Littlewick Green Show 2016 - Not all Roses

Well... We were all ready to go and set off with show pass in place.

Usual light buff to make her as shiny as possible and set off at 9.00am so as to arrive on time.

Hmpfff... well so much for the having fixed the problem.

Half way to the above mentioned show Amy coasted to another gentle stop and refused to start agan.

No visible spark, DEFINATELY!!.

So we sat by the side of the road for an hour, teasingly facing the way we wanted to go, but unable to do so.

Maybe I did have multiple intermittent electrical problems as well as fuel problems.  As of typing this entry, the breakdown man was coming waiting to see what he could do

RAC was man fab. Short story is that he spent 3 hours fixing Amy and I was able to progress. Points were iffy - he did a job on them to clean them up. (I should have done that) Still nothing, changed coil back for old one, still nothing. Changed condensor - she fired. Re-fitted the new coil, nothing. Put the old coil back on she ran!! Hurrah. So the theory is that the condenosr was breaking down, which was knackering the points and causing my coil to fail. The new coil masked that for a while but then gave up the ghost. The points being bad would probably not have caused a breakdown on their own, but put the whole sorry mess together and well.. That;s where we are at. I now have a shopping list. New coil (again), new spare condensor and two new sets of points. One to replace the old ones, one spare.

Anyway set off again for the show, stopped half way in Waltham St Lawrence for a nice picture.


Finally got to Littlewick Green Show 4 hours later that intended!!

Some show shots, including, WOW another Somerset Coupe. They are pretty rare and I know one guy with one, well now I know another!!

Finally, I NEARLY bought one of these. Happy with the Somerset, I am sure I would have been equally so if I had got a Cambrige. This was the same year as my Somerset, so one of the first Cambridges.







Postscript: Broke down AGAIN on way home, back to a FUEL issue, fuel line blocked AGAIN, cleared it AGAIN, got home. But all in all a slightly frustrating day, albeit, nice to get a show under our belt!! Work still to be done.