Time to work on some more of the bugs. The exhaust leaks were two problems. One, some idiot didn't install the number three exhaust gasket right. It was on one stud but not the other. Guess I'll have to fire the mechanic. Wait a minute ... that's me! The second leak was where the Y pipe met the header pipes. The muffler shop just tack welded the pipe on, so it was blowing out around the seal. I fabricated a wrap out of some sheet metal and hose clamped it all into place. One bug down.
The front end didn't feel right on my trip around the block. A quick check with the tape measure determined that I had two inches of toe in. That's A LOT! That means the front tires were pointing in at each other rather badly. I re-adjusted the toe with the help of son #1. Rolls real nice now. Swatted that bug.
There was a scraping noise coming out of the right rear. That is the side I had the trouble with the axle. Upon inspection I found that the axle that we had cut down to fit had the wrong offset. This was causing the drum to rub against the backing plate. I reached down under the workbench and pulled out another axle, made sure the bearing was good, cleaned it up, painted it and installed it. Out you bugs, out!
The shifter was giving me problems again. I could get all the gears, but when I shifted into second or forth, the shifter wouldn't stop at the stop. I could feel that it was into gear, but the shift lever could still be pulled down, way down past the stop. Joe Nepsa came by with some spare parts. We took out the remote shifter again and started doing some inspecting and comparing. We found that the plastic ball that the shift rod rotates around on had self destructed. Joe pulled out a spare. He said he had tried this spare out that morning in a spare trans and it worked fine. Just as he is telling me this, the ball crumbles in his hand! No lie! Luckily, he had another that appeared to be ready to last at least until we installed it. It lasted. It works nice. Now we can re-install the console that we had to take back out to get at the remote shifter. Out you bugs, out!
Another bug surfaced while I was trying to get the carbs in sync. The car would start up and run for about 30 seconds and then die. Just shut off dead. No sputter or nothing, so I knew it was electrical. Lucas, the Prince of Darkness, was at work. I had a completely new wiring harness. Pretty new plug wires (pretty new, as in they are new and they look pretty, as opposed to just being pretty new), a new coil (yes, it was pretty also!) and a new breakerless ignition that I had purchased from JAE. The breakerless ignition is pretty cool in that there is no extra external box or wiring. The little module replaces the points and two wires come out of the distributor and hook up to the coil and that's that. So anyway, I first tried replacing the coil. That didn't help. Then I pulled the distributor and put the points back in, that didn't help either. I scrutinized the wiring diagram and after a couple of thinking suds, I took some jumper wire and bypassed the ignition switch. My sons were curious. "What are you doing?" they asked. "Hot wiring the car" I responded. COOL! Daddy's hot wiring a car! In the movies, the thieves always manage to hot wire cars without any tools or any wires! I had to run a 10 foot jumper wire straight from the battery in the trunk to the coil. Hit the key and it started up and just kept on running. The contacts in the old ignition switch must be worn or corroded. I found a spare, (It's nice to be working out of two piles of junk instead of just one) hooked it up and things are better now, thank you. It still dies upon initial start up sometimes, but if I jiggle the key, it stays running. I cleaned it out with brake cleaner and it still needed a jiggle once in a while. Pulled out the Dave Bean bible
and ordered a new switch. I consider this bug under control.
In one of my many trips around the block, I stopped at my neighbor Paul's to show off a running Tina. Rich Cwik was over. Since he is the Weber expert (carburetors, not grills) he started playing with the carbs. He fiddled with them for a while and it still wasn't idling right. I sent son number one back to the garage to fetch the sync gauge. Rich thought that maybe one of the o-rings was leaking so we decided to play with that at a later date.
Paul got a voltmeter out and put it across the battery to see if the generator was charging. It was a digital meter, so it was doing a lot of blinking and flashing of numbers. Rich played around with the settings and finally found that the generator was putting out 192 volts AC! It's supposed to be about 14-15 volts DC. (Sorry, I can't come up with any AC/DC jokes). Upon return to the garage I replaced the voltage regulator with another one, still no good. Must be a bad generator. Put that back on the list of bugs to go after later.
Joe came over and we spent a couple of hours adjusting the hood. The old English Ford tolerances, coupled with the new fenders welded in place by me, coupled with the multi-adjustable hood hinges made for a lengthy evening. Eventually however, we got it pretty nice. Not quite Mercedes tolerances on the gaps here. As my neighbor Paul puts it, instead of being able to gently roll a marble down the gap between the hood and the fender, you CAN roll a bowling ball!
One of the carbs wasn't working quite right. I synced up the two carbs, but the left throat on the left carb wouldn't draw any air at idle. It sure made the car idle rough. I pulled the carb off and replaced the o-rings, but it still did it. I swapped idle jets, no help. Oh well, have to pull that carb off and see what microscopic hole is plugged up. But you know what? That can wait. This baby is drivable! Lets go for a ride!
Wife was going out to a girlfriend's Birthday party, so I grabbed the boys and said let's go. First stop was the gas station. Just a little over ten gallons topped off the tank and then it was over the river and through the woods. My normal Elan driving route. A funny thing happened on the way to 6000 RPM. The generator started working! As I made a left turn into the woods, I stomped on the gas and brought the revs's up a little. Not a lot yet. The car only has 2 miles of round the block driving on it, so we need to take it easy. But as I was passing under the viaduct winding third a little I glanced at the gauges and noticed the Ammeter gauge needle was way over on the positive side. Cool! Maybe the generator got excited at the high speed and woke up the voltage regulator and now the charging system works. Another bug gone.
Even though there are still a lot of bugs, overall the car is great. It tracks straight. Rides nice. Engine pulls like a freight train. No rattles. Exhaust is now fairly quiet unless you stomp on the gas. Interior is comfortable. Overall it's a pretty cool old car. I'm pretty happy. (smile!)
We cruised through the forest, past Oakton College where the British Car Festival is held. We stopped for dinner at a Hot Dog place that holds car shows on Saturday nights. On those nights, the parking lot is packed with all sorts of shiny Detroit iron. This Wednesday night however, we had the whole lot pretty much to ourselves. As the boys glommed down their hot dogs and played the video games, I sat sipping a tall frosty one looking out and admiring Tina sitting in the lot. Sure is a pretty site. Sure feels good.
