> I peeked
> under the hood and an expression of horror crossed my face - just what the
> heck was that? It looked British, yet IT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS ON LIFE
> SUPPORT!! So many tubes and hoses! It was like a lone ship in a sea of
> serpents! So this is what a Californian spit looks like?!??
I'm no authority on Spits, but that looks entirely normal to me for a late
70's US car, even Federal spec. As horrid as it looks, there a certain
method in the madness, it's all "Well, we had this problem so we added this
device to patch it up. That caused another problem, so there's a hose over
here to patch that one up. Then that caused another problem so ..."
The gizmo under the alternator is a "smog pump", it's job is to add air to
the exhaust so any leftover HC can burn, and so the catalytic converter will
have some oxygen to combine with the CO. I see a water-heated choke, that's
to be sure the choke responds to actual engine temperature otherwise it
might go too rich on warm starts. There's probably also a water tube to
heat the intake manifold, to improve fuel vaporization in cool weather. I'm
guessing the 'lunar module' in the middle of the intake manifold is the EGR
valve, it's job is to add inert exhaust gas back to the intake mixture to
limit combustion chamber temperatures and thereby reduce oxides of nitrogen
formed. Can't tell for sure what the thing under the battery cable is, it's
either the gulp valve to prevent the mixture going rich on overrun, or a
control valve for the air injection. Many of the hoses will be just for
crankcase, fuel tank and float bowl vents. The fuel vapors all have to be
routed to the carbon canister, which is at the right front, and then it gets
manifold vacuum to suck the vapors back out of the carbon, plus a control
line from the carb so it only does that under cruise conditions. However I
can't explain why the crankcase vent appears to be connected to the carbon
canister, might be something wrong there.
So tell us, how did you happen to buy a car without ever lifting the hood
until you got it home ?
<g>
Randall
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