Scott Paisley asks, "Any of you had an experience like
this?"
Well now funny you should ask. I recently drove my TR6 home
from a friends garage (sans windscreen). I am nearing
completion on a SMALL little project I started in November
of '90. I've been meaning to write up that story to post to
the net, but let me quickly hit a couple of my more exciting
moments this fall as I tried to get it drivable.
A couple of years ago I found a "fresh" motor in the parts
column of the Sunday paper. Completely rebuilt for $550. I
went and looked at it, near as I could tell it looked like
it had been done properly (as well as you could tell from
looking at the outside). It had a little fresh gasket sealer
coming out of all the right places, everything was clean,
freshly painted block. It was almost complete (the rocker
assembly hadn't been all put back yet). The "story" was that
while the engine was at the machine shop, the garage housing
the car burnt down, and now he was moving to California and
didn't want to haul a 600 pound boat anchor with him. I
bought the engine, but I could talk him down any lower than
$500, so I hedged my bet a little and got him to throw in
all his other spare bits that didn't happen to be at the
garage when it burnt. I got a new starter, alternator, set
of carbs, new air filters, tune up stuff, a set of wires, a
coil, and a new set of seat belts. So I've had this engine
sitting around waiting for me to get enough ambition to
stick it in. Every so often I put some oil down the spark
plug holes. And every so often this nagging anxiety will
arise "did I get taken or did I get a deal". So this last
summer after taking out my engine to properly get into the
firewall and replace the battery box. It was time to put in
the "fresh" engine. (I know you all are thinking "Ah, he is
finally getting to a relative point"). After getting it all
bolted back in and getting most of the extra stuff also
reinstalled (like completing the rocker assembly, starter,
water pump, carbs, exhaust, etc, etc) it was time to hook up
the oil gauge, get a drill and spin the oil pump through the
distributor shaft hole. We fire up the drill and after 3-4
minutes we are REALLY beginning to wonder why the gauge
hasn't moved AT ALL. This whole time I'm sweating bullets,
because my very limited LBC budget can't afford a $500
gambling loss. We examine the connection with the oil pump
it is indeed spinning, we remove the rocker to see if any
oil is circulating, no it is not! The little voice in the
back of my head was getting louder and louder. Luckily we
woke up and figured out the we needed to reverse the drill.
It climbed right up to about 50 pounds, seemed a little low
to me but then it was only and electric drill so the rpms of
the pump were probably pretty low.
One other relavent "smooth move" came when we started it for
the first time. One of the other times I had done some
thing on the cooling system I had learned for some reason
that the water really needed to be added while the car was
running (although I could for the life of me remember why).
So I dutifully filled the water while my friend ran the
carbs and keep the engine about 3000 rpm. After about ten
minutes I noticed that the temp was going a little high.
Well my mind really began racing, was it because the bonnet
was off and the air wasn't circulating properly through the
radiator? How high should I let it go before I conclude
that that isn't the problem? ARGH! We kill the engine, we
try to get the rad cap off garcefully, nothin' doin' the
thing is like a mad demon possessed, spuing forth and
filling the garage with steam. As we let things cool off and
started cleaning up the horrible mess, I remembered why you
fill it with the car running, which really wasn't some much
filling it with it running but re-checking the water after
the car was running so that you can retop it off after the
thermastat opens! Funny how you mind can twist little
details around like that.
Well the engine seems to be fine I think I bought what was
represented, it still has less than an hour of time on it
(but the oil presure is good.). So my three year nagging
anxiety has been put to bed. Now I just need money for a
new windshield.
So Scott, art follows life, and rust never sleeps.
greg_meythaler@ccm.hf.intel.com
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