Hello all,
It's been a very very long 8 months. I just finished
my U20 rebuild and she made her first noises
yesterday, some very sweet music to my ears!
I'd like to thank Fred Katz for coming over yesterday
and giving me a hand in getting her going, you're the
Man Fred! For the last week, i've been trying to start
her but she just refused; with jumper cables to my
subaru, she would only turn over twice at the time but
never give any signs of life. I had triple checked
everything and could not find anything wrong..
We looked everything over again and it all seemed
good... at TDC, dist gear at 11:25, #1 lobes pointing
up, gas in the carbs and spark, but Fred noticed that
my dist rotor seemed too advanced so we retarded the
distributor to the max, including the breaker plate,
and with his battery charger/booster it came to life!
After a few minutes, i was getting sprayed with a fine
mist of oil, oops didn't have the breather hose hooked
up to the cam cover! OK, she ran for 5 minutes total.
Good night for me.
Strange.. must have been off by a tooth on the dist
gear, but it looked damn right in the first place.
This morning, i proceeded to retard the gear by one
tooth; the timing was way retarded, and with the dist
completely advanced, i could only get 10 degrees.
Spent the next 1 1/2 hours trying to move it back one
tooth (don't know how you do it in 15 minutes Tom!) as
the oil pump slot gear is submerged in oil and you
can't see anything!
Anyway, i eventually moved it back one tooth and it
seemed exactly where i had it yesterday ! Don't know,
it's a mystery because the timing is now OK.
I went to balance the carbs but couldn't... the rear
carb's piston didn't free fall with a nice "clunk", it
would stick at the bottom of its travel. Puzzled... i
called Scott from Ztherapy and he spent the time to
explain... in my case, the choke lever which pulls
down the nozzle was applying pressure against it,
causing it to bind with the piston needle. Ok, i spent
the next hour pulling off the carbs because that screw
is impossible to get to otherwise. Bent the lever and
it now "clunks" nicely.
Carbs back on, i got a nice smooth idle. I still need
to work on tuning those carbies. Must really be an art
form. Got the idle down to a smooth 800 rpm but
couldn't fine tune the richnest precisely. Odly, with
16 degees advance, i get some knocking when
accelarating. Backed it off to 10 degrees, will go for
a short spin tomorrow to see if it's better.
Leaks... yes, a few to mention. Coolant last week when
i first tried to start it. Had to pull the
header/carbs off to seal the water passages with some
RTV. The tranny is leaking, i just switched to
Redline... the oil is collecting at the tranny mount.
I wonder if it's oozing out of the speedo gear. It's
bad. Don't know the source for sure.
Rear main.. well, too soon to tell with so few minutes
of running time... but i see a drop collecting at the
infamous place... oh well, it comes with the roadster
i've been told...
Tomorrow, another day, another story.
Stephan
'69 2000, daily commuter to be!
__________________________________________________
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
|