Ken G's Journal

This morning I was starting to research which water pump I need to get for my eventual replacement, Maybe just a new gasket but probably replace the pump since I'm in there doing the work.
So after reviewing the Moss site I see there are two versions of water pump, so I went out to the car to determine which one I have. Low and behold I found that the top bolt was missing on the pump. That is strange, so I looked at the photos from when I pulled the engine from the car the bolt was out before I pulled the engine. Compounding the issue when I painted the engine I didn't notice that the bolt was gone and I just painted over the empty hole.

Ok so this is now raised a bit higher on the priority of items I need to complete. Lesson learned, again something I should have done as preventive maintenance when the engine was out instead of putting it off till later.

I was able to get a bit of time this evening after work again to sneak out to the garage. I hoped to get the car running so I could test the brakes in the driveway. Not much luck.

It would turn over like a champ but no ignition. It is so weird because a week ago It would start up on the 3rd or 4th try with combustion at every crank, now nothing.
I cleaned the plugs, reset the static timing and tried starter fluid not even a cough. I need to go back to the beginning and systematically go though everything again. Not happy about that.

Also I had noticed a small amount of coolant on the ground but hadn't found a source, ending up thinking it was just excess via the overflow tube. Today I found the leak. It is on the back side of the water pump gasket behind the alternator. It runs down the engine and on to the cross member. I hadn't noticed this before and would have changed it when I had the engine out. Also it appears that coolant is a reacting with the engine paint and causing it to peel off.
Looks like another task is on the list for the winter.

This one is going to be quick, but it was nice to be able to work for a little while during the week.

The front brake lines seem to be holding, pedal is tight and I don't see any leaks so that is good.
I adjusted the hand brake and it is clamping down around 3-4 clicks so I'm happy with that.

I tried to get it to start and well she didn't want to do that tonight so I'll save that for next time.

I've decided that while the brake lines are in and seem solid they just look terrible so over the winter I'm going to buy the tube and create my own lines.

I can't seem to find the correct dimensions for the fittings but the rest seems easy enough to source.

With the car running I feel like I can start to work on the clean up items on the list, it is a long list.
This weekend my major goal was to stop the oil leak at the return line and get some semblance of brakes. This is what I ended up working on:
Saturday I added a throttle spring and was able to get the car running with that in place. Minor adjustments and it seems good for now.
I removed and reinstalled the return oil pipe with the hope to stop the gusher of oil draining out the back of the pipe. I was mostly successfully it is still dripping but not enough to make me concerned at this point.

My driver side headlight was on, but quite dim so I worked through the ground points and move a few things around and now I have bright lights at all four corner, hazards, turn and brights..
The front driver side brake line was constantly leaking so I replaced that, bled the lines and it seemed good. I then went to bled the line on the passenger side and nothing came out. The hard line was either rusted or contaminated so I replaced that line also. After bleeding both lines again they are working well.
I'm out of time for bleeding the rears so I will safe that for another day.

While I did get the brake lines installed and they are working I am soo unhappy with the way they look I've already decided I'm going to redo them this winter. They remind me of the time my daughter drew line pictures on the wall with a sharpie.

That's it for now

It has been an off and on project for the last three weeks trying to get this thing running. I felt the timing was close enough when I could get it to run briefly using the starter fluid but after cleaning the carb out and messing with it I wasn't getting anywhere.
So today I pulled the weber DVG and swapped it with the DOCE that was sitting on the shelf since I had removed it from my previous car.

Third try it started like a champ. Messed with the idle and have it running at 1100 rpm. I was able to drive it back and forth in the drive way so pretty happy.

BUT, and there is always a "but" when I'm working on a car, now I have problems to solve. The return spring for the carb and for the accelerator peddle are missing so that is a hassle. The brakes completely failed in the driveway so that is a bit of a problem, the radiator puked on the drive, the return oil line is leaking like all get out, and the temperature is pegged at high. (Even before the coolant leak).

So all in all a good day

Still working on getting this car to run. Before I pulled the engine it was running pretty decently, but now I'm having some issues getting it going.
It turns over like a champ but I don't get any ignition or coughing.
Move it to 10 degrees before TDC, verified it was the compression stroke by the pressure coming out of #1 plug and visually inspected it was up. Rotor is at 1 O' Clock
Set static timing by use of a light per John twist
Cleaned up the plugs
Spark plug order 1,3,4,2
Fuel pump runs and I see fuel going into the clear filter and hear it in the carbs. (Weber downdraft)
I turn the car over and nothing.
I used my inline spark and see a spark for each wire.

I have tried to rotating the distributor both clockwise and counter clock wise and no change.

I feel like I'm missing something very obvious but I can't sort out what it is. Pictures below showing the set up.