I hate starting an engine for the first time. Though I am careful, I dwell on what I might have forgotten to do or things I might have done wrong. Nonetheless, I pulled the plugs and cranked the engine on the stater until I had oil pressure. After putting the plugs in the engine started on the second crank. As always, it belched out some oily smoke as it cleared the assembly lubricants. Soon it settled down to a reasonable idle with just a bit of stumble to it.
I spent the rest of the morning doing small tasks on the car as I let the engine idle. Eventually I found the stumble in the idle was from a damaged carb gasket and a questionable float valve. I started and stopped the engine about 4 times today as I undertook re-routing fuel lines and replacing various bits. Then the engine through me a curve.
I was sitting in front of the car securing the grille so it wouldn't rattle when the engine went from its smooth idle... to a dead stop. It would turn on the starter but refused to restart. The troubleshooting started. I had fuel, I had (good) compression, and the timing had not slipped. I removed the plugs and #4 was wet with gas while the others were dry. I cranked the engine while watching the plugs. I had spark. So I had fuel, air, compression, and timing. What the heck was wrong? Over half an hour I tinkered and tested and I found an intermittent contact on the wire from the points to the coil. This is a Lucas 45D4 distributor so its coil wiring is a bit different than I am used to. I decided to replace the factory wire with one of my own. It still didn't want to fire. The car has a Smiths RVC electronic tach. I disconnected it and the engine agreed to start. If I tapped the tach wire to the coil (-) terminal, the engine would die. This car also has a kill switch wired to coil (-)... so I pushed and prodded the wiring around the switch and the engine would start.
So I spent an hour or so asking what I had done wrong on the engine rebuild only to have it (probably) turn out to be the kill switch wiring which I likely disturbed while re-connecting the oil pressure gauge this morning.
I am done for the day. Tomorrow I will re-torque the head, re-adjust the valves, and check the ignition timing. After that I will start using the car for some local (short) errands to make sure it has no surprises waiting when I give the car back to my son.
I am content that once I got the parts back from the machine shop it did not take me long to re-assemble the engine and get it back in the car. If things had gone better with the shop my son would have this car back at college and I would be working on my other cars!
Thanks a lot for your help on this.
Doug L.
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