Friday night I got everything ready. The water pump was in a box in front of the front door, new seat next to the box, bolts for the seat, pump to head gasket, GoPro camera charged, everything I could think of. Saturday I was up bright and early and headed to the property thinking to myself ‘Today I will drive it”.
I admit, I was in a really good mood.
I got up to the property, unloaded everything and got to work. Everything was just as I left it last weekend, even the cardboard over the water pump hole.
Bolting up the pump is a pretty straight forward deal. One gasket, three bolts, make sure the belt is on it. The radiator is a little banged up, so I’ve been wondering if it has any holes in it, but I still make sure I keep the pump well away from it when I’m moving it around. No need to add any more damage. The pump went in just fine and I’m one step closer to driving it!
I’m not happy with the old radiator hoses still on it though. I have new ones, and the clamps too, so lets just get that part done and over with. 15 minutes later the new hoses were on. I even put a new brass drain on the lower hose just to be thorough.
It was time to see if the cooling system had any leaks. I filled the radiator and saw that there were a few minor issues. I had to fiddle with hose and clamp positions, change the top most clamp from the old style to a new worm clamp, but in the end it sealed up. The old beat up radiator holds water, haven’t seen a single leak yet in it. So that’s a small victory. Next up, install the choke rod to make starting easier. I have a part to change out on the carb first though.
It took me a couple looks at the carb before I figured out exactly why the choke rod install didn’t make sense. If you look at the parts in the photo above you can probably see what the problem was, a whole section of the actuator was missing. I installed the new part and everything makes a lot more sense. That one piece does a couple functions by the way, it controls the choke by pulling the choke rod and it changes the mixture by turning the choke knob.
Installed on the carb with the choke off, butterfly plate open.
In the choked position with the butterfly plate closed.
And this is connecting the choke rod to the actuator. Enlarge the picture to see how they interlock. Then the spring pushes down on the tube to keep the two parts interconnected and also helps push the choke into the ‘open’ position. It’s a slick way to make the whole thing work with very few parts.
Here is a picture of the actual choke knob in it’s stock from the factory location…… on the passenger side of the car.
So, it was time to fire it up and double check the water level after a few minutes. I put some gas and Marvel Mystery oil in the little reserve tank, pulled the choke, and hit the starter. It fire right off and I was happy. Everything seemed to be good for about 30 seconds and then I smelt raw gas. Uh oh. I looked around and saw gas coming out of the carb in a little stream, so I shut everything off and went to inspect. Dad and I had a problem with the carb float sticking last weekend, allowing too much fuel to enter the carb bowl, so I tapped the side of the carb a few times to see if I could get to to unstick. That didn’t work, so I decided to pull the bowl off and see if I could figure out what was wrong. I saw the reason as soon as I got the lower half of the carb off.
That the carb float. It’s supposed to float on a small bowl of gasoline and keep the carb from overfilling or going empty. Obviously it’s not going to float with that big rip in it and all misshapen. After seeing this, I’m surprised Dad and I got it to run so well the other weekend. Thank goodness I filmed it, it proves that they will run even with most of the parts worn out or broken.
At first I thought my weekend had come to a stop until I could order a new float. Then I remembered that I had bought four Model A engines for another project, the Pietenpole engines.
Yup, four Model A engines that I picked up just over the Nevada border for $250. I still grin when I think about that trip, I’ll have to post about it since I have some neat pictures. Turns out one of the engines has the same carb on it.
It’s in rough shape but it had a good float in it. I did a quick check in a bucket to make sure it had no leaks and would do the job. Here is a pic of the good float next to the one that came out of the ‘running’ chassis.
Bit of a difference? Yeah. I put the carb back together and hooked the fuel tank back up. I watched it for a couple minutes and the float seemed to fix the gas overflow issue.
Ok, back to running the engine for a few to see what the cooling system and rebuilt pump are going to do. I hit the starter and …
Nothing. Nada. Not even a hint of life to the starter.
Dad says I must be getting close to being drivable, otherwise it wouldn’t be fighting me so badly.