Hi guys, couple of questions for your input…
It’s been a little while since my mega-update... The latest work I’ve done on Frank the Tank is removing and repairing some rust in the radiator support that looks like it was caused by battery overflow at some stage earlier in his life... It wasn’t going to pass the next inspection and whilst it cost more than I hoped and took a while pull off the whole front clip to get it off, I’m glad it’s done. I also have to replace the upper control arm bushes too as they were rotting and would have failed the inspection… I’ve got replacements for the lower arms and strut rods, which I’ll do soon...
Last weekend I stripped and rebuilt the carb. It was quite an enjoyable task and I think I did a great job, with the help of a rebuild Holley carbs book and a few YouTube videos... While there wasn’t much that was really bad inside, the vac secondary diaphragm was looking a little worse for wear (as Brian suggested) and was actually the incorrect part... It was a little shorter than the one I bought based on the spec sheets from Holley. I have to say the rebuild pepped the car up a bit and I’m sure it wasn’t just me being hopeful after the cost and time I put into it…
Now the first question is... Three different tuners have had a fiddle with my car and all set it up pretty similar... the last two on a dyno got similar results… None of them impressed me with their approach or effort… Not one was interested in the advance curve... None asked more when I said I had some springs and stop bushings in hand for any changes… All three said they set my timing for me... The most recent was yesterday... He said he put in slightly bigger jets in the primary and set my total advance to 36... Other than that everything else was “all good”… He didn’t want me to stick around and there was no print out... My concern is that with the distributor setup as it is (or was when he looked at it), the instructions that came with it (It’s a Powerfire 30000, if you look it up, its fairly uncommon and I am thinking might fit in the “should have bought a more common brand” category..)
https://static.summitracing.com/global/images/instructions/powerfire instructions.pdf
state that the springs and mech advance stop should only allow 21 degrees max of mech advance and it should be all in about 2800-3000… I put my timing light on it when I get home just to see what he had done. The initial timing (vac disconnected) was about 9 or 10…. So… in theory, the total should be at best 30-31… (tell me if I’m wrong here...) I got about 27-28... which is not 36… Anyway, pulled the distributor last night and tried the other stop bushings… Thinking I’ll fix this, and I put in the stop bushing that should allow 25 mech advance… I still got total of 28… I put in a lighter spring... 28... I put in another bushing that allows 28… still got 28.. So, now I’m questioning my timing light… Either the distributor is playing up and the mechanical advance is not working right, or my timing light (an Innova digital model with advance on the back) is not working right… When I reattached the vac advance it went up into the 40s... and it showed the correct changes when I advanced the initial a degree or two... So, I feel like the timing light might be ok..? Anyway the key point is that none of the professional tuners asked about nor checked, nor adjusted the distributor curve... And if they had set the total to 36 or thereabouts, then the initial should have been up to 15 (if the bushing allowed only 21)… and even then based on my timing light, the distributor won’t mech advance to 36 from an initial of 10-11… So, my plan is to borrow working timing lights and distributors to substitute for mine to get a handle on what’s what…
Any other thoughts on timing light issues, anything I’m missing and mech advance issues….?
Second question... While I was running the engine up through the rev range in the garage last night, I noticed a small (size of a coin) puddle of coolant on the ground dripping off the oil pan and next to it a small puddle of a similar size of oil…. Damnit!! So, it’s a leak that only happens when the car is running and up in rpm... because neither puddle was noticed in the garage floor before… (doesn’t leak when sitting) But, I have noticed a small amount of coolant loss and also a similar amount of oil loss (which I had attributed to being burnt, due to my maybe misdiagnosed fouled plugs..) the coolant has been leaking for a while because the paint has bubbled and peeled off the oil pan in one spot, which I thought was just crappy paint, but seems to be coolant damaging it..
What are the likely culprits for dripping coolant and oil (maybe unrelated) at the back of the engine…? Of course I’ll have to get the car up on stands and get someone to give it some rpms while I watch... but, freeze plug? Intake gaskets? What else? What are the easiest and least invasive repair options..?
Bonus.. third question… the starter has just started (a few days ago) intermittent grinding at start up… Is it possible that the coolant has caused some issue in the solenoid or stopping it from retracting..? Or, is a grinding for half a second after starting usually an indication that it needs a shim? The flex plate looks all in good order, I checked clearance between flex plate and starter shaft and it’s about .2 of an inch..? My next step is to pull the starter and give it a clean and grease and reinstall trying to bolt it on with as smaller gap as possible...? Any thoughts..?
