[DeTomaso] It runs!

[Sean Korb]

Not as exciting as Mad Dog's or Mike's adventures,  but I got some new heads
on #1382, wires hooked to the right place (thanks guys!) fluids checked and
wrrr-wrrr-wrrrr--BANG!  Wrrr-wrrr-wrrr-BANG!  Hmph.  Distributor 180 degrees
off?  I turned it around and Sophia started right up!  After 60 glorious
seconds, I noticed a vigorous gas leak, so I shut her down and fixed the
leak.

Then she wouldn't start again.  Drat!  What could the problem be?  I had
gas, I had spark, and I had compression and timing.  I slept on that for a
bit and switched the coil out in the morning to clear my thoughts.  I pulled
all the plugs again, and sure enough, they were wet.  After drying them out
and the engine for the next hour or so, I put them back in and Sophia
started right back up again!  What a glorious noise!  I hooked a timing
light up, and it turns out I was running about 30 degrees advanced!  The
idle was pretty high too, and both dropped precipitously as I turned the
distributor down a tick or two.  It's a wonder she started either time, and
I'm not really sure how I flooded it.  First rule of software development: a
bug that appears suddenly and goes away will appear again.  Maybe the new
timing arrangement as fixed it.

I took her around the block with the rear deck still safe in the garage.
Lots of power and no white smoke.  I'll probably have to recalibrate the
carburetor unless I hurry up and get the EFI working for it.   It has
excellent part throttle response.  I took the time to inspect my ring gear,
so all is well with full throttle to safety wire when I go for a longer
shake down run.

Something I'd like to mention: Dave WIlliams prepared the heads for me some
time ago, and I only recently got around to the swap after twisting 6
pushrods pretty badly.  He took the time to drill 1/8 inch NPT holes in the
heads that I inserted radiator petcock valves.  This made bleeding the
cooling system a snap.

Now the bad news.  In my hurry, I never installed a removable cross piece
under the oil pan.  Guess what leaks anew?  Yup, my rear main seal.  Ah
well, the car *is* 37 years old.  I started to leak a bit around that age
too.

sean

-- 
Sean Korb spkorb at spkorb.org http://www.spkorb.org
'65, '68 Mustangs, '68 Cougar, '78 R100/7, '59 Austin A35, '71 Pantera #1382
"The more you drive, the less intelligent you get" --Miller
"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers." -P. Picasso