Well there's good day's and there's really really not so good days and this one has been one of the latter.
Yesterday was engine run day so off to the petrol station a couple of times and 10 litres of unleaded went in the tank, battery was fully charged and ready to start. Nothing not even a click so out with the meter, checked the battery, fuses, starter motor control wire; all good, so it was out with the starter motor. I had no jump leads so I called my brother in law who came round and we put a test on the starter and zero, so a few taps and nothing so I gave it up for the days and sprayed the starter with WD40 stood it on its end and let it soak in over night. This morning no problem a couple of taps and it spun out on first test so back in it went.
I decided to get the heater parts out of the way while I waited for my brother in law to come round.
The heater had new window draft sealer stuck on before sliding into its box.
So the starter was fitted, the battery fully charged, (again) the water level in the radiator checked (still full) and ready to go.
This time the starter motor turned the engine over lovely but no firing, so the fuel pipe was removed and the fuel sucked through but no firing. We even sprayed fuel into the carb and tried but nothing, we decided that because this carb has a return pipe then there is no need for the pressure valve in the system so a re-route of the fuel pipework and the supply went straight to the pump and the return directly to the fuel return pipe and tried again and all we got was backfiring from the carb.
At this point I decided that there was something a bit more involved than my basic knowledge of car engines could manage so I called it a day.
I took a drive to a local garage where I know the owner and arranged for the car to be delivered there next time home for him to sort, but I could not leave it there and needed another look.
First check was to ensure I had the distributor at #1 TDC and not 180 degrees out, then that the firing order of the cap and lead was correct, all Ok then I took the cap off and checked the radiator, empty!!
I guess this is a long way of saying that the engine is shagged, I removed all of the spark plugs and water poured out of units 5 & 6 I then turned the engine over by hand and more poured out.
So what is the problem.
I am going to have to strip the heads again and first check if the gasket is damaged, that may account for it and hopefully this is all it is, if not the gasket then the head has either been damaged during the cutting out the material for the unleaded conversion which is a known problem or there is a crack elsewhere. When I had the heads done I asked about the dangers of the unleaded conversion and was told it was at my own risk but they do it often and haven't had a problem for years. So a pressure test is required on both heads as the water did not drain until the engine was turned and pressure was put on it.
So what to do.
First I have drained the engine and turned it over by hand to get out as much water as possible, the exhaust is removed and the head bolts removed, unfortunately no matter how we tried the gasket seal would not break to allow the rest of the water out so I have filled the pistons with as much oil as I can squeeze in and kept turning by hand. I have checked the dip stick and the oil level is normal, if there was water in the oil then the oil level would have risen, I shall bring home some water finding paste which turns pink in the presence of water but hopefully none has gotten past the scrapper rings and into the sump.
This really could not have happened at a worse time as I have to leave for work a day early and set out at 1030 tomorrow so my main concern is rusting inside so before I leave I shall try and get some more oil in the pistons.
This could prove to be very expensive so fingers crossed I have just made a mistake on the head gasket, but a full strip down when I get home hopefully without the engine coming out again.
Till then
see ya Paul
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