f'n happy

Well, today turned out to be not so bad after all..

Lets start at the very beginning. Saturday my father and I worked just about all day to get the motor in the '66 ready to fire. Took care of mostly the small stuff, hooking up essential gauges, installing the rocker shims, lifters, push rods, intake manifold, valve covers and piddly shit like that. Sunday we left to finish up the last of the wiring. 'Round 'bout 2:00 we got ready to fire the motor off, turn the ignition on, and flip the starter switch....nothing. Damn. No idea what the problem is, but we need to get the motor fired off to check it, so we'll just jump the solenoid. The motor isn't wanting to start...timing is just too far out. Tweaking and turning, the motor just isn't wanting to kick off. By now the battery has no juice. Time to put it on the charger.

Fast forward to about 7:00 pm, the battery is nice and charged, so we try again. Nope. adjust timing and try again; she almost was there. Tweak some more, and she's there! Not running, but wanting too. Oh shit...that's not good, lots of gas pouring out of the carb. Turns out the accelerator pump diaphragm is shot. Taking a few steps back, we find that one of the screws is all but stripped. While looking for a bigger replacement, we find the oil pump driveshaft...whoops. Kinda need that... A blessing of sorts. Not wanting to keep pouring gas everywhere, we stop for the nite. A small victory, the motor is just about there and sounds sweet as hell.

Today I though would be better. It certainly started off well, getting a shipment of new rear wheels. Gotta test fit them to see if they'll work; they don't, bolt pattern is wrong. Fuckna. So I go out to get a new solenoid and diaphragm. Boy, the solenoid was a bitch to replace. We've got it tucked up under the dash, out of site, which is great when thing all work, but when they need to be serviced? Forget about it. So after much fighting and throw wrenches, I got to 'noid replaced. Switches should work, right? Wrong. Still not working. So now I've got a set of wheels that don't fit, and switched that don't switch anything. To top it off, the water pump needs to replaced as the internal seals don't seal and weeps water out of the weep hole. At this point I'm quite aggravated. I kill some zombies by playing the Dead Rising demo, that helps a bit.

Feeling quite bummed out, my dad and I try again at this damn'd motor. I tried to troubleshoot the switch problem, but everything checked out. It's got me in a cross mood for sure. Just as a though, how 'bout switching the input and ground wires on the solenoid coil? Shouldn't matter a bit...you guessed it, it does. Now the ignition and starter switches actually work! Nice. After rotating the plug wires one spot over, the timing is damn near spot on and the motor wants to run. But...the carb is still spiting more fuel onto the top of the motor then inside it. Now it looks like it's coming from the fuel bowl/body joint. Take the carb back off and diagnose it some more....what's that? No gaskets at all on the carb? Sweet. No wonder its more of a leaker then a sprayer. Should be any easy fix. Since we got the carb for 'free', can't complain too much. No telling how long it was sitting on a shelf somewhere. Looks like someone stole'd the gaskets off it. Those bastards!

Tomorrow will be better, I know it. Get a gasket kit for the carb, return the wheels and order the proper ones, remove the water pump and get a new one, and who knows, maybe by Friday I'll be able to go out, turn the ignition on, hit the start switch and the thing will crank and run. I'll tell you this though, what little I have heard from the motor? It's a beast. Makes me feel good too, as this was my first solo complete engine build. It's my baby, and baby screams like a banshee. Run baby run!