MarkStang's first fire-up of his Mustang is prompting this very delayed posting.
After five years of restoring Midlife, it was time to fire up the engine. I had a friend come over to man the fire extinguisher, and he brought a video camera as well. Radiator was topped off, I had marked the TDC position and placed the distributer in the approximately right position, and everything was good to go. We pushed the car out of the garage, and I turned the key with the coil wire off to prime the oil. I had turned over the engine every month by hand after putting in an ounce or so of motor oil in each cylinder, and it turned over fine by hand. I couldn't get the oil gauge to show after a few minutes of cranking, so I decided enough was enough. We put the coil wire on, and fired it up...not. No fuel. Damn! With new fuel lines and a good 5 gallons of fuel, the cranking simply wasn't enough to put fuel in the carb bowls. So...off with the carb top and we carefully poured some gas into the carb, and put the top of the carb back on. Funny thing, though, it was hard to get the carb top off with the choke linkage attached.
Turn the key....Vroooom...clatter...clatter...clatter. High idle fine, but I could hear one lifter sticking. We decided to wait a minute and see of the lifter noise would settle down: it did. Great! Time to time the car! Got the timing light out, and rotated the dizzy, but rotating the dizzy to advance the timing showed the timing retarding. WTF? I set the timing by ear and decided to take it out for its inaugural spin around the block! Woohee!
As I slowly went down the driveway, I heard a muffled BOOM, and the engine sounded funny, but was still running. I turned out onto the street, and gently put the foot on the pedal. Hardly any response whatsoever. In fact, the car had almost no power. We carefully drove around the block in 1st and 2nd gear and went back into the garage. Man...what a disappointing run! I felt sick...must not have the timing correct at all! My friend went home as I wondered what was going on.
I found out later that my harmonic damper that I had sent out for refurbishment had the timing ring put on backwards. This explained the weird timing by rotating the dizzy. And the muffled Boom? It turned out that a plastic piece from the choke linkage broke and went down the carb venturi and that caused a backfire, completely burning up the plastic piece. I had to completely overhaul the carb, praying that the plastic piece didn't make it into the intake and engine.
After getting the damper back and installed and with a freshly rebuilt carb, I fired up the car, set the timing by myself, and went for a spin. Yeehaw: it responded correctly and with power. And after that short run, the springs settled back down to where they should be, and I could then go on to correct a bunch of minor things.
To this day, I've not posted the first fire-up of Midlife after restoration, but it was so embarrassing. Everyone says the first fire is always exciting, but not this time. After 3 years, I can now share the embarrassment.
And for those of you wondering where that video film is...I've never seen it. I think my friend was also disappointed and decided it wasn't worth any blackmail potential.
After five years of restoring Midlife, it was time to fire up the engine. I had a friend come over to man the fire extinguisher, and he brought a video camera as well. Radiator was topped off, I had marked the TDC position and placed the distributer in the approximately right position, and everything was good to go. We pushed the car out of the garage, and I turned the key with the coil wire off to prime the oil. I had turned over the engine every month by hand after putting in an ounce or so of motor oil in each cylinder, and it turned over fine by hand. I couldn't get the oil gauge to show after a few minutes of cranking, so I decided enough was enough. We put the coil wire on, and fired it up...not. No fuel. Damn! With new fuel lines and a good 5 gallons of fuel, the cranking simply wasn't enough to put fuel in the carb bowls. So...off with the carb top and we carefully poured some gas into the carb, and put the top of the carb back on. Funny thing, though, it was hard to get the carb top off with the choke linkage attached.
Turn the key....Vroooom...clatter...clatter...clatter. High idle fine, but I could hear one lifter sticking. We decided to wait a minute and see of the lifter noise would settle down: it did. Great! Time to time the car! Got the timing light out, and rotated the dizzy, but rotating the dizzy to advance the timing showed the timing retarding. WTF? I set the timing by ear and decided to take it out for its inaugural spin around the block! Woohee!
As I slowly went down the driveway, I heard a muffled BOOM, and the engine sounded funny, but was still running. I turned out onto the street, and gently put the foot on the pedal. Hardly any response whatsoever. In fact, the car had almost no power. We carefully drove around the block in 1st and 2nd gear and went back into the garage. Man...what a disappointing run! I felt sick...must not have the timing correct at all! My friend went home as I wondered what was going on.
I found out later that my harmonic damper that I had sent out for refurbishment had the timing ring put on backwards. This explained the weird timing by rotating the dizzy. And the muffled Boom? It turned out that a plastic piece from the choke linkage broke and went down the carb venturi and that caused a backfire, completely burning up the plastic piece. I had to completely overhaul the carb, praying that the plastic piece didn't make it into the intake and engine.
After getting the damper back and installed and with a freshly rebuilt carb, I fired up the car, set the timing by myself, and went for a spin. Yeehaw: it responded correctly and with power. And after that short run, the springs settled back down to where they should be, and I could then go on to correct a bunch of minor things.
To this day, I've not posted the first fire-up of Midlife after restoration, but it was so embarrassing. Everyone says the first fire is always exciting, but not this time. After 3 years, I can now share the embarrassment.
And for those of you wondering where that video film is...I've never seen it. I think my friend was also disappointed and decided it wasn't worth any blackmail potential.
bj