2 Fuel pumps.....broken, cracked rubber fuel lines....****ing air.....mouth full of gas.......Yuck!..........(don't ask) Yee Haa! Got the Corvair back on the road! Leaned allot about Corvair fuel systems over the past couple of days. What to do, and what not to do. I think I was going in circles there for a while....... How much time have you spent on a simple, misdiagnosed problem or oversight?
On 1951 HeanryJ,Three days on a oddball deal with headlights not doing switch from high to low beam,in the end turned out to be one of the two sealbeams had somehow shorted it's self inside between both high and low so both were on no matter what New bulb and fixed,but not before redoing all the wiring to head lights and a new switch too that wasn't really needed.
Rebuilt an engine, added standard hot rod stuff, it ****ed oil bad. Tore it down and put new rings in it, same. Tore it down and removed hot rod items, same. I realized the only thing not stock at this point was the new chrome valve covers. Installed the original ones, didn't burn a drop. Cheap Chinese covers with no baffle. That was a tough lesson on baffles. Yep, still married.
I did the funky chicken with headlight woes, tracked down and changed fuses, the relay and it was the freakin' dimmer switch. I had a bad tailight bulb that caused all sorts of hell, like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. But I learned something and vowed never to fall for the same thing more that 3 times in a row. Bob
Yup....its kind of my MO. Its OT, but I've been working on a Suzuki outboard engine, went absolutely nuts trying to diagnose an ignition problem. Spent hours with a multi-meter checking voltages and continuity, and couldn't for the life of me figure out why I wasn't getting spark. Then I remembered that boats have kill switches. Yep, it was the switch on the dash, 3 seconds later I had spark.
Pretty much the whole time I've been dealin With cars it's been 2 steps sideways And one to the left... Haha... The latest in my series of misadventures Is dropping off my radiator to get a flush When I go back this old decrepit ol ******* gives me his sob story of how he almost Died a few months ago, then springs on me he Had to send it off to get repaired,and recored I wish I could fix radiators... On a side note... While getting bolts today I went past the Radiator shop and it was locked up. The ol guy Better not be dying or something... There's Bound to be more to this story...
On my sons off topic car I did a rear disc brake conversion, spent around 3 weeks trying to get pressure to the rear, new master, new lines, added proportioning valve, new power bleeder STILL NO PRESSURE, then called SSBC and they said I only needed about 20psi to the rear? It was good all along chased my tail for 3 weeks! At least I know every thing is new and good.
I am an automotive technician and I pecialize in driveability problem with late model cars. I have learned over the years to sit down and think my way through the problem car. I 1st look at the symptons that it is exhibiting and from there map out where is the best place to start in diagnosing the problem. Once you find the problem,it is usually relatively easy to fix. I have had customers,that once it was explained to them what the problem was,ask why it took so long to find the problem since it was so easy to fix. LOL I have learned not to explain it in terms that they might understand as I tend to make it look easy. There have been cars where I have spent 3 days trying to figure out what is wrong with them only because I started at the wrong end of the car to start my diagnosis. Electrical problems can really be a pain in the neck to find. That is why I now sit down and go through the problem,symptons and possible solutions both in my head and on paper,sometimes I will do some preliminary checks just to get some more info before sitting down and going through the problem. I get a great deal of satisfaction in diagnosing these types of problems. There are some though that have a bad history that no one knows about and those are the ones that I just want to take a hammer to it. One car was a Katrina victim and if you have ever worked on an electrical problem due to flooding then you know what kind of a problem those can be.
got a 225 slant 6 from a friend, he said one day it just wouldn't run right, gave it to me, so i put it on my test stand and give her a go and she starts running like a stump leged eppilectic in a disco, so i shut her down and check the timing, the points, the wires, the intake the carb.... and all SHOULD BE WELL, 4 days later (and i think i got a grey hair) i pull the dist cap and turn it over and notice that some **** heal ***hole ****wad prankster has used a #2 pencil on it... mother ****er.
Rewired the entire car only to find out the ballast resistor was bad and it still didn't run. $2 part and it fired right up Engine wouldn't run right, would barely idle, and spit and pop and fall on it's face in regular driving. rebuilt the carb...3 times. nope. did a full tune up...nope, not it either. Vacuum leak, maybe. took the intake off, sealed it up twice... same problem. Maybe a bad cam. Pulled the engine, replaced all major gaskets, new cam, timing chain and lifters...get it all back together... same problem. Walk away from car in frustration. let sit in garage for a year. on a hunch, manually check TDC with a screw driver by manually turning motor over with a wrench. Balancer has spun 20 degrees retarded. manually find TDC, remark balancer with silver sharpie. Hit the key, motor roars to life. Set timing accordingly, drive for 10,000 trouble free miles since and counting
My son bought his dream car (`74 charger) when he was 14. With the little he had to spend we ended up with a hulk that had sat in a field for a few years. Tried for days to get the 318 to fire. New cap, rotor, plugs, wires. Testing spark on # 1 cyl. it showed good. Finally checked for spark on other cyls. and had nothing. Pulled the dist. and found it had a bent shaft and the only time the gap was right on the magnetic pickup vanes was cyl. #1. After some work with a hammer and dial indicator, I got the runout down from .045 to about .002 and it now starts and runs fine. It needed those tune up parts anyway.
It's the ones where there are two or more distinct but tangential issues going on at the same time that really mess with you.
spent months driving a car with a "death wobble" ....a pair of shocks took care of that one. time to fix, maybe 30 minutes with a few breaks spent a couple years driving with a slight vibration in the rear....after dealing with moser on a couple resplines (5 total- 2 on one side, 3 on the other), a new pair of strange axles fixed that one. time to fix , maybe a hour with breaks and recently with a universal joint issue. after junking a brand new u joint , i figured out the cups didn't fit quite right , i caulked it up to a odd yoke ....time to fix , about 15 minutes , after scoping it out for a hour
I'm not sure what you're looking for but I guess I'm wierd or something. I look through books, check forums (like this one), buy sevice manuals and talk to spe******ts before I venture into foreign territory. Buy that I mean the stuff that I don't do often. For instance on my OT T/A I studied the manual and joined a message board to figure the best way to diagnose whether or not I had to replace the distributor. The biggest reason for that is that nearly the entire front engine dress had to come off to do it. No shortcuts available and a good sized task. I did however chase a really dumb problem on the same car. The cruise control quit working and I never could track it down. Fuse good, switches good and mechanicals good. Guess what...if the 3rd brake light bulb burns out (there's 2) you lose the cruise control. The part of the wiring diagram in my book that showed the connection was in the fold and I'd looked at it so much it fell out of the binding...or I may have never found it. Repair-$1.00. Labor to diagnose-approx 15hrs off and on for weeks!
Two really big ones come to my mind. I built a 421 super duty to put in my 63 Catalina in 1968. I had it all together and it would not start...just fart and pop. I checked the timing a dozen times over a week end. I checked the firing order so many times that I memorized it 18436572. Its been 40 years and I still remember it. Finally after a week of thrown tools and a lot of cussing, I got a friend to look at it He brought it up on #1 and we checked the rotor ****on. Not exactly dead nuts so he said give it another bump. As soon a I looked at the rotor again I knew what the problem was...Pontiac dist.s rotate counter clock wise unlike the Chevy that I was used to. Changed the wires around and it started right up. That cost me a week at least. I fought a no turn over when hot problem for almost a year. I did all the usual things replaced the starter, built a heat shield etc. etc. Someone talked me into moving the battery ground cable from a welded lug on the frame to a bolt in the tail shaft housing and it never happened again. I did it reluctantly but it worked. It sure was nice to be able to stop for a coffee again. It usually comes down to an ***umption that is not correct. Finding that ***umption is what takes all the time. It's a piece of cake to correct it once you find it.
Had a similar deal with a Chrysler electronic ignition years ago, where the pivot for the pickup plate connected to the vacuum advance was drilled just hair off from where it was supposed to be. The upshot was that under precisely the right situation, at precisely the right engine speed, the pickup and reluctor would contact, ground and shut the car down. Even with the pickup and reluctor correctly gapped. This only happened when several external factors were involved; 1 It was hotter than hell out( Phoenix AZ hot, let's say over 105!), 2 I was dressed well to go to work or a meeting, 3 I was late for that meeting 4 It varied as to the importance of that meeting! I do believe that I pissed away about six months of time trying to figure this one out, only to call Chryslers tech line to ***** and find out they knew about a defect in some of their "Mopar performance" distributors built during that time period! Fun Fun Fun....
Please don't tell me that engine was a 292 Y-Block cause I might have the same problem here with cheap chinese covers.
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