A spot of engine trouble

[SIVAllan]

On the way home, Airpine developed a spot of engine trouble and was mostly coasted to a gasoline station adjoining the interstate highway, early Sunday morning.

Mike & Steve, behind me in the Georgia caravan, saw my lights exiting the road and stopped to help, and stayed as long as it took to find a solution.

We all talked by cell, and agreed that Bob and Tom should continue, and kept in contact thereafter.

A tow arrangement was investigated, then the first carb was found to be the culprit, having fouled the first two Two cylinders

After a tricky start, the day turned out to be a great one for open road driving.

Thanks to Mike & Steve, but all to our whole caravan, for keeping an eye out, and for an interesting ~1,000 mile caravan, round trip.

 

[Green67Alpine]

Alan, Glad to hear that it all worked out. With the trouble you've had with those carbs you might want to join the Nick O'Dell mantra.. Weber, weber...

Tom j

 

[SIVAllan]

Tom,

The "Weber mantra" rings loudly in my ears .

I do want to give the Zeniths another tweak however for a couple of reasons.

Driving to Tipp City, I felt the Zeniths did quite well vs the Weber on Bob's car, and the Stroms on Steve's car.

That's entirely subjective of course, but I felt the car had strong acceleration, particularly for an engine that had been cobbled together in the back yard, with bearings and rings of unknown freshness.

I also liked the sound of the Zeniths. They are quiet, and don't make the whoosh noise I've heard with some of the Webers and Stroms, when the 'pedal goes to the metal.'

I've talked to the carby guys and they are happy to take a look, so we'll see how that goes this week.

From comments by Steve and Mike, and from my inexperienced evaluation, the rear carb is good to go.

The front carb apparently is set way to rich. Maybe the float is too high, maybe who knows.

Fouling out the first two cylinders every 500 miles is not normal, and dumping fuel and shooting flame from the exhaust is not normal, nor is 18 mpg on the highway.

During the 'pit stop' in Cincinnati we ran a jug of Marvel Mystery Oil through the engine, and maybe that helped at least the mpg went up to ~ 20 mpg, but the plug fouling of #1 and #2 continued.

I grow a little impatient with these carbs but feel (could be a delusion ) that if set right they are a top performer.

I've entered a rally-type fun-or-serious race this November from Athens to the Jawja coast and need all the acceleration possible if placing is a goal.

A top might help as well since it promises to be cold in November.

One other clue that Mike observed was that the car would shoot a puff of black smoke now and again, not oil smoke, which got better, and only occurred after a while and some miles, at the point of acceleration/deceleration.

There must be a fine line that is difficult to find when setting the Zeniths right, too much one way and no performance but great mileage, too much the other way and, well, we observed the result....

Thinking positive, while the carby guys do their thing, I can start wrestling the leaf springs off the parts car to transfer over to Air-pine. Good leafs plus new shocks should bring improved handling.

But for today, hey, time to kick back and play at the dog park with my faithful retriever .

Allan