Fall/Winter/Spring Projects for 0248k

[Craven]

Ensure your TDC is the compression stroke on #1.

[steve lyle]

12 is in the books, and it feels more and more like I'll be driving the 335i to LOG. Horrors.

First up today I checked the static timing. Craven - you were right. I must have just assumed yesterday that I had screwed it up when I retimed the cams - obviously I didn't look closely enough, because when I checked it today it was 180 degrees out. So out came the dizzy - again. This time, however, I finally acted on my disgust with the distributor clamp. The one on my car has the clamp bolt head facing to the rear - pretty much requiring two elbows on one arm to reach it, and making it hard to clamp without throwing off the distributor. Today I finally got my welder out, and MIGed the nut on the back end of the clamp, moving the clamp bolt end to the front of the engine. Now I can get to it easily with a 1/4" drive socket.

So after resetting the static timing, and going to 3 turns on the idle mixture screws (thanks, GregZ), I got the engine to fire, but couldn't keep it going.

With my now easily adjustable distributor, I dialed in a bit more advance. And got a bit more running, but mot much. I even went to 4 turns out on the mixture screws - with no dramatic improvement. I could start it, but it would die after maybe 10 seconds.

So why would an engine start - but then die? Fuel pressure too high? I pulled off the gas line to the front carb, and had MLA crank the engine a bit while I held the gas line in a container. Plenty of gas came out the line, but too much? I'm running an engine driven fuel pump - can they be problematic with Webers?

I'm really missing my Strombergs at this point, but don't think it's practical to put that head back on with the time I've got available, and everything else that needs to be done.

Tomorrow I'll put a timing light on and find out where the ignition is - it's likely 20 btdc or so, which seems ridiculous.

Is there a history of Webers being bad out of the box?

[mbell]

Is there a history of Webers being bad out of the box?

Webber are difficult to start until you find the right sequence for your car. Generally two pump of accelerator,no choke and then turn engine with throttle part open works well.

After that the engine will likely need throttle inputs to stay running for first minute at least.

[RichardHawkins]

Steve,

There is much more to Webbers than just the size. You may have the wrong jets for your engine, maybe the wrong pattern of progression holes and even the wrong butterfly angle. I realise you do not have the time for this but join sidedraft central and speak to Keith Franck in San Francisco.

Hope this helps,

Richard Hawkins

[steve lyle]

Steve,

There is much more to Webbers than just the size. You may have the wrong jets for your engine, maybe the wrong pattern of progression holes and even the wrong butterfly angle. I realise you do not have the time for this but join sidedraft central and speak to Keith Franck in San Francisco.

Hope this helps,

Richard Hawkins

Thanks, Richard. I've joined the group, downloaded Keith's white paper, and just sent out a message about my plight.

BTW - Barry Sale at PHP Racengines, who rebuilt the head, recommended .120 main jets and 45 F9 idle jets, which I've verified are currently installed in the carbs.

[steve lyle]

Work continues. 7 days left.

On the engine front - the story, if anything, has gotten worse. When I first started the engine, it ran for a couple of minutes, thanks to be babying it, and actually burned off a bit of oil that got on the headers. Then two days ago the best I could get was running for 10 seconds or so before dying. Now I can't start it at all.

Over the weekend I corresponded with Keith Francks. His first thought was exhaust blockage, so I disconnected the tailpipe to no effect. All other thoughts were about timing - so I reviewed what I had done in that area and he agreed that it should be timed correctly. So apparently he can't think of any carb setting issue that would keep the engine from starting, or dying shortly after.

I reached out to Tim from this thread - he hooked me up with a Weber-knowledgeable mechanic from OKC. He spent about an hour on the phone with me - we discussed what I had done about timing, and again he bought that it should be close enough to start. Then we focused on the carbs. I pulled the top off of one - there was plenty of fuel in the chamber. One odd thing - he had me pump the throttle while looking down the throat with a mirror and light. I expected to see a mist of fuel from the accelerator pump. What I saw was a single drop of fuel falling from the top of the throat in front of the throttle plates, for every 7-9 pumps of the throttle. He had me squirt some raw fuel into the throats - it fired, but of course didn't run. Sure sounds like a carb problem, so now what?

BTW - on the compression front - I squirted some oil into 1 & 2 and retested and got 180 psi. So no problem with compression, at least from the valves perspective.

I've got a buddy coming over tomorrow to help me put the windscreen in - he's got experience timing engines, I'll have him review where I am with that, and see what other ideas he might have about my no-start issue.

In between messing with the engine, other work centimes. MLA took on the wet sanding job for the back half of the body over the weekend. The first polish of that is now done and it looks good. Today I got the boot lid on, taillights, side marker lights, and gas cap all in place. So the back end of the car is coming along, just the bumper and hooking up the wiring, and putting in the trunk trim to go there.

The headlight pods are in as well. The dash is ready to be buttoned up - I fixed my handbrake warning light switch and installed the drivers windscreen washer nozzle. I haven't tested all the wiring yet, but once that's done the heater valences can go on and the dash will be done.

So the remaining items are the windscreen and trim, the lights in the front, painting and installing the bumpers (at least painting the front - the rear is good as is), installing and dressing the doors, the carpet, seats, and top. Oh, and I need more paint on the bonnet - I basically sanded through a couple of places when wet sanding. All doable in a week if I can get the darn engine to run. If not, I guess there are worst things than driving to LOG in an air conditioned BMW during the hottest August on record.

BTW - what's a good adhesive for the body badges, the LOTUS on the boot, etc? They were on with silicon, which I've understood shouldn't be used on car bodies - so what's the alternative?

MLA was a wet sanding fiend this weekend. Did a great job as a first timer!

In-process shot of the rear end coming together.

[gjz30075]

Seems odd that all four throttle barrels are acting the same, or are they? If the carbs were sitting
for a length of time during your restoration, maybe the accelerator pump plungers have gummed
up and can't move gas.

[Craven]

If you use the cold start ie choke, this uses its own air supply, jets and feed into the engine. It should run quite happily for a while, then slowly reduce the amount of choke. Result may give further clues to your problem. If your cold start is not connected operate them directly on the carbs.

[steve lyle]

Seems odd that all four throttle barrels are acting the same, or are they? If the carbs were sitting
for a length of time during your restoration, maybe the accelerator pump plungers have gummed
up and can't move gas.

The carbs are brand new.

[steve lyle]

If you use the cold start ie choke, this uses its own air supply, jets and feed into the engine. It should run quite happily for a while, then slowly reduce the amount of choke. Result may give further clues to your problem. If your cold start is not connected operate them directly on the carbs.

The cold start device is hooked up. i’ve tried it, it doesn’t seem to have any effect.

[steve lyle]

The windscreen is in. A buddy from the local MG club came over and we got it done in about an hour with nothing but lubrication and plastic spudgers.

Now for the windscreen trim. I need to do some searches on that, but I’m open to anyone’s hints.

As for the engine, he thinks I’ve got carb problems, given that it will fire with starter fluid. Next step is call the people that sold them to me and get their perspective.

[steve lyle]

Engine update: I called Carbs Unlimited, where I bought these, and asked them if they were ever defective out of the box. "Not often". I think I have one of those 'not often' situations. They gave me the name and number for the USA Weber warranty provider.

I've talked to Randy several times today. Key points:
- He thinks my idle jets are too small. But it should still start.
- He had me check the float level. The 'top' level was good, the 'bottom' was way off, which I reset. Again, that really shouldn't matter for starting, and didn't make any difference.
- He took me seriously with my report of not seeing an accelerator pump stream.
- The idle speed screw is particularly important on Webers. He had me set it at 1/2 turn after throttle lever contact. I actually got it started and idling for a few seconds at this setting, which is the first time in the last few days the engine started. This sounded GREAT, and verified that my timing was ok, or at least wasn't far off.
- Of course the next time I tried to start it, it wouldn't.
- For starting, the mixture settings don't matter.
- After following every lead he could think of, we were left with "it just isn't getting fuel" - we talked about the fuel pump tests I've run, how the bowls always had fuel in them when I took the carb tops off, and eliminated the fuel pump as an issue.
- So they're going back to them for diagnosis. They'll either fix what they find wrong, or send me a new set.

So getting to LOG42 in this car isn't going to happen, unfortunately.

[The Veg]

That's a bummer Steve, and I was looking forward to seeing it! Got fingers crossed for resolution though.

And I can relate to you comment about driving with aircon. Last year my motorcycle club had its national rally in June in Springfield Missouri, 750 miles from where I live in Georgia. It was ferociously hot, so I took the car and was very glad to have done so.

[steve lyle]

Well, the carbs are in transit. But the work continues.

What to do next? I wasn't happy with the paint on the front fenders, so I thought now would be a good time to stop assembly and deal with that. So I went at the bad spots with 400 grit paper, thinking that I had nothing to lose, and found that I took out not all, but most of the issue without breaking through to primer. So I wet sanded in step to 2500 then buffed, and I can live with the result. I think.

I'm thinking I need to take the windscreen back out. The vinyl trim across the top of the header was glued around the header flange, then the seal fitted onto the flange, previously. I neglected to put that trim on before fitting the windshield. It wasn't that big a deal getting the windscreen in. Although I ordered a locking strip insertion tool from Amazon to hopefully make it even easier this second time.

So today I gathered materials for that header trim. I had gotten new A-pillar trim pieces, today I trimmed the flash off of them to fit. They look pretty good. I went to a buddy's shop to get some scrap vinyl for the header trim. My foam is reusable. I lined up the pop rivets to use, and backing washers, and filled a couple of rivet holes in the pillars with fiberglass reinforced filler. Finally I got some #4 machine screws to use to actually bolt the nylon hood rail attachment thingies to the top rail - previously I had used sheet metal screws, and I never really trusted them.

I'm going to hold off installing the trim until after I get back from LOG. I want to look at some other cars to make sure I put all the pieces together correctly.

Next up - carpet, then interior trim, then doors. Somewhere in there I need to put some more paint on the bonnet, then finish it, and paint the bumpers. Plenty to do, but the time pressure is off.

I've fiddled with the throttle linkage trying to smooth it out, still not happy with it. RDE sells a couple of alternatives - I think I'll talk to Ray about using one of them on my car.

Oh, and I found an easy way to cut my choke (aka cold start mechanism) cable and leave a neat end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHCPttamAio

[steve lyle]

No word yet on the carbs. I expect they'll find nothing wrong, and it'll be back to going over the ignition and timing yet again. I've got a new set of plug wires, and a new ignition switch from DBE - so that will be something to try.

Meanwhile, work continues, a little bit each day. The carpet is now in. The doors are on. I did just enough on the doors so that they'll latch - still have to bolt the frames in, add the window motors, mirrors and door cards. But now I can check out my door fits with the 'final' paint. I'm happy with them. One of the goals of this project was to correct the door 'stick out'. I declare success on that. The fit isn't perfect, but oh so much better than before.

The rear lights are wired, and everything works.

I broke my handbrake switch, again, when I put the carpet in. I'm. getting real good at fixing it, though. So no big deal.

The outside temp display on my daily driver showed 113 deg today. I try to get some progress in during the mornings, when it's about 80. But the afternoon heat is just brutal.

I debated pausing the assembly to respray the body. There are more than a few flaws that bug me. But I also want to get the car back on the road. I think the latter urge is winning out, so I'll do what I can with the paint, and deal with it later if I feel compelled to.

Hoping to hear from the Weber people sometime this week. Maybe the carbs will be waiting for me when we get back from LOG.