Yeah, course we made it!
No photos this evening I'm afraid cos my Photoshop programme's playing up. I'll get it sorted & post some tomorrow.
We left the workshop at about 9 this morning, Marcus drivng to start with while it warmed up & settled down, me as passenger & Chris following in his truck. We'd pull over halfway & swap over. The show was about 20 miles away. About 5 miles in, we started getting a really savage misfire -
bang, b,b,bang, bang, getting progressively louder & accompanied by the occasional cloud of oily smoke in the cab. That's not good.
Eventually, just as the bangs reverberating under the bonnet sounded like a piston was going to punch it's way through it, the motor coughed & died. Poo. Coast to a halt, get out, open the bonnet. There was a puddle of oil at the back of the valley, (between the 2 banks of cylinders), which accounted for the smoke inside. Looks like the gasket's leaking, which may just be a matter of tightening down the clamp that holds it in place.
The backfires suggested there was fuel getting through, but not igniting properly. We could see fuel in the fuel filter too. Whip out a plug, lay it against the bodywork to earth it & see if we get a spark when Loony turned the engine over. Yes, but very weak. I popped off the distributor cap. A weak spark from the points, plus one of the leads from the condensor was loose. Tighten it up. I also tweaked the points open as far as I could to increase the spark. Put it back together. Turn her over Loon.
Braarp, brr, brr, brooom. That'll do, quick, jump in! So off we set again with Mr L still at the wheel. The misfire had gone, but it wasn't a particularly happy motor.
As we reached the Rushmoor Arena entry road & sat in the queue, despite Loon's valiant efforts to keep the revs up, it stalled & died. Poo again.
Chris pulled around, hooked up his tow rope & pulled us into a layby by the gates. So close! After a couple of minutes we gave it another go -it lives! Quick, go, go go! So we made it through the gates under our own power, trundled down into the arena & parked up. Somehow we'd made it. Not the smoothest journey, but we were there.
A good show. The weather forcasts have been pretty lousy & there's been lots of speculation on the 'net about it being cancelled, but thankfully the Surrey Street Rodders went ahead, despite the doom mongers. As it turned out, it was overcast & cold, but dry all day. When the sun occasionally made it through the cloud it was actually quite warm. After I spent the last couple of days cleaning the Pop, Loony managed to drive through the only puddle on the way in, plastering it in mud again. I think it's just it's natural look now.
It certainly got a lot of attention, with people around it all day long. I invited a few to have a sit in it & try it for size. They loved it. They took photos of it, they asked me to take photos of them in it, they stroked the bare metal bonnet. They asked about the Q plates & the registration test. I think it went down well. Seemed to attract the younger "new wave" rodders rather than the older, more traditional guys. Maybe they just liked it's scruffiness! Most said Please don't paint it -leave it just as it is.
As always, lots of familiar faces including a few Monkeys -PantherShaun, all the way from Kent, Kapri & Billy, up from the South Coast, Chevy Rick & Jay Jay from the New Forest, Postie Dave from about 5 miles away, Mr & Mrs Phunkie Hiboy. I had a mooch around the other cars on display as well as buying some parts from Kris on the Pop Browns stall. Bought the rubbers for the side windows as well as a replacement windscreen wiper arm. Spoke to 3 or 4 people about the ignition & the general consensus was, Throw the points away & fit a Pertronix electronic ignition conversion. Pop Browns sell the kit, but Mr Phunkie thinks he can get it cheaper from the importers.
We really didn't know if we could make it home again, especially up the steep hill out of the arena to the main road, but if the worst happened I had a breakdown recovery card with me. I checked the points again. Loony fired it up. Shall we go? Yeah, let's do it. So off we went again, Loon still at the wheel & Chris sat in the pick up bed. Up the hill -don't stop, don't stop, please don't stop. Made it! Chris jumped out to find his truck & we just kept going. He eventaully caught us up about 10 miles down the road.
It's got a huge flat spot mid revs & the auto gearbox was getting very clunky between 1st & 2nd as we pulled away from junctions, but the misfire had gone. It sounds like it's over revving for the speed we're doing, but kinda hard to tell really. We haven't got the speedo hooked up yet, but Chris reckons we were averaging about 50mph & up to 70 in places. Mr Loon says it handles smoother than he'd expected -you can lift your hands from the wheel & it tracks pretty true. No crabbing or following the ruts in the road like we thought it might.
So we made it safely home again. No explosions, no fires, nothing fell off, nobody died -not a bad first trip really.
Things to do-
Move the gearbox oil cooler from above the radiator to below it, to help keep it cool.
Investigate the oil leak & fix it.
Take the exhaust headers off & persuade Mr Brock to TIG weld the collectors to eliminate the air leaks.
Replace the points with a Pertronix electronic kit.
Maybe try larger main jets in the carb to clear the flat spot. We dipped the fuel tank when we got back & it looks like we used about 2 gallons. Roughly 20 to the gallon with it running like a bag of poo half the time. Not too bad.
-oh, & fix the passenger door lock after the bolt on the door frame that it latches to fell out on the way home. The hazard warning switch also vibrated undone but we screwed it back in & it's fine!
If we can get it running smoothly & reliably I'll be a very happy bunny. This is obviously going to be a long process of tweaking & fine tuning, but the basics all seem O.K. We're quietly pleased.
