Hey there Guest!
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
CraigLandrum
Jedi Hopeful
Offline
After several setbacks waiting for radiator parts, my son and I finally got it installed yesterday. This was the last component needed in order to try and start the car we have been working on for the past year. With the radiator in, we did fluids, using the good Valvoline racing oil and proper mixture of coolant and water in the radiator. No leaks!
Added a gallon of gas and checked for fuel line leaks. No leaks!
OK, we've put it off enough, time to try and fire this puppy up. Used the lever on the fuel pump to pump gas up to the carbs - no problem. Turned the ignition on and hit the starter. Starter grinds slowly (1 rev/sec or less), but what do we know about how fast a TR3 starter should go? Nothing. Suggested we try a spritz of starting fluid in the carbs. That got us one piston fire and then nothing. Son smelled hot wires so we unhooked everything and discovered the starter was very hot.
OK, time to remove the starter and see what we can see. Removing that bomb-type starter is a real pain as it won't go out from under the car (exhaust in the way), so we had to disconnect the throttle linkage and choke cable and fuel line and bring it out the top between the carbs. Starter seemed to turn OK manually so took it over the bench and took it apart. Examined the brushes and discovered a broken spring. OK, that could explain the lack of oomph when starting and hot wires. Had an old generator spring left over from when I did PM on the generator and used some needlenose to slightly rework it to apply about the same amount of pressure as the other springs seemed to exert. Reassembled the starter, which is a whole lot of fun since you have to push back four brushes while inserting the armature, etc (hint - you can pull them back enough and use a small metal rod hooked user the brush connecting wire on each one to hold them out of the way, slide in the armature, then remove the rods).
Put the starter back in the car and reconnected all the linkages, cables, fuel lines, and repumped the carbs back to readiness. Ignition on and hit the starter switch. Holy crap! What a difference a small brush can make - starter spun that engine over quite handily, thank you very much. Difference was like night and day. Spun like a modern car.
We had previously set the timing manually using the test light technique to 6 degrees BTDC so were confident that this was OK. Points and plugs were brand new. New stock coil hooked up correctly. Carbs were completely rebuilt. Engine completely rebuilt. Fluids OK. Has gas.
It didn't have a choice. It was all out of excuses. It had to start.
So it did
Second time we hit the starter switch it fired right up. Purred nicely at 1500, ran ragged below that. Sounded incredible. Meanwhile the basement is filling up with exhaust fumes, so we called at halt to the proceedings after a minute and opened all the doors to get some air circulation. My incredibly talented son had done all the carb and engine work and I sort of got the impression that he was a bit shocked when it ran.
Will try and find a cheap 2-inch diameter 50 foot length of pool or vacuum hose so we can vent the exhaust to outside before next week, when we will concentrate on tuning the carbs and timing, etc, and will start to bolt on the doors, fenders, windshield, and other stuff in the coming weeks. I'm now predicting about mid March for the first test drive (we work on the car on Saturdays only).
We took a bunch of pictures and I'm sure my son will be posting some here.
Added a gallon of gas and checked for fuel line leaks. No leaks!
OK, we've put it off enough, time to try and fire this puppy up. Used the lever on the fuel pump to pump gas up to the carbs - no problem. Turned the ignition on and hit the starter. Starter grinds slowly (1 rev/sec or less), but what do we know about how fast a TR3 starter should go? Nothing. Suggested we try a spritz of starting fluid in the carbs. That got us one piston fire and then nothing. Son smelled hot wires so we unhooked everything and discovered the starter was very hot.
OK, time to remove the starter and see what we can see. Removing that bomb-type starter is a real pain as it won't go out from under the car (exhaust in the way), so we had to disconnect the throttle linkage and choke cable and fuel line and bring it out the top between the carbs. Starter seemed to turn OK manually so took it over the bench and took it apart. Examined the brushes and discovered a broken spring. OK, that could explain the lack of oomph when starting and hot wires. Had an old generator spring left over from when I did PM on the generator and used some needlenose to slightly rework it to apply about the same amount of pressure as the other springs seemed to exert. Reassembled the starter, which is a whole lot of fun since you have to push back four brushes while inserting the armature, etc (hint - you can pull them back enough and use a small metal rod hooked user the brush connecting wire on each one to hold them out of the way, slide in the armature, then remove the rods).
Put the starter back in the car and reconnected all the linkages, cables, fuel lines, and repumped the carbs back to readiness. Ignition on and hit the starter switch. Holy crap! What a difference a small brush can make - starter spun that engine over quite handily, thank you very much. Difference was like night and day. Spun like a modern car.
We had previously set the timing manually using the test light technique to 6 degrees BTDC so were confident that this was OK. Points and plugs were brand new. New stock coil hooked up correctly. Carbs were completely rebuilt. Engine completely rebuilt. Fluids OK. Has gas.
It didn't have a choice. It was all out of excuses. It had to start.
So it did
Second time we hit the starter switch it fired right up. Purred nicely at 1500, ran ragged below that. Sounded incredible. Meanwhile the basement is filling up with exhaust fumes, so we called at halt to the proceedings after a minute and opened all the doors to get some air circulation. My incredibly talented son had done all the carb and engine work and I sort of got the impression that he was a bit shocked when it ran.
Will try and find a cheap 2-inch diameter 50 foot length of pool or vacuum hose so we can vent the exhaust to outside before next week, when we will concentrate on tuning the carbs and timing, etc, and will start to bolt on the doors, fenders, windshield, and other stuff in the coming weeks. I'm now predicting about mid March for the first test drive (we work on the car on Saturdays only).
We took a bunch of pictures and I'm sure my son will be posting some here.
A friendly reminder - be careful what links you click on here. If a link is posted by someone you don't know, or the URL looks fishy, DON'T CLICK. Spammers sometimes post links that lead to sites that can infect your computer, so be mindful what you click.