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Patton
Jedi Warrior
Offline
I had three days vacation I had to take before Nov 1 or I lose it, so I decided it was time to get off my butt and get the Healey running again after the fuel pump died.
Flash back several months ago. My car did not have the SU installed when I got it, but had a Welbro bellows pump in it. I liked the pump as it sounded much like an SU does and is not polarity sensitive. The bad news was that the old bellows are not modern fuel friendly and turned to utter goo after what I think was a couple of decades of use. A couple of months ago, I got a rebuild kit (for $12) but couldn't get the thing working again.
Since going back to a SU would mean replacing fuel lines, I went to NAPA to get the Facet that everyone recommends and let the counter guy convince me that the one he had in stock was the same one, but just had an in-line filter. I got home and found out quickly that in fact, this one was polarity sensitive. I tried to return it and they wouldn't do it as I had hooked it up "backwards". (I asked the polarity question when I bought it, he forgot that part of the conversation. I won't use that NAPA anymore). I didn't want to mess with the polarity at that time, and the car sat while I piddled on non mechanical things.
Anyhow flash forward to yesterday. The Welbro dealer is actually in the DFW area, so I was going to run over an buy a pump just like the one I had. I called to check hours, and they are closed for the rest of the week. Coincidentially exactly matching my vacation. I cursed at this time.
Wanting to get the car back on the road, I took the "broken" Welbro back apart and assembled it again. I had done this a couple of times when I originally tried the rebuild, but this time it worked. I put the pump back in the car and fully expected the car to fire up without much trouble. (It started very easy before).
Anyhow, the trusty Optima battery still held a full charge, I turned the key and heard the pump fill the carbs with fresh gas, pulled out the choke and hit the starter. The motor just spun and soon the smell of a flooded motor engulfed my garage.
With great frustration I tried to figure out what was going on. I waited and sprayed starter fluid in the carbs hoping to hear the car try to catch, with no sign of life. Everything was great before, I don't understand what could be different now.
Remembering the adage that 90% of fuel problems are electrical, I got a checklist out to trouble shoot the ignition that I had. I pulled #3 (randomly to see if I could see fire) but I only got spark a couple of times. The checklist I had suggested starting with testing the coil on the multimeter. The coil I had is the original Lucas (manufactured 11-56) and would be a good candidate. The checklist said I should have listed 1.5 to 3 ohms as normal for the
SW and CB posts (and mine reads 3.2 ohms) and the SW and HT should be between 6000 and 30000 ohms (mine reads 6.84 kOhm). So it was a little out of spec. I didn't know if that was enough to worry about, so I posted that to the Healey list. I got several emails telling me it was my rotor (which I had already replaced with one of the "good" ones.
Thankfully, I was reminded that Kip Motors is only about 15 miles from here, and even though Healey's are a little too common for them, they would probably have what I need. I bought a coil, NOS points, condenser and one of their good rotors. They are the manufacturers of the rotors that don't short out as well as the new distributor caps for the Lucas DM6A (which had been out of production). I had a NOS cap in the box at home, but was very impressed with theirs. It has brass contacts, and it noticeably better built than my old repro.
The highlight was getting a tour of the facilities where I saw a Touring bodied Sunbeam Venezia (supposedly 1 of 4 left) that was about to go to California as well as seeing their "pattern" cars. They have a couple of dozen of the more offbeat British cars in an attached warehouse of Humblers, Berkleys, Sunbeams, Austins and the like that the use to check originality on parts. Very cool and unexpected. I want a Jowett Jupiter now.
Anyhow I got home and started to replace everything one part at a time. First the coil, then the rotor, then the cap and wires, but I still haven't gotten it to start. When I got to the condeser I dropped the washer to insulated it from the point spring so I pulled the distributor and am going to disassemble, replace the point assemble and condensor and clean it tonight. I was also told to check for a ground strap under the point plate so I am going to check for that and go from there.
I am highly frustrated as I am two days in and am still working on a problem that I didn't know was a problem. I was supposed to be driving around the neighborhood today and tomorrow hooking up the horns and such. I wan't supposed to be having problems just getting the car to run. ARRRGGGGHHHH!
Sorry again for the rant,
Patton
Flash back several months ago. My car did not have the SU installed when I got it, but had a Welbro bellows pump in it. I liked the pump as it sounded much like an SU does and is not polarity sensitive. The bad news was that the old bellows are not modern fuel friendly and turned to utter goo after what I think was a couple of decades of use. A couple of months ago, I got a rebuild kit (for $12) but couldn't get the thing working again.
Since going back to a SU would mean replacing fuel lines, I went to NAPA to get the Facet that everyone recommends and let the counter guy convince me that the one he had in stock was the same one, but just had an in-line filter. I got home and found out quickly that in fact, this one was polarity sensitive. I tried to return it and they wouldn't do it as I had hooked it up "backwards". (I asked the polarity question when I bought it, he forgot that part of the conversation. I won't use that NAPA anymore). I didn't want to mess with the polarity at that time, and the car sat while I piddled on non mechanical things.
Anyhow flash forward to yesterday. The Welbro dealer is actually in the DFW area, so I was going to run over an buy a pump just like the one I had. I called to check hours, and they are closed for the rest of the week. Coincidentially exactly matching my vacation. I cursed at this time.
Wanting to get the car back on the road, I took the "broken" Welbro back apart and assembled it again. I had done this a couple of times when I originally tried the rebuild, but this time it worked. I put the pump back in the car and fully expected the car to fire up without much trouble. (It started very easy before).
Anyhow, the trusty Optima battery still held a full charge, I turned the key and heard the pump fill the carbs with fresh gas, pulled out the choke and hit the starter. The motor just spun and soon the smell of a flooded motor engulfed my garage.
With great frustration I tried to figure out what was going on. I waited and sprayed starter fluid in the carbs hoping to hear the car try to catch, with no sign of life. Everything was great before, I don't understand what could be different now.
Remembering the adage that 90% of fuel problems are electrical, I got a checklist out to trouble shoot the ignition that I had. I pulled #3 (randomly to see if I could see fire) but I only got spark a couple of times. The checklist I had suggested starting with testing the coil on the multimeter. The coil I had is the original Lucas (manufactured 11-56) and would be a good candidate. The checklist said I should have listed 1.5 to 3 ohms as normal for the
SW and CB posts (and mine reads 3.2 ohms) and the SW and HT should be between 6000 and 30000 ohms (mine reads 6.84 kOhm). So it was a little out of spec. I didn't know if that was enough to worry about, so I posted that to the Healey list. I got several emails telling me it was my rotor (which I had already replaced with one of the "good" ones.
Thankfully, I was reminded that Kip Motors is only about 15 miles from here, and even though Healey's are a little too common for them, they would probably have what I need. I bought a coil, NOS points, condenser and one of their good rotors. They are the manufacturers of the rotors that don't short out as well as the new distributor caps for the Lucas DM6A (which had been out of production). I had a NOS cap in the box at home, but was very impressed with theirs. It has brass contacts, and it noticeably better built than my old repro.
The highlight was getting a tour of the facilities where I saw a Touring bodied Sunbeam Venezia (supposedly 1 of 4 left) that was about to go to California as well as seeing their "pattern" cars. They have a couple of dozen of the more offbeat British cars in an attached warehouse of Humblers, Berkleys, Sunbeams, Austins and the like that the use to check originality on parts. Very cool and unexpected. I want a Jowett Jupiter now.
Anyhow I got home and started to replace everything one part at a time. First the coil, then the rotor, then the cap and wires, but I still haven't gotten it to start. When I got to the condeser I dropped the washer to insulated it from the point spring so I pulled the distributor and am going to disassemble, replace the point assemble and condensor and clean it tonight. I was also told to check for a ground strap under the point plate so I am going to check for that and go from there.
I am highly frustrated as I am two days in and am still working on a problem that I didn't know was a problem. I was supposed to be driving around the neighborhood today and tomorrow hooking up the horns and such. I wan't supposed to be having problems just getting the car to run. ARRRGGGGHHHH!
Sorry again for the rant,
Patton
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