-
Hi Guest!
You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
There are some perks with a member upgrade!**Upgrade Now**
(PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
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! >> 
Sanity check please!
- Thread starter NutmegCT
- Start date
Share this page
TR3driver
Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
Offline
Good one, Tom!
Reminds me of my first TR3A, where one of the very first things I did was to substitute the points, condenser, cap, wires and coil from Dad's running TR3A. Spent two days standing ankle-deep in snow trying to get it started. Checked everything we could think of: timing, valve lash and so on. Cleaned the carbs and fed them directly from a gallon can of fresh gasoline (to bypass the crud in the tank) Lots of starting fluid and backfires (lost my eye lashes too). We even managed to run down the battery on my 65 Olds with the engine still running! (Very strange, it was idling fine but died when I put it in gear.) All this was out in the middle of nowhere, without so much as a pay phone within walking distance, (and long before the days of cell phones). There had been one or two cars pass by earlier in the day, but nothing for hours when the Olds died.
After coaxing the Olds back into life (whew!), we pulled the TR on a rope back to my buddy's trailer, some 40 miles away. Illegal as all get-out, so we kept to the back roads and of course I was the one that got to pilot the TR with ice cold air blowing up my pants leg through the holes in the floor. Fortunately the brakes still worked.
Next day the battle resumed with the bright idea that maybe it was just too cold to run; so we linked up the heater hoses from the Olds to circulate hot water through the TR block. Didn't seem very hot, so I slid some cardboard down in front of the Olds' radiator (which I frequently did in winter anyway, to get more heat). Another long, frustrating day, the TR would pop and puff and chug like it wanted to run but just never would light off. Finally getting dark and too cold to work, I pulled the radiator cap off the Olds and promptly got a shower of boiling glycol up my jacket sleeve and over my head.
Later, while treating the burns, it finally dawned on me what the problem was. Can you guess?
Reminds me of my first TR3A, where one of the very first things I did was to substitute the points, condenser, cap, wires and coil from Dad's running TR3A. Spent two days standing ankle-deep in snow trying to get it started. Checked everything we could think of: timing, valve lash and so on. Cleaned the carbs and fed them directly from a gallon can of fresh gasoline (to bypass the crud in the tank) Lots of starting fluid and backfires (lost my eye lashes too). We even managed to run down the battery on my 65 Olds with the engine still running! (Very strange, it was idling fine but died when I put it in gear.) All this was out in the middle of nowhere, without so much as a pay phone within walking distance, (and long before the days of cell phones). There had been one or two cars pass by earlier in the day, but nothing for hours when the Olds died.
After coaxing the Olds back into life (whew!), we pulled the TR on a rope back to my buddy's trailer, some 40 miles away. Illegal as all get-out, so we kept to the back roads and of course I was the one that got to pilot the TR with ice cold air blowing up my pants leg through the holes in the floor. Fortunately the brakes still worked.
Next day the battle resumed with the bright idea that maybe it was just too cold to run; so we linked up the heater hoses from the Olds to circulate hot water through the TR block. Didn't seem very hot, so I slid some cardboard down in front of the Olds' radiator (which I frequently did in winter anyway, to get more heat). Another long, frustrating day, the TR would pop and puff and chug like it wanted to run but just never would light off. Finally getting dark and too cold to work, I pulled the radiator cap off the Olds and promptly got a shower of boiling glycol up my jacket sleeve and over my head.
Later, while treating the burns, it finally dawned on me what the problem was. Can you guess?
TR3driver
Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
Offline
Nope. Secret was in those "known good" components, which worked fine both before and after on a different engine ...
OP
Offline
hmmm - I notice you say you were out in the middle of nowhere when you were working on it. So it must have been running to get you out there.
Why did you substitute all those parts from your dad's TR?
And of course - was your dad's TR3A mechanically the same as the problem TR3A?
T.
Why did you substitute all those parts from your dad's TR?
And of course - was your dad's TR3A mechanically the same as the problem TR3A?
T.
TR3driver
Great Pumpkin - R.I.P
Offline
Nope, I had just bought the TR as former "yard art". Never did learn all the details, but apparently the former owner had driven it until it wouldn't run any more, then parked it in his Mom's back yard and (eventually) followed his father to Texas when his folks broke up. It was pretty decrepit, but I had basically no money (had a full time job but it only paid $2.10/hour with no benefits) so we were a good fit for each other. I think I paid his sister $150 for it. (Probably should have had her pay me to haul it away but I was too excited at the prospect of owning my very own TR3 to negotiate.)
So all the parts swapping was just trying to make it run for the first time (for me).
The "gotcha" was that Dad's TR3A had the distributor drive gear installed backwards. The DPO had apparently assembled it wrong, and then swapped the plug wires around to suit. I had no idea, it had run fine for several years at that point so it just never occurred to me that it might be backwards. So I just popped the cap on my engine and hooked the wires up to the same plugs they had come off of.
As soon as I put back the tatty old cap and wires, cracked insulation and all, the TR fired right up!
Come to think of it, I don't recall if we ever 'fixed' Dad's car. It may still have the plug wires swapped today. T'aint broke ...
So all the parts swapping was just trying to make it run for the first time (for me).
The "gotcha" was that Dad's TR3A had the distributor drive gear installed backwards. The DPO had apparently assembled it wrong, and then swapped the plug wires around to suit. I had no idea, it had run fine for several years at that point so it just never occurred to me that it might be backwards. So I just popped the cap on my engine and hooked the wires up to the same plugs they had come off of.
As soon as I put back the tatty old cap and wires, cracked insulation and all, the TR fired right up!
Come to think of it, I don't recall if we ever 'fixed' Dad's car. It may still have the plug wires swapped today. T'aint broke ...
Offline
Congrats on the fix -- even if it was one of the "current owner moments." At least it's running now, and you've got a great feel for the rest of the system.
A good reminder of why my troubleshooting always starts with "is it plugged in, is it turned on?"
A good reminder of why my troubleshooting always starts with "is it plugged in, is it turned on?"
OP
Offline
...
A good reminder of why my troubleshooting always starts with "is it plugged in, is it turned on?"
That applies to my brain these days!
Offline
In keeping with the direction of this thread - you forgot what you were going to say, didn't you?
