After getting the car back from Joe’s I still had a number of things to do:
1. I nut and bolted the whole car.
2. I painted and installed the grille block off plate Joe made me.
3. I installed the right side window net.
4. I welded a few more holes closed.
5. I increased the pre-charge in the accusump. This is one more attempt to try to cure my oil pressure problems. I think I have the accusump so far from the engine and the pre-charge was kind of low. The theory is the the motor had to get down to like 20psi before the accusump started flowing. But when the motor gets to 20 psi it’s falling FAST and the accusump moves the oil out to slowly. Hopefully with a higher pre-charge (it’s at 33psi now) the accusump will be flowing more often and getting me through the spots where oil pressure would drop before… The other thing is I am going to add drain back lines from the valve covers to the pan. Just one on each side to start. Back of the drivers valve cover and the front of the passenger side valve cover.
So, after that there was really nothing left but to try to fire the car up. There was really no reason the car shouldn’t fire right up but I was still a little nervous. This would be the first time the engine has been started since the day I wrecked it (Oct. 29, 2012). I filled the radiator up with water and started cranking the motor with the ign. switch OFF. I wanted to build some oil pressure before firing it up. We I cranked, waited, cranked, waited, cranked, waited. I just wasn’t seeing any oil pressure. Finally I decided to just go for it and try to actually start it. So I turned the ign. switch to ON and tried again. Nothing. I finally gave up for the day…
After thinking about it that night I realized that I was watching the oil pressure gauge but I should have also watched the fuel pressure gauge. I was sure I wasn’t getting fuel up to the carb and I needed to figure out how to prime the fuel system. The next day I confirmed that I was not getting fuel pressure. Then it dawned on me how to prime the system. I disconnected the fuel line at the rail by the carb. Then I got my shop vac. I covered most of the hose with my hand and then put the small opening that was left up to the fuel line. Sure enough, a few seconds later I got some fuel out of the line. I shut off the vac. Reconnected the line and started cranking the motor again. This time, after a couple of cranks, the fuel pressure needle started to move. I cranked it a few more times till I got 7lbs. At that point I tuned on the ign. switch, cranked again and WHAM! Car fired right up. I was pretty pleased with myself 🙂 I opened the accusump and waited until I was sure it was full then closed it again. Then I let the car idle for a few minutes until it got up to temp. Then I put it in gear, drove out of the shop to the end of my blacktop and then put it in reverse and backed it back into the shop and shut it down. It lives! Last thing I did was put another quart of oil in it to top it off (11.5 qts total).
So that’s it. Now it’s time to take it to a test session and see what happens. Sears Pt. has an open test day on Jan. 15th and that’s my plan (assuming the weather holds, so far it’s been amazing all winter)…
had video but I lost it 🙁