Hi Lonnie! Thanks for the kind words!
Perry, what do you mean you
start talking trash? When do you stop???
So, after the banana went out, I started in on doing some tuning. The timing was the first bit of weirdness I encountered. I had set it by eyeball when I installed the distributor and then tweaked it back-and-forth until it cranked up and ran. It actually sounded pretty good, smoother idle than I was expecting. Seemed to be putting off a good bit of heat in the exhaust, which concerned me.
The weird part started when I put the timing light on it. It was idling about 1100 RPM, fairly smooth, but the light said it was at 27 degrees advance. Since the stock spec is 10, that seemed kinda high. I revved it up a bit, just to listen, and it seemed to wind up just fine. I tried backing off the timing to a more reasonable number, but it died. Cranked it back up, sped the idle up a bit, retarded the timing a bit and it seemed OK, kinda rough idle. Repeated the process a couple more times until the timing light showed about 12 degrees advance. I blipped the throttle, thinking it might clear up the idle a bit. Instead, I got a backfire thru the carb and it shut down. I tweaked timing and carb several times, but if I had the timing anywhere near 10 degrees, same backfire/shutdown.
Earl came over on Sunday to lend a hand (and a brain... Maybe...). He was a bit stumped, but said his guess was that the rockers needed shims under them and the lack thereof was causing the valves to remain open just a bit causing rough running, backfires, hot exhaust headers, coughs, colds and pimples on the dinky... He also removed the carb from the manifold and took it to work with him for some cleaning-up and replacing stuff as needed, just as a precaution.
So, I'm gonna install some shims under the rockers (a batch of them came with the deal from John Hennessey) and then we may do a leakdown test and some other weird science/mechanical
voodoo (Now Lonnie is gonna send me the pic of the big black guy with the snake...) and see what happens.
I'm thinkin' we'll get this sorted out soon. But then, I have occasionally been wrong about stuff in the past.
Stay tuned, we'll do something soon. Might be a big noise. That could be a running Slotus. Or an explosion...
Peace, Love and "Gris-gris"
JDK
_________________
JD, father of
Quinn, Son of a...
Build LogQuinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special "Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom