Fall/Winter/Spring Projects for 0248k

[pharriso]

I presume because Federal Elans had vacuum retard......

Steve, Federal Elan Sprints did not have any vacuum advance or retard mechanisms... I have 0260K ; I'm sure GregZ (who has 0243K) will be along to confirm soon...

Keeps the dizzy very simple:

RDent_26m0009as_23D.jpg (54.18 KiB) Viewed 12369 times

I'm not saying this is your issue, but definitely different to original fitment.

[steve lyle]

I presume because Federal Elans had vacuum retard......

Steve, Federal Elan Sprints did not have any vacuum advance or retard mechanisms... I have 0260K ; I'm sure GregZ (who has 0243K) will be along to confirm soon...

Keeps the dizzy very simple:

RDent_26m0009as_23D.jpg

RDent_26m0009s.jpg

I'm not saying this is your issue, but definitely different to original fitment.

Interesting - makes me wonder why Ken and Craven assumed mine retarded? Another little curiosity....
Along with when and who put this dizzy in my car? And why?

[steve lyle]

Definite progress.

I tried Scoott's/snowyelan's idea of repositioning the distributor shaft so #1 cylinder used the previous #4 distributor contact, etc. And got no change. As expected given yesterday's results.

So then I went more aggressively at the #1 and 3 mixture screws. They were at 1 1/2 turns out from bottom, which I assumed (I know...) would be in the ballpark. Eventually I got them out to the point where 1 & 3 came to the party. I did the same for 2/4, but they were basically ok near where they were. So at this point the idle is much smoother, it passes the ear test, there is a rev drop when any lead is pulled (although not nearly as quick and as much for #1), and the temp test shows 2/3/4 in the 300F range, with 1 at 240. So more tuning to do, but definite progress.

So it looks like it's time for a road test later today.

Thank you SO much to everyone for the suggestions, input, and sympathy! This really is an amazing community.

[steve lyle]

Have you checked the carb balance airflow for each throat? How much fuel you need is dependent on air flow. So very different idle screw position might be needed for imbalanced carbs.

That's on my list. Up to this point I just set the linkage so the inner throttle plates are at the same point on the progression holes.

[gjz30075]

Well, 0243K came with distributor 41225A, which is correct for a Federal car, per Miles Wilkins book on
TC's. It has the vacuum cannister. Advance or retard, I don't know. It wasn't connected when I
got the car. It's not connected now and its running with 40953 guts.

[TWebb]

Steve,

This is good news. I've been following along learning as I read.

Good luck with the test drive.

Tim

[steve lyle]

She’s off the dollies and back on her feet.

I got the time for a test drive late, so I limited it to a couple of times around the block. Everything worked, engine ran fine, acceleration was smooth. idle was good.

I’ll go for more extended drives tomorrow, but, so far, so good.

[pharriso]

Wonderful news, congrats!

So the whole issue was the idle mixture screws were out?

[steve lyle]

Wonderful news, congrats!

So the whole issue was the idle mixture screws were out?

I wouldn't say that exactly. From the attempted first start, to the first time on the road, I definitely had a failed Pertronix, a failed condenser, and failed points. The original carbs definitely had bent shafts and the wrong accelerator pump restrictors, plus their Warranty guys thought the default idle jets were too small. Other than that, yes, it seems it was all mixture settings.

The good news is I have some nifty new tools - an inline spark tester and a leak down tester. Plus I learned a few things - like how to know for certain when you're at #1 TDC compression. And all the distributor work got me real good at setting static timing, and forced me to modify the clamp so it was easy to get to. So some pretty decent side benefits. Learning how to cut multi-strand cable without it unraveling was a bonus too, but not related to the troubleshooting.

I put 30 miles on the car today. I'll check out the plugs and go longer tomorrow.

[steve lyle]

Seem to have moving goal posts here, golden rule in fault finding change one thing at a time.
It looks as if you have a vacuum retard on your distributor? may be correct on export cars!
Increasing to 55 will make a huge difference to big in my experience although the E10 fuels seem to need at least 50.

Well, the goal post certainly didn't move = that's getting a smooth running engine. As for changing two things - I didn't. I changed the leads - that was the only change.. Then took multiple observations. 1: #1 and maybe #3 are contributing when using the cold start device, and 2: They still aren't when running at idle. Indicating that the leads weren't the issue.

Although I will confess to at other times making multiple changes. Aren't we all sinners at heart? But in my defense, the multiple changes were always to one particular system - e.g., I really don't care what might be causing, say, an ignition system issue, I just want to fix it. So replacing a cap and plugs in the same cycle is ok by me. Although i get how it may offend some.

[gjz30075]

Congratulations Steve, nice work!

[steve lyle]

Went on a 25 mile highway test drive today. Cruised at 65-75 for long periods. Car ran great. Oil at 40psi, temp at 88c. On a 90F day when in traffic the rad fan would kick in and run for a couple of minutes, then off. Idle steady at 900.

When I got home I put it in the garage and went in the house to let me and the car cool down a bit. When I came back out there was a puddle of oil under mostly the front of the engine. With the bonnet off I could see oil on sprayed on the front crossmember/vacuum chamber, the lower radiator hose, the oil pump area, and the front of the engine. OK, where's it coming from? The front crank seal? Please God, no.

I cleaned it up the best I could, and started the engine up. I let it idle for several minutes - no oil seeping or spraying anywhere. No new oil on the floor. OK - let's try 3000 rpm. After no more than a few seconds of that I could see a steady flow of oil coming out from under the front intake cam half moon piece. Relief - that should be an easy fix. I knew I needed to reseal the valve cover - during one of my "let's try this" sequences when dealing with the no start issue I had reset the cams, and messed up my nice sealing job on the gasket and the half moons. I had Ken send me 3 gaskets, so I should be able to fix this tonight/tomorrow.

The compression #'s show 1 & 2 coming up, 3 & 4 as well, but still a sizeable gap between the two sets. 140 - 135 - 170 - 160. Looks like I've got a ring job in my near future.

[steve lyle]

I replaced the valve cover gasket, sealing it to the head with Permatex Ultra Black. So far it looks to be sealing perfectly - no drops as of yet. The car is running fine. The last couple of days were spent putting a couple of more coats of red on the bonnet, then sanding/polishing the bonnet and a few other troublesome spots on the body. Not a perfect paint job, maybe a 5 footer, but the best I could do for now. There's a car show we always go to - The Brits in the Ozark show, this weekend. It looks iike the Elan will make it.

One casualty of the disassembly was my driver's door mirror. The car never had one on the passenger side. So I got a set of mirrors from RDE, paying extra for the mounts.

I was disappointed to find that the mount doesn't change the angle of the mirror. The mirrors are essentially oval - with a long axis and short axis. And mount to the doors, which are basically a vertical surface, such that the long axis is almost vertical. Minimizing the field of vision. My old mirror had an adapter to rotate the mirror such that the long axis was horizontal - like most (all?) other cars on the road.

I went looking for a mount like my old one, but couldn't find any. And my old one wouldn't work with my new mirrors.

So I'll make my own. The plan is to get the shape roughly right with extruded styrofoam (XPS). Then smooth it with sandpaper, polyester filler, more sanding, etc.. Then paint it. Then scan it, convert it to a surface model, bring it into a CAD program and create a mirror image of it, then 3D print the two mounts. More sanding and smoothing, then painting, then mounting. Might take a while, but I've got time. It turns out their are scanning apps for an iPhone, and the Tulsa library has 3D printers.

Today was step one - I got some XPS from Lowe's, and roughed out the shape. The foam was in a sheet 1" thick, so I stacked several layers, slicing 3 of them to get the vertical to horizontal orientation change. Next step will be the gluing/shaping/smoothing. I need to verify that the prototype gives me the view I''m looking for, but I'm hopeful this will work out.

Wearing the newly painted bonnet

Mirror in position with the prototype bracket

Stacking segments to form the bracket

[pharriso]

Car looks great, glad you are getting it out & enjoying it.

I think that mirror is going to look awful "Heavy"...

[steve lyle]

Car looks great, glad you are getting it out & enjoying it.

I think that mirror is going to look awful "Heavy"...

Is "heavy" good, or bad? Asking for a friend.