One more pic

Never mind Swiss cheese manifold, Swiss cheese car

Another week thrash on Buzz Saw. With the occasional interruption for school x-mas parties and birthday parties, i got a good bit done. 

- moved peddle assembly forward 2", shortened 2" .. so I can drive the car
- installed gas tank with gas gauge, fuel pump and filter
- installed remote oil filter and cooler
- installed seat belt anchors
- fixed steering column
- final rendering of colors and graphics
- raise rear shock mounts 3"... otherwise it would bottom out
-  supper dupper pretzel exhaust re worker

interior

got some work done on the interior.. finished up the door panels, and installed the rear panels...  that's original carpet and sound deadening in the rear...

heard tom took the week off and worked on the buggy... no proof though...

swiss cheese manifold...

so, i think the more i seal up the manifold, the more holes are made/found...  ran it on wednesday and it was idling up and down again, then noticed some liquid on the fan housing behind the manifold, stuck my finger on the backside of the manifold and it was all wet...

so, i think there are weak spots all over and every time i seal one up, it blows another hole in it some place else... so, i bought a manifold on the samba and i guess i'll replace it at some point...

here's some shots of the damage area from the left side of the engine near spark plug number 4 down the back of the manifold... the arrows point to where the holes were...

so, of course, i slathered it in JB Weld...

ran it on sunday and it settled into a decent idle again...  i am sure it's only a matter of time until it blows another hole out at a weak spot... 

however, i did get it out of the driveway and down the street...  i adjusted the brakes a few weeks ago, and they are better (the right front doesn't lock up when i tap the brakes)...  the clutch seems to be better, no slippage in 3rd...  the tires are rubbing on the headlight buckets in sharp turns, but i expected that... might raise the front a tad...

JB weld rules... and i am pretty smart...

so, used some JB weld to try and seal up the whole in the manifold...  here's some before and after...

so, not the prettiest fix, but i'll throw some flat black paint on it so it doesn't stand out... 

on the plus side, it seems to have helped... i wonder if sealing the manifold to the head blew open that little hole a little more so i could see it... anyway, it seems to be running better, still idles up and down, but then settled into a pretty steady idle, but it was still too fast for my liking...

i couldn't get it to idle down, and it looked like the accelerator cable was too tight, so i loosened it up, and bingo!! sort of... 

the best thing was after that, i was able to make it stall out by turning in the mixture screw!!!  it was actually doing something!!!  i guess the accelerator cable was too tight, just bypassing the idle pathway in the carb... so, i adjusted that, then adjusted the idle screw to get it close, so i think i have the carb adjusted pretty well now...

like i said, once i let it run for a bit, it settled into a decent idle... i'll start over with checking the valve clearance, timing, etc, and make sure its all on...  then i need to adjust the brakes (they drag bad, and may need to bleed them), then i can make sure the clutch is good to go...

anyway, here's some proof...

so, there's good news, and bad news...

well, here's some more pics from the clutch job....  the good news is that i adjusted the clutch cable and now have the correct free-play in the pedal and can get it into gear...  i managed to move it around in the driveway, but didn't have time to take it out and see how the clutch slippage is...

now for the bad news...  when i had the engine running, it was doing the erratic idle thing worse than ever...  revving up and down a lot, all on its own...  again, sounds like an air leak, but we replaced the manifold gaskets... 

then i noticed this....

liquid bubbling out of seemingly a hole in the manifold...  now that i think about it though, that lower tube should just be the preheater pipe...  so, would that make a issue??

i tried to smell the liquid, and it didn't smell like gas to me, but not really sure what else it could be...  unless the condensation on the manifold under the carb made its way down there.... either way, there's air escaping to make the bubbles... 

might just throw some J B weld on it and see if that helps...

WHOA !

fixing things and breaking more things...

so, pulled apart the pedal cluster to see if the clutch cable was still attached at that end...  and it was... so just put that back together...

so, it turns out that the nut on the tranny end of the cable was stripped, since i put a new nut on it and it seems to be back where it was... i'll order a new correct nut soon...

so, with that i tried to get it out of the driveway and did... it seems that the clutch is still going to slip if i get into 3rd (i only got into second, but it was engaging really high), and engine is now running about the way it was like 2 years ago: fine, but i have to set the idle high...  so, really i am back to where i was like 2 years ago... sweet...

oh, and maybe i took a bad angle on the driveway (wasn't as sharp as i have done it previously) or maybe the car has settled a bit, but i hit the jack tubes on the driveway on the way out and HARD on the way in...  took a nice chunk out of the driveway and broke the jack point on the driver side...

here's the passenger side for reference...
 

it doesn't look any lower than it did, but who knows... 

broken...

after all the highs from the other day (see previous post) i had a bit of a low today...  adjusted the clutch pedal free-play again to try to fix the slippage... then was about to take it out of the garage, pushed the clutch pedal down... and pop...  the clutch pedal was sitting on the fire wall...

awesome, not sure what i did, broke the clutch cable, or if it popped off the pedal... either way, it'll be a pain to fix, and i go back to work next week... 

again, awesome...

progress??

so, put the tank back in and filled it with the gas stuff...  disconnected the fuel line from the "new" fuel pump the the carb and turned the engine over by hand...  this produced a strange noise, that i figured out was the fuel pump pushing air...

once the gas got there, it squirted out a goodly stream of fuel!!!  the old pump never did that, so that's a step forward...

couldn't try to start it since astarko was sleeping...

today i tried to fire it up, and bang, it turned over once and fired right up....  it still doesn't idle quite right, but it runs MUCH smoother than before, no loping up and down...

i still can't get it to idle the way all the book say, and the mixture screw doesn't seem to effect engine speed the way it should...  but at least it's running...

nap time fule pump replacement

snuck out during nap time and replaced the fuel pump...  hopefully i'll be able to hook the gas tank back up and try it out next week...

Every one wont leave me alone. This car has a cult following or something

Mocked up front hoop / windshield. 

Mocked up rear hoop with supports to subframe.

cold compression...

so, tried a compression test, but didn't want to put the tank back in and fill it, so i did it on a cold engine (i know, wrong procedure)...  i was expecting low numbers with the cold engine and all, but was going to compare between cylinders...  i did 2-3 checks on each..

here's what i got:
1: 107, 110
2: 95, 102, 105
3: 105, 110
4: 112, 110, 105

i was expecting lower numbers for 3 and 4 given the appearance of the spark plugs this time and the last time i changed them (black, oily looking), but they seem fine.. hopefully i did the test right...

anyway, i guess a teardown might not be necessary... going to order a rebuilt fuel pump to try while i rebuild mine...

we can rebuild it...

opened up the inside of the tap, looked amazingly clean, given that i doubt its ever been taken apart before...  didn't bother to replace the rubber piece inside since the original looked great and fit better than the new one... 

what a pain to put back together though....

minus one gas tank

ok, took the gas tank out today... it wasn't textbook, but it's out... there may have been some gas spilage in the process...

so, the good news is that when i pulled the gas line off, there was a "healthy" flow from the tank through the valve that i thought might have been part of the problem...  so that should be fine, but since i had it out, i am going ahead and rebuilding it... 

the "filter" (mesh screen) had some funk on it, but wasn't that bad.  you can see how it works with it off: normally, the gas flows through the tall tube.  when you "run out of gas" you can turn the lever and let gas flow through the short tube (which still has gas above it) for some extra gas to get you to the station...

actually was really clean under the rubber cover, but i cleaned it up, and will take it apart and replace the inside...

i only had carb cleaner to clean with, but it seemed to do a good job so far...

i'll check the fuel line from there to the pump next, and do a compression check.  if the compression is off, i may just get the WW okrasa kit, since i'll have to pull the heads anyway....