May 19, 2005

Thursday Car Blogging

The saga continues, but I'm a lot closer than when I started out.

For a little motivation, I put the grille back on. *Hopefully* it won't have to come off before the project is over with (if you know anything about what I'm talking about and having to remove the radiator, you know what I mean).

This past weekend I actually got the vehicle running (the engine that is)...at least for a little bit....

Here's how things went last weekend (over the period of two days):

-attach manifold
-remove manifold
-search for correct bolts
-attach manifold
-remove manifold
-search for right size bolts for exhaust attachment
-attach manifold again
-clean carb, put carb on
-attempt to figure out firing order for spark plug attachment
-check timing
-spray starting fluid into carb
-eventually get the vehicle cranked
-wonder why distributor is wobbling
-attempt to bleed clutch system
-determine that I have a big leak of brake fluid from slave cylinder
-spend a large amount of time trying to figure out why its leaking
-fret
-remove slave cylinder
-determine slave cylinder is not reusable
-attempt to figure out why distributor is wobbling
-remove distributor, remove distributor housing
-determine that the key the distributor goes into is in wrong
-determine distributor drive gear is 180 degrees off
-worry about taking oil pump off to get to gear
-fret
-check internet and determine that firing order can be changed on distributor to make up for reversed drive gear
-attempt to restart engine
-recheck firing order
-attempt to restart engine
-recheck firing order and timing
-fret
-attempt to restart engine
-engine wants to start, but by this point I've got to be somewhere else

And that, my friends, is typically how working on a British vehicle goes.

Since last weekend, I ordered the clutch slave cylinder, along with some tune-up parts for the distributor (distributor cap, condenser, points).

I'm hoping to do some work more tonight. We'll see how that goes.

Fore more Thursday Car Blogging, head over to Chris Wage's site. Oh, and last week he pointed to an article revealing that the MG brand may have a chance to live on. Read more here.

Comments:

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Speaking of the bolt-finding -- where do you go to get these?

I went to Home Depot when I was working on the radiator to get some new bolts and it was a royal bitch to find the ones I needed in their badly organized and very sparse selection of metric stuff..

Posted by: Chris Wage at May 19, 2005 01:49 PM

Well...for mine, all of the bolts are mostly small-threaded. Apparently some auto parts stores have a selection of bolts (both metric and standard), but when you have a British vehicle, you tend to accrue a large amount of random nuts and bolts that can work in various places.

For the Land Rover, I just have a big box full of 'em. And if it's something that doesn't require a small-thread, I just go dig through the other random box of bolts that resides in the shop where I'm working on the Land Rover.

There's also a cool alternative...I could just order a set of new bolts for the engine:
http://tinyurl.com/autu5

Posted by: Blake at May 19, 2005 02:00 PM

Interesting. I wonder if I could find the equivalent for a sentra.

Posted by: Chris Wage at May 19, 2005 03:25 PM