Holy hell she runs:
https://twoheelers.tumblr.com/post/159961811449/she-livesI spent 3 plus weeks scraping as much rust out of the motor as possible. Ran diesel through a couple of times, cleaned all of the rust particles out of the pan, cleaned the motor again etc.
Last week, I decided it was as clean as it was going to get, and put the oil pan back on tight (on the old gasket) and filled it with new oil. I poured oil all over the top while filling. I put the rod panel back on with a new gasket, and buttoned up all of the dangly things that were laying around. Left the valve cover off so I could watch for oil.
My father randomly came by one day soon after and offered to help me start it. After recovering from shock, I called in to work, and we tinkered all day. Took the carb apart and banged and tapped and blew to try and get all of the moving parts working, without doing a rebuild. I noticed that the gasket had a chunk missing, and had for a while, so I am hoping that was the idle issue the truck had when parked. We took the starter apart, removed the dead scorpion, and my father cleaned it up. Huge difference in power after. Did some tests, and determined that the coil was bad, so we replaced it, and a couple of rat chewed wires.
Put some fuel in the bowl, squirted the tube, tried to start, nothing. Blew up a battery in my fathers face, but the truck would not start. After hosing him off, we tried more fiddling, turned the distibutor, choked the carb, nothing. Took all the plugs out and cleaned them, cleaned the points, put it all back together. Nothing. My father said that it wanted to start, but the motor was not spinning fast enough, and we would have to tow it. We spent the rest of the day trying to prime the brakes. The master cylinder cap was cross threaded and I almost could not get it off, and there was dust blowing around in the reservoir. Luckily for my life, the sun went down before we built enough pressure.
So this weekend, I went back to the original dead motor paper and read through it a couple more times, to sort of re calibrate. In my ignorance I assumed that when I pulled the distributor out, it could only go back in one way because of the slot on the oil pump, but I decided to test that out. With some private message help from forum members, I found the bb on the flywheel (I had been looking on the harmonic balancer), painted a white stripe on it, shined a light through the hole by the starter, and turned the motor by hand from underneath until they lined up. I could just see the shadow by squinting and looking up through the the bell housing while rotating the flywheel. Got out, checked, read some things, got some more PM advice, decided that I was 180 degrees off. Spun the motor one more time. Piston was high on number one, both rods were loose to spin, valves looked like they were supposed to...distributor was pointing at #5.
So, talked to various people in real life and on the forums. That involved drinking, so my mechanic day ended. Sunday, I took the distributor out again, and spun the oil pump by drill. Oil came out of the holes on some rocker arms, leaked a bit where the the feeder tube comes out of the block, but the drill never tried to jerk out of my hands as described on the tech paper. I lined the distributor back up properly to #1, turned it clockwise until the points closed, turned it counter clockwise until they started to open, and tightened the clamp (per this forums advice on another thread). I then spent eh rest of the day hunting for a sparkplug to replace the one I cracked, and rigging up the temporary gas tank. I was also killing time hoping for my father to come by. That day ended.
Yesterday, my cousin/uncle with the shop down the hill where I did the lift kit on the Jeep stopped by. I conned him into helping me start it. I brought him up to speed on my timing adventures, he agreed it looked correct. We put the plugs back in, checked the firing order, abandoned my leaky gas tank setup, siphoned directly out of a gas can, choked the carb by hand, and.... it started. The most beautiful sound ever. She died once, and we fired again, this is the video I posted. No oil pressure built, so I killed it and ended the firing for now. I pulled the oil filter, which looks to never have been changed before, and put the reservoir back in without a filter. His advice was to see if oil flowed, then drain everything after verifying pressure, or seepage at the rocker arms. That is todays adventure if I am not rescuing cows from a forest fire.
So, thank you to all who helped. A lot. I realize that the motor is probably junk, and will probably sieze soon anyway, but for someone who has never worked on cars before, this was a powerful experience. I am very much looking forward to all of the next steps, even if it includes an engine rebuild.
And, if anyone is still reading, I have a question about the oil pressure. Stupid I am sure, but.... Is it possible to have the distributor in far enough to spin from the cam gears, but not far enough to slip into the oil pump slot? It felt like it seated, but I don't have any experience to know what I am feeling. How much shaft is supposed to be exposed on the distributor coming out of the motor?
Thanks
