The weekend's progress on the M - She's Alive!


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Posted by Will (in MI) on Sunday, October 09, 2005 at 8:23PM :

Started out the day making out the shopping list of the needed items, life fuel & vacuum hoes, oil line and plugs for the manifold holes.

Then with the oil line in place and no plugs, or electrical, I proceeded to crank it over and make sure the oil flows. Well, no pressure. I even watched inside the oil filler at the rockers and no oil flowing (in case my mechanical gauge was bad).

So I pulled the distributor, and all looked well, the drive gear and shaft seemed to be properly seated as the distributor installation was good. So I pull the oil pump gear/shaft. Now for anyone who has had to do this on a Mopar, it's not easy, but out she came. I quickly picked up the old one out of the left over pile, and it was a good match, So why no oil pressure? Frustrated, I mowed the lawn.

New Plan, cut the gear teeth off the old shaft and use a drill (850 RPM) to dive it and see what I get. If I had had a length of hex shaft I could of used it, but no since in making a trip to the store when you have an old junk part that you can convert. I drop it in and play with it, and yep, it's engaging the oil pump. So next comes the drill with a length of all thread with the end modified to match the end of the distributor.

I crank for a few seconds, and still no oil pressure. So I give a few more seconds, still nothing. By now I'm getting really worried. Here I have all this work, and the engine installed and ready. I was supposed to be in WV this weekend with the completed truck (had I meet my original time line). So I figure since I'm not cranking anything but the oil pump, and if it's bad no harm done, so I spin it some more. Wait the sound of a little load on the drill, I stop and glance at the gauge. Yes, Pressure, so I spin it some more. 65 PSI, not bad, so I let it run some more to make sure there is oil thought out the system.

Now to pull the old shaft and drop the good one back in. I made sure to stop the engine at the timing mark, with the rotor pointing properly, so the reinstallation went good. Now I turned the engine over and, yes pressure while cranking.

Now to install plugs, and wire in (temporally) the fuel injection and ignition. With all that done, and the fuel line connected and into a gas can, it's time to let her breath.

Well, no go. I had spark, and fuel, but only a few pow's and no run. Ok, I recheck everything, and it's all good. SO my only idea left it. timing. I hook up the timing light and spin it over, and it's good. Now what?

The only thing lift I can figure is I must have it 180º out of time on the distributor. But how, I was careful when I built the engine, and when I pulled the distributor and reinstalled it, but there was nothing else left to check. So I grab the wrench, and in less than a minute I had it out rotated and back in.

So here we go i cross my fingers, and give it a try. After a few moments of cranking she starts to hit and finally purrs to life!

She's Alive! Yes, the relief that must have been seen on my face.

No coolant in it yet, so I can't run it for long, but she sounds strong and is sweet music to my ears and heart.

Now to get the correct upper radiator hose, and the proper water temperature sending unit, and I can get some real run time. It's been a great weekend, now with the wedding next weekend, I won't get mush done, but She's Alive!

Will



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