The main task for this month is to get the car mechanically finished and the engine started. To achieve this I’ve fitted an original fuel pump I bought from eBay. Had the exhaust manifolds shot blasted and painted them silver. I’ve continued working on the engine bay wiring harness and I’ve also fitted an overdrive inhibitor switch I finally managed to obtain. Although the exhaust is not finished my impatience finally got the better of me and I decided it was time to start the engine.
A battery was connected to the car and the fuel pipe was placed into a petrol can instead of having to fit the petrol tank. Before starting the engine the spark plugs were removed and a couple of squirts of oil were placed into each piston. The engine was then turned over till a slight increase was seen on the oil pressure gauge. The spark plugs were then refitted ready for the engine to be started. The ignition system was made live and the engine turned over and it almost instantly spluttered and backfired slightly. My father who was helping me decided that the ignition must be too far advanced so the distributor was loosened. While I turned the car over my father manually twisted the distributor to adjust the timing. To my surprise the engine started within a few seconds of me turning it over. I’m still amazed how easily the engine started as I can still remember spending several hours a couple of years ago trying to start my MGB engine for the first time.
Although the engine started really easily a number of faults were found, the most serous was my brand new water thermostat was not opening. This was discovered because after running the engine for five minutes the water was still not flowing through the radiator. At this point we were not sure what the fault was but the engine was stopped to investigate. The thermostat was removed and placed into a cup of boiling water. This should have caused it to open but it stayed closed. The temporary solution was to run the engine without the thermostat. The engine was restarted and ran for 10 minutes. No other faults were found with the engine but the paint on the exhausts manifolds started to smoke and then it started to bubble and crack. So much for the paint I used being suitable for exhaust. It would have also been nice to set up the carburetor but this will not be possible till I get an air filter fitted to the carburetor.