Hello, All.
I need some help diagnosing a sound - a nasty one that makes me not want
to run the engine very much, and wish I could find an auto doctor who
makes house calls.
It's a sharp, metallic, scraping sound that is proportional to engine speed.
It hasn't been the happiest roadstering summer . . . I had a fun ride
with my daughter in June to see the Prairie Home Companion show near
Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, but on the way home, it was apparent that my
alternator was giving out. I got towed home, pulled the alternator, and
took it to a parts house where, after hunting around in a couple of
different catalogs, the guys concluded it was probably the original.
The brushes were shot. I bought a GM single-wire alternator, which has
been working well.
After that, I decided it was finally time to install the distributor I
got from Gary Boone, and the first time I fired up the car, it sounded
fabulous, idling smoothly at 800 RPM for the first time in my experience.
I decided to check the timing, just to confirm I had got it right, and
realized that I couldn't see the notches, like I expected. I figured I
had gotten something wrong, but took it out driving anyway, to see how
it did under load. It didn't do so well. Beside sounding rough, I
discovered that I had lost coolant, which had me scared. A bit of
coolant somehow hit the battery, which was confusing.
The next morning, after making sure it had enough coolant, I started it
up, and heard the metallic sound. I had wanted to take it to Japanese
Car Day at the Museum of Transportation, in Brookline, MA, but quickly
realized it was sick.
Talking it over with some of the DRONE guys, I tried to make sense of
the clues. I concluded that my water pump had gone out, and that maybe
the fan had blown some coolant on to the battery. Perhaps the metallic
sound was the pump bearing, whining at me. Having installed the
alternator myself, I thought I had probably tightened the belt too much,
ruining my water pump. I ordered a new one, and just finished installing
it this afternoon.
While I had the radiator out, and before I put the pump back on, I had
plenty of room to get at the crank, so I followed the advice of someone
on the list for finding the top of the compression stroke by putting my
finger over the first plug opening and feeling for air pressure as I
turned the engine. That seemed pretty simple, so I found the top, left
the crank at about 16 degrees, and adjusted the distributor so that the
points of the reluctor and stator met each other.
Then I cleaned up the fan, and made sure the alternator belt had a more
relaxed fit. I carefully put everything back together, and snugged up
the radiator and fan cowl, and put the coolant back in.
With bated breath, I pushed the car so that its back end was out of the
garage door, and fired it up. Immediately I heard that awful, metallic
scraping sound, as though I had a metal fan blade hitting the cowl. I
know the cowl doesn't interfere with the fan, and it's a plastic fan,
anyway, but that's what it sounded like. It leaves a sick feeling in
the stomach.
What do you suppose I did?
Dreadfully yours,
John
1970 2000 (SRL311-14061)
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John Stromgren
Portsmouth, NH
603-431-5172
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