Did a few more tests this weekend on the engine:
disconnected water pump - made no difference
checked engine mounts - they look quite old, but not past it, not so bad
that the engine would make a 'clunk' when stepping on the gas anyway.
The clunk noise is reproducable when stepping on the gas quite sharply
when stationary. The car also struggles to idle with the choke fully
out.
I checked for play at the crankshaft pulley, levered it with a couple of
socket extension bars - the play is minimal, certainly less than a
millimetre.
Anyway I am pretty sure that something is wrong in the engine somewhere,
which means it would have to come apart anyway so I may as well put my
spare (dolly) engine in instead. I spent Sunday gunking, washing and
painting the new engine blue, looks very nice now! And I asphyxiated
myself with gunk!
Can any of you think of anything else that may be the problem? Only
other think I can think is that the exhaust is making the clank noise,
but the car struggles to idle and makes a regular clank, clank, clank
when driving along, which doesn't suggest the exhaust. It's nothing at
the rear end of the car as the clank can occur when stationary, and can't
be anything to do with the front suspension/brakes (which were recently
replaced). All of this leaves the only common factor being the engine,
just that I still don't know exactly what's wrong with it (just that it
is probably a very bad thing that will be expensive and probably cheaper
just to stick a new engine in).
In the new engine the inlet ports on the cylinder head look to be a bit
rusty on the inside, and the face where the gasket goes has some surface
rust. Do I need to clean up the rust on the ports? How can I clean the
surface rust without getting more rust into the inlet ports?
cheers,
John & Saskia (1977 Spit 1500)
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