Hi List!
I'm really floundering on this '79 Midget 1500 (CA model, emission stuff
stripped), and could really use some guidance. I bought this car last year
for my fiance, but it's been very difficult to keep it on the road for any
length of time. If anyone has ANY insight, I would be very grateful. I'm
not very experienced, but willing to try almost anything that involves more
effort than money. But, since 'trying anything' got me into this, I'd
gladly pay to get this resolved!
The most outstanding problems incude:
Hard (or impossible) to start when hot. If I raise the air piston a little
it will start and then run OK. No power.
No top end past 50 MPH. Problem seems to have cropped up after sitting for
a couple months, but that's hard to pin down. Rebuilt carb, no change. New
cap, rotor, wires, no change. Fooled around with Timing, bypass valve,
mixture. Got worse, of course - should have left well enough alone.
Auto-choke is clean and 'seems' to be working ok. Electric fuel pump.
Plugs foul VERY quickly at idle - sooty - blowing black smoke out exhaust.
Oil looks prehistoric, and that will be changed this weekend in attempt to
keep it inside the engine for a while.
Oil leaking from everything rubber (mostly front oil seal).
Coolant leaking from at least two rusty freeze plugs.
Pulls hard to left on braking (front right side failed?). Started when I
replaced both front flex lines (again, should have left these alone . . . )
Left rear sags (frame twisted, DPO hit 'a little curb').
The biggest problem for me is the carb (ZS). After I rebuilt the carb,
which went fine, the car ran a little better but still had the same
'plateau' at the top end. So, I started to tweak stuff and never recovered.
I looked up John Twist's great article on these carbs, and have gone over
it several times looking for some clues but I'm still missing something
(like brain cells). The mixture is cranked fully counter clock-wise but
still seems to be running rich. Is there a good starting point for the
small screw and the white nylon hex nut (fine idle??). Any ZS owners out
there who might have some time to talk me through this?
Thanks in advance,
Jeff
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