Hi List,
You guys are great - thanks so much for your willingness to help. Lots of
good ideas to try, and I'm actually looking forward to giving it another
shot.
Answers for some of you - I'm in Austin, TX. I have a great mechanic here,
but he's more partial to SU's and I'm getting short on funds! At last check
he's leaning towards your direction, Bill, that I'm dealing with bad rings,
but we haven't done the compression test that you suggested. To Chris:
great ideas - Thanks! When I first got the car the Catalytic converter was
glowing cherry red, so we chiselled out the ceramic from the canister - it's
completely removed. Too bad, that would have been a good fix. But, since I
will probably have to pull the exhaust manifold to get at the &^%$* freeze
plug, I may a good opportunity to see if I get the improvement that Peter
suggests.
Rich, I'll take a closer look at the emission scheme and get back to you. I
fairly sure (without the car in front of me) that there is only one vacuum
line connected to the underside of the carb, the one that goes to the
distributor advance. The upper vacuum port on the carb is capped, as are
all the ports on the manifold. The hoses between the valve cover, carb and
charcoal canister are all intact (and very oily).
I need to beg, borrow and scrounge the necessary tools for some of these
ideas. I'll keep you posted!
Thanks a lot,
Jeff
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