I spent a while today going over my car, mostly following the tips I was
given by you folks on tracking down my emissions problems.
Here's what I found:
- No vacuum leaks. I took an unlit propane torch and moved it
all over near the throttle shafts, hoses, etc. The engine speed never
once picked up. That, as far as I understand it, means I am not
suffering from vacuum leaks. Correct?
- The temperature compensators are working fine. I took off
the covers, inspected them and also check the operation of the internal
spring. No problems there.
- No problems with the choke being misadjusted. When fully
disengaged, the choke valves are fully seated.
- No tears or holes in the dashpot diaphragms. I popped off
both covers, took out the diaphragms and checked both for tears or
holes. No problems.
- Idle speed is erratic. I connected my dwell/tach (for the
first time in years) and found that the idle speed varies from 850 to
1000 RPM.
- Timing is very confusing. There are 2 timing marks on the
flywheel. One looks slightly deeper and wider than the other. The one
that is shallower looks to be about 4 degrees ahead of the first and
looks to have the remnants of some yellow paint in it. The timing is
set so that the second mark (not the one with yellow paint) is about 4
degrees ATDC. Not sure what that means :-).
- Dwell angle is 55. My book tells me it should be 35. That
doesn't seem right at all.
So, it seems I have some work to do on the car but I'm not exactly sure
where to start. Years ago I spent time trying to get this car running
right but work and other time consuming things eventually forced me to
throw in the towel and take it to a pro. Since then, I've gotten it
professionally tuned every couple years so it would pass emissions. As
a result, I never learned the proper sequence for tuning the car. I can
do and have done every thing else to this car, including stripping it
down to bare metal and rebuilding it from scratch but...I never learned
to tune it.
Any help or pointer on how to attack this problem would be great.
Thanks
Phil Beckman
73 TR6
Libertyvile, IL
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