Scarlet is finally up and running again. The problem was not the
distributor or timing or carburetor. After doing some checking I found the
number one cylinder was not firing.
Therefore, I swapped plugs from another cylinder that did fire and swapped
plug wires. The plug wire swap was over kill because I had determined by
pulling the wire off and inserting a bolt into the wire and touching it to
the block that I was getting spark that far. Neither of these solved the
problem. I checked the ground strap on the motor mount that was fine.
The problem ended up being a broken washer under the head of the bolt
between the exhaust and intake manifolds on the number one cylinder. I
found this because I was down to the point of thinking something had blocked
the flow to cylinder one and was starting to pull the manifold. When I put
the socket on the bolt the washer fell off.
My first thought was no it could not be that simple, but I figured, it could
not hurt to put another washer on, tighten it up, and start it. Low and
behold, it worked after the engine was started. I pulled the number one wire
off and it was obvious. I stopped it and re-started it several times and
each time it ran on all four cylinders. So I took it for a drive and other
than having to adjust the mixture, the car ran fine.
Stephen F. Bauserman
67 Morgan 4/4
83 Mercedes 300SD
96 Cherokee Country
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