Howdy Alpines:
I had mentioned, a couple of weeks ago that my Series V and its
Strombergs (I assumed) were sputtering and hesitating from around
2500-3000 RPM. Messing about with the car yesterday I discovered that
the piece that attaches the front carb throttle bar with the rear carb
(the piece you loosen when you "synch" the carbs) had come loose a bit.
The result was the rear carb was barely operating off of its idle
position so I basically was running on one carb. It's amazing that the
car did as well as it did that way.
I tightened down the throttle pieces and re-synched the carbs (they were
just about right as it was), and today, in 90 degree weather, took it
out for a serious drive. Miles on the freeway plus lots of stop and go
city driving could not induce the car to "miss" anymore. It of course
accelerates much, much better (actually feels pretty powerful through
third gear between 3000-4500 RPM) and was just generally a lot of fun to
drive again. Now I'm debating if I need to do the changeover to the
Weber 38/38DGAS carb I was going to do. I might still do it later, for
more HP.
Of course, with that solved for the moment, my next job to tackle is
engine cooling. The car does not overheat, but at freeway speeds under a
load, temp. gradually goes up nearing 2/3 (not quite, though) of the way
over on the guage, exceeding my own comfort level. I've had the guage
tested and it is, amazingly, dead on accurate (the needle straight up
indicating 180 degrees). When I head down a long hill, temp. goes back
to slightly below the middle of the guage, where it should be. (I'm
running a 160 degree thermostat for the summer). The cooling system
itself seems to be in good shape so I'm going to take a roll of duct
tape and close up all those holes and crevices in front of the car where
air gets into the engine compartment without going into the radiator
(horn holes, the gap above the radiator, etc.) and see what happens.
I've heard this forces more air through the radiator. I need to address
this as I plan on adding A/C in the next few months.
Lastly, I've got a rattle in the driver's door that's driving me more
nuts than I already have been. I'm going to pull the door panels and see
what's back there. I know when I've looked in the past the plastic
sheets are completely deteriorated and I think this is where why rain
came in a few months ago and left an inch of water on the floorbards.
I'm sure the rest of the rubber and trim inside is just as bad, causing
the rattles, so I guess I'll be spending a bit more on some new parts.
P.S.....I fixed the trunk lock a couple of weeks ago (I installed the
new trunk lid piece and took the lock apart and re-tightened
things...the internal nut had come loose). So far, the trunk has not
popped open once so I'm hoping I've solved this one for good.
Thanks again to everyone for the tips you posted on the trunk and the
engine misses.
Steve Sage
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 11:01:21 CDT