Tired and Flamed

 Went out today to replace the cracked fuel line, which in any sane scenario is about a 90-second job, it's just a 5/16ths rubber fuel hose between a backflow valve and the intake of the fuel pump. Two clamps and boogedy boogedy let's go racing.

Apparently, I had installed the fuel pump before i put the manifold on, and the clamp on the line was facing into a blind corner where I could not get a screwdriver or a wrench or a pair of pliers or anything on it. In restrospect I probably could have applied more force to twist it around to where I could get at it, but the fuel pump itself is really easy to remove and I only tried a little until I figured I'd just take ten more minutes to take it off, replace the gaskets, put on the missing lock washers, and otherwise do it right. This I did. 

 

How nice. 

When all was properly and carefully reassembled, I went to start the car. Note "carefully". The fuel pump on this engine is the mechanical one, dead simple except that the pump lever can get stuck off to one side of the cam (run by an auxiliary cog and shaft off the timing belt) and miss out on all the cam action. I knew this and was as careful as I could installing it under the manifold with the hoses attached.

With all the fuel in the line having drained and the pump needing to prime, I got some carb cleaner to use as starting fluid and sprayed it fairly generously into the secondary. I cranked away and it caught and ran for a second, then died, and I sprayed some more and attempted to start it again. This time, it backfired and set the carb on fire, which immediately spread to the air filter pan. 

I'm not a carb expert at all, my other cars are all fuel-injected. But I know enough from episodes of Roadkill and old John Deakin columns on AVWeb that when there is an intake fire, you just keep cranking until it goes out. So I did not let off the starter, and the car didn't start, and the fire just stayed, burning off the extra carb cleaner, and I was starting to get a little anxious when it backfired again and shot burning carb cleaner or fuel out all over and things began to get really exciting. I jumped out and in a panic tried to blow it out, and then realized the whole side of the engine was on fire under the manifold and the oil residue was starting to burn. In the space of two or three seconds the flames began to mount and were now rising to about halfway up the hood. 

I ran back to the trunk to grab the fire extinguisher, and only when I got there did I realize I'd left the keys in the ignition. I darted back and grabbed them, opened the trunk, grabbed the fire extinguisher which is bungeed to the jack mount, and the bungee was tangled around the pin and the extinguisher mount. I managed finally to get it free, yanked the pin while running back to the front where the fire was smoking blackly and gave it a half-second burst which immediately put out the flames.  

All this probably took about 30 seconds. Except for the scorched emergency hood release cable which had been lying across the edge of the air filter pan, there did not appear to be any damage except to my ego. There was cornstarch all over the engine and carburetor  that I washed off with a hose. So the lesson here (which has not yet endeth) is that starting fluid is evil. 

I took the pump off again and tested it, and it pumped fine, so it was pretty obvious that the aforementioned cam bypass problem had occurred. I spent about two hours trying to get that stupid pump positioned correctly, but every time for some reason the lever ended up on the side of the cam. I finally took the hoses back off and tried it that way, put the hoses and clamps on by touch, and that did the trick. I guess some tension from the hoses made it hard to align the pump properly, and I ended up pretty much back where I should have started, getting the intake clamp lined up correctly to tighten down.  In retrospect I ignored a few key tenets - if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and starting fluid is pure malice. I could have probably gotten a pair of needlenose on the troublesome clamp and managed to turn it enough to get the screwdriver on it, but I got ambitious. 

I decided to keep the 13" BWAs and got two new tires shipped from online to install at the cheap red place. Yesterday, I waited there a ridiculously long time to mount and balance tires on two loose wheels, with an appointment and all. They also refused to mount one of the existing tires (not old and not worn out, although the other one had suffered from the bad alignment from the old A-arm on that side) on the spare rim. I ended up going to the tire shop down the street and paying them cash to mount and balance the spare, which was not only less than the red place but they did it in about 6 minutes. 

It also turns out that at some point some dolt who owns both Fiats and Mercedes mixed up Fiat and Mercedes lug bolts, which are different thread pitches, and this is likely the cause of my stripped left rear lug threads. I also had a bad one that had suffered abuse, but the threads chased up ok and I was able to torque it down. 

 

 

For the remaining stripped hole I'm going to try welding up the threads then re-drilling and tapping (it uses the same 12 x 1.25 size I got for the A-arm bolts, and the one tiny intellectual triumph to which I can lay claim in this whole debacle is that I got both the tap and the die in that size last weekend).

This whole weekend was ridiculous and I am fairly annoyed with myself and that tire chain, but all is well that ends well, the car did not burn down, and there was progress. So there it is.

Is that gasoline I smell?

 Drove the car to work yesterday, and while bombing down the freeway home I had the impression, as I have had before, that it was running rather rich. Subsequently a child by the school yelled at me that "the car smells really bad".  Rich, indeed, but it seemed to me that after fixing the filter, the carburetor is behaving a little more predictably, and I gave it a quick adjustment while it was still hot from the freeway. The mixture screw is out just under two turns, which seems right, but what do I know?

 Later today, I walked out of the house to get the mail and I could smell gasoline across the yard. There was a big puddle under the Spider, and on a quick look I found the fuel pump intake line had apparently cracked. Between this and the defective fuel filter, it could explain a lot, both the hard starting and the bad smells that so annoy the children. I just vise-gripped the line till I can repair it.

I decided to stick with the 13" BWAs on the car for simplicity and ordered a couple of new tires. One of the existing ones was a victim of the bad alignment, so I'll put the other one on the matching red rim I have for a spare.  

Intermovement

Now comes a period of inactivity. This weekend was a marathon but amazing things happened. The new control arms and tie rod ends make a LOT of difference, not to mention a proper alignment. It's a whole different car, no longer darting for the bushes when it sees a puddle, and it doesn't steer like a ship. It drives reasonably nicely and the new filter seems to have improved fuel flow. It seems to be running a little richer than before, so I wonder if the filter was always bad and I adjusted the carburetor with some restricted fuel flow going on.

Also the luggage rack got installed. I am not a fan of these racks installed on the Spiders, but they are at least slightly practical for things like a rally, and there were already holes in the boot lid for it.

I'll drive it to work this week and keep debugging it, but the front suspension and steering was a major tick on the to-do list. 

Threadliness is next to Godliness

New die arrived and the threads got cleaned up. Clean threads make a huge difference in one's quality of life.  

 While cleaning the forward stud, I realized someone else had had the same problem as I had with the aft stud spinning under torque. What I thought was a blob of tar or undercoating was someone's slag-weld job.

 

It's especially amusing because the forward stud is actually a bolt and you can reach the head of it pretty easily to hold it. Oh well. The lower A-arm bolted on with its shims, and then all the front suspension is done. (Recall I had done the starboard side previously, and due to my lack of skill it was a horrific job that I swore I would never do again, which is actually quite easy now. Don't be deterred.) 

A combination of a child, an old front tube bumper, and a couple of tires got me to the ~150 lbs needed on suspension preload, then tightened it all down. Glorious!

I noted previously that the car had become very hard to start and needed a kick in the bum from ether. This was unusual, as the carb rebuild is not very old, and it has started pretty quickly up until now. I cranked a while and then hopped out and began unscrewing the fuel line to the carb to see if it was getting fuel. As I jiggled the line where the (newish) fuel filter is mounted, it made some pretty jingle-bell noises. Since it's not even Halloween yet, I took the filter off and realized it had collapsed somehow and was not doing any sort of filtering at all, and potentially blocking fuel flow when the detached piece rolls around inside.

 

Replaced the filter (Autozone only had one carb filter in stock, which was eye-opening) and that seems to be better although we'll see what it does after sitting a while. 

A is for Aggravating

 I tackled the driver's side suspension. I did the passenger side a little while back, and it went okay. The replacement A-arms I got are not as good quality as the OEM ones, and the welding on the lower shock mount had failed immediately when I installed the shock on the passenger side. I had to jankily weld it up and while ugly, it's solid. 

 So, not wanting that to happen again, I preemptively booger-welded the lower A-arm, so it looked like the original and you can't tell which is which now.

Or maybe you can. At any rate, the grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't.

The top arm is easy, just remove the mounting bolt and the upper ball joint nut and pickle that baby off. This appears to be an original A-arm, as the ball joint is riveted on and the bushings are really trashed. 

 Of course problems ensued on the last nut on the bottom one. The spring mounts to the body at top and the lower arm at bottom, so my method here is not to use the compressor when disassembling, but jack up the lower arm to relieve the tension on its mount to the body, unbolt it, then lower the whole thing down and pop out the coil spring from its remaining tension (for which installation is NOT the reverse of removal). The aft nut however had been really beat upon, and the stud broke loose inside the cross member and just spun with the rusted beaten nut. 

The stud has a round head which I presume is tack-welded to the inside of the crossmember, or possibly it was a bolt with a rounded-off head, but at any rate it was round and there was no way to get a wrench on it. I have a trashed flat blade I use for various prying purposes and I hammered that in against the round head, which did not work....at first.

The nut would turn about a quarter turn before binding again and breaking the tension from the screwdriver. Each time I hammered it again and would get another quarter turn. This went on for a while, but the pattern held up and slowly I got the nut off. This was a joyous moment as I did NOT want to start cutting things, which is always nondeterministic. 

Eventually I got the A-arm off, and it was in worse shape than the top.

That bolt, however, is in bad shape and I don't want to put things back together without trying to salvage it. I don't have a die in its 12 x 1.25 size to clean up the threads, so I downed tools and went off to the orangey-colored hardware store to get one. They did not have one - in fact they had almost no taps or dies, just a few sizes in a kit that was not desirable. I tried the down-low blue place next with no better result, and then came home in annoyance and ordered one online. 

I went ahead and replaced the tie rod ends (tagliando di controllo!) and with a few minutes left, screwed on the rear panels by the back seat that hide the convertible top windows when it's folded down.  

So next steps, clean up that stud, install the bottom A-arm, tighten everything down, and take it for an alignment. Aligning this car is dead simple, but it uses shims for the camber, slipped in on the lower A-arm studs which somehow always seems to confuse people. 

The car was in an accident in the distant past, and had a front corner sloppily welded back on. It's holding, and is nothing really structural but I might try my hand at hammering this even and welding it (rather more neatly than my own other attempt on the A-arm).
 

...To the Present Day, 8 weeks to Go

 So, with all that, the current state of the car is not bad. Brakes good, tires fair, as Charlie Ryan says. It runs and drives, burns some oil but not a lot (and in a most shocking turn of events, it doesn't appear to drip any at all on the garage floor). It has a lot of rusty sharp corners in the interior.

I actually have no idea how far this rally goes. On paper it's about  600 miles, but LeMons being LeMons, I expect a lot more. So I probably should change the oil, as well as:

1. Adjust the valves;
2. Fix a stripped rear lug bolt; 
3. Replace the rusted A-arms, tie rod ends, and get an alignment;
4. Seat belts might be important;
5. Fix the wonky right turn signal
6. and get tires. Here is a dilemma...should I swap the Biturbo wheels back on for 14" tires or stick with the 13" BWAs? edit: BWAs it is.
7. New front brake pads - edit: Had a look and they are in good shape. 
8. Fix and adjust clutch cable;
9. Fix broken passenger door handle, that would be inconvenient otherwise. It is now very convenient.
10. Replace cracked driver's headlight;
11. Do all fluids:
1. Engine oil is ok
2. Radiator probably ok but may flush it anyway
3. Steering box oil
4. Transmission oil
5. rear diff oil
6. Grease everything in sight
12. Repack front wheel bearings
13. New plug wires and dizzy cap;
14. Install driving lights - I have some spare Bosch driving lights off old Mercedes and I expect they will help a lot. edit: EVEN BETTER -STAY TUNED
15. Fix exhaust leak 
16. Clean the spilled oil out of the trunk (for weight savings, of course) 
17. Check the A-arm bolts
18. seat covers!!!!! 

That's all I can think of at the moment. Timewise, I've got maybe 4 good weekends before Dec 4, as the others are taken up. The A-arms are going to be hard as I have never found a good spring compressor for the small springs in this car, and I hope the local shop knows how to adjust camber with shims.  

 

edit: Now it has seatbelts!

 

Time Passes....

 After just about exactly 14 years and a bunch of cars and kids and life events, we got the yen to race again (or rather, stopped having to change diapers and realized we had some free time) and decided to try the LeMons Lone Star/No-Start Rally. We wanted to do MSR, but race prep has changed in 14 years and the rally sounded like a lot of fun - if you can't have the LeMons you love, you love the LeMons you have. Or make lemon hand grenades, or something. 

 Pondering this over the summer, we of course figured we'd bring back the 81 Fiat Brava from previous races, which we still have and which still runs. It's been parked in the yard, looming mysteriously in the background of pictures through years of family gatherings and kids' ball games. 

 

After a few seconds' worth of further reflection though, it was just about an insurmountable task to get the Brava titled and roadworthy in the time we had available (also it was never roadworthy to begin with). I started the process to get a title for it anyway, but in the other corner of the yard it was hard to ignore a 1978 Fiat 124 Spider that I had picked up as a rolling chassis for parts and which turned out not to be rusty enough to sacrifice on the altar of Mercury so that my other cars might live. 

It had turned into a sink for all the extra parts I had lying around, and, while still abysmally incomplete, I had to assess what I was actually able to do in the time I had. When I got the Spider (a sad story that I won't go into here), it was a stripped chassis - had the side window glass, the convertible top frame, a short block, and the transmission. 

Someone had started thinking about working on it, but gave up. I had a spare 2-liter engine from a long-departed 1977 Spider that someone had crammed a carbed 1980 engine into hoping to make it go fast. Sadly not only was that year about the worst year for horsepower (turning out a whopping 86 rampant Italian ponies) but the car subsequently only went fast right into the scrapyard.  The engine was also not in great shape, with dings all over a piston from where someone dropped a washer into the intake, but it ran and it was what I had. 

But then someone turned up a 1972 1608cc engine which seemed ok and was far better on paper than the 2-liter (also, it would fit without swapping out the subframe which was different on the 2L cars, due to the taller block). I jumped on this and hauled it home. 

Easy choice there, and we put that one in with the existing transmission and a 32ADFA Weber from the 2L engine. Bonus with the 32ADFA was an automatic choke, and I think I prefer mechanical secondaries over the vacuum-operated secondary on the original 1608 carb. 

We also painted the gas tank, for speed.

The engine turned out to be worn but ok, and it lit off and ran fine (for a while). The transmission that had come with the car turned out to be noisy. As it happened, it made far too much noise for the number of gears remaining in available to use, for sure. Second gear was conspicuous by its absence, but it was driveable with the high-revving 1608 and so I left it there while debugging the rest of the car. 

The debugging included catching on fire at one point, and the steering column falling off, but no permanent damage was done, and we obtained much satisfaction by fixing the brakes and light. (and generally tracing out the rest of the wonky wiring, much of which dead-ended into weird emissions devices that no longer existed). 

 

 

I swapped out the Maserati Biturbo wheels it came with to a set of BWAs I had (which as it happened was the reason I'd bought the 1977 donor car with the trashed 2L I was lucky enough not to have to use).  

 The 1608 then blew the head gasket (not original, as it happened...)

 ...but it's not super hard to fix on these cars, and fortunately it was not overheating, just making forbidden mayonnaise. So the head wasn't warped. 

Someone had, however, dropped the head pretty hard on the locating dowel in the block. This just helps prove the adage that the worst thing about cars are the previous owners. 
 

I figured this wasn't much worse than the factory stamp in the mating surface, so carried on.

And here things stood in the summer, with 5 months to go.