The Road to Drag Week 2016 - Old School Style

[thatdarncat]

Just for FYI purposes, MSD makes a shielded pickup wire. Part #8862.

https://www.msdperformance.com/products/accessories/harnesses/parts/8862

Hope you get the problem solved.

[cjshaker]

Thanks, Kevin. I wasn't aware of that until Todd said something. I think I'll pick one up just to stay on the safe side.

[cjshaker]

Well as it turns out, the wires weren't the issue, at least not the whole issue.
I drove the car back to work during lunch yesterday, to get some break-in miles on the gears, and it wouldn't start after work. I messed with the wiring, checking stuff for about an hour, and made no progress. By that time the battery was done, so I called the wife to bring my jump pack and some spare parts.

I had replaced this pickup just last year, so it wasn't my first thought as to being the problem, especially since I got a good ohm reading on it. But I was down to it being the only thing I hadn't tried replacing. So I pulled the distributor out and was going to replace the pickup. While I did that, my boss was leaving for home and stopped to talk to me and see if he could help, which he couldn't. Of course, being sidetracked while talking to him and working at the same time, I had a brain lapse and didn't note where the rotor was pointed. So after he left, and after replacing the pickup, I pulled #1 plug and went to find TDC. Luckily, being at work, I had the necessary tools. I had my wife stick her finger in the plug hole while I turned it over with a breaker bar.  Bless her heart, she knows nothing about cars, and I could see the fear in her face, not knowing what to expect. Since I needed a laugh, I didn't tell her what to expect either. Needless to say, it was obvious when it came up on the compression stroke, as she jumped back with eyes as big as a silver dollar. We both laughed about that.....well, I did anyway.

So I got it back in, buttoned everything back up and it fired right away. I didn't have a timing light and that's when those distributor marks came in really handy. It drove back home fine, but I didn't get back till about 7:00. So I let it sit while I worked on getting the trailer hookup wired, occasionally starting it and letting it run for a bit to see if the problem would reoccur, which it didn't. I hope that was the issue, but again, only time will tell. I HATE intermittent problems because they're so darn hard to track down. Hopefully, that's the last of this.

Since the wife didn't seem interested in making me supper for some reason, I heated some leftovers up and relaxed the rest of the night.

[jayb]

I'll bet it was the pickup.  Your wife sounds like a trooper, take her out for a nice dinner when you get back from Drag Week.  I know from experience that this helps smooth things over 

[cjshaker]

I already have plans of treating her to the best prime rib in the state, tomorrow night. She actually loved being able to help, because she usually can't. She is a saint for putting up with my car hobby and likes to be involved as much as she can.

[Stangman]

I hope that the pickup was the problem. About the calvert shocks I just experienced the same problem they made me measure from the shock plate to the upper shock mount where it goes through the floor at ride hieght and it was exactly 16 inches. They sent me shocks that onlt had 1 inch of travel, I called them and they sent me the shocks for 65-66 mustangs and now I have 2.5 inches, by the way most know but I have a 67 fastback. They said it was either one or the other, and my luck of course it was the other. Car is looking good it wont be long now   

[cjshaker]

From what I've seen and heard, the shocks they recommend for '67-'70 Mustangs are always too long. But they have excellent customer service, so it's never an issue exchanging them. 16" is pretty much exactly what mine measured also.

[Jim Comet]

After looking at the shielded wire photo from Kevin's link, I remembered that I had to replace the connector on both my MDS billiet distributor and the wire that runs to the 6AL box. It was giving me intermittent no start issues due to poor connection. After replacing it, it never happened again. Jim

[cjshaker]

I think the ignition problem is gone now. I spent last night and today going over the valves, putting in new plugs and valve cover gaskets and verifying the timing. I also took the carbs off and made some changes to them.



I had them tuned pretty good for low speed, mid throttle, transition and WOT (at least I thought), but the idle left a bit to be desired. You had to 'blip' the throttle about every 10-15 seconds to keep it from dying. It wasn't a problem because I never sit in traffic long, but I wanted to cure that for the DW drive. Some adjustment of the secondary throttle plates and re-tuning the primaries took care of that. But what I also found was that my primaries were only opening up about 3/4 or a little over, from full open. How that changed, I have no idea, because I adjusted that when I put the engine in and first got it running and tuned. I don't know how long its been that way, but when I took it for a shake down run today, I could feel the difference when I gave it a short shot of WOT. I don't want to run it hard until I feel the gears are broke in, so It's only been very short hits to see how it's running. Should be interesting to see how much of a difference it makes in my MPH with the gears....and having full throttle

I spent the rest of today cleaning up all the wiring from messing with the ignition, removing some unnecessary wiring and tucking everything away from the clutch and brake pedals to avoid having any problems with something getting pinched or shorted. Other than wiring for the trailer, a fluids change and quick clean up, it should be ready.

[Stangman]

Curious as to what you did to secondary plates and I also notice were you have you temp sender is that accurate in that spot.or is it fine cause you have a  regular engine fan that spot won't work right for a temp sender for electric fans, or at least that's what I thought because I wanted to put sender there and thought not to

[cjshaker]

Curious as to what you did to secondary plates and I also notice were you have you temp sender is that accurate in that spot.or is it fine cause you have a  regular engine fan that spot won't work right for a temp sender for electric fans, or at least that's what I thought because I wanted to put sender there and thought not to

My engine doesn't make a lot of vacuum due to the cam, so the venturi signal is weak at idle. To get enough air into the engine for it to idle, I needed to have the primaries open too far, which gets into the transition circuit and makes the idle mixture screws almost useless. There's an adjustment screw underneath the carb base, on the secondaries shaft, which is used to keep them from closing tight and sticking. They can be used to open the secondary throttle plates slightly, allowing more air into the engine at idle. So to remedy my problem, I opened the secondaries a little bit so that I could close the primaries which makes the idle circuit function again.  In my case, I started with 2 1/2 turns open, but that was too much and the engine would not idle down far enough. I had to take them back off and back them off 1 turn, for a total adjustment of 1 1/2 turns open. That cured my weak acting mixture screws so that I could adjust them and get the idle to where it will not load up and die.

As for the temp sender, it works fine when I do it this way. One of the reasons is that I drill a small hole in the top of the thermostat to let air pass when it's filled. This also lets a bit of heated coolant through when the engine is running, and it's enough to give me an accurate reading while it's closed, and of course it works perfectly once the thermostat is opened. I can watch the engine temp come up slowly, so I know it's getting a good reading even while the thermostat is closed. I don't see why it wouldn't work with an electric fan set-up, although I might make sure that the thermostat is of a low enough temp that it wouldn't close when you want the fans on. But like in my case, it would probably work just fine if a small hole were used to allow a bit of coolant through.

[Barry_R]

Sound like you are ready to go!

Have a great time and keep us posted 

[Stangman]

Thanks CJ  keep up the good work

[cjshaker]

Sound like you are ready to go!

Have a great time and keep us posted 

Almost, besides an oil and rear gear lube change, wiring for the trailer, adjusting the headlights, fix my battery holddown and cleaning the Magnums with BF Goodrich tires...it's ready

I got the engine buttoned back up and everything under the hood finished.



So I concentrated on getting the truck ready today. After that was finished, I started filling my tool boxes, what-not and thingys tub and gathering my spare parts together.

I'm guessing I'll be the only one there with an FE powered car hauler...



Tools, essentials and parts gathering...



Now I have to get my butt back on the trailer and get it finished, which I haven't done anything to since cutting it up and welding it back together. I need to wire it and make it enclosed. That's the last of the work to be done, so I should be able to knock that out this week.

[GJCAT427]

Doug, just a reminder, Take a spare fuel pump! I`m still screwing around with the Galaxie since Beaver Springs! Good luck.