I finally got rolling on the car this weekend. After pulling the carb apart, it was easy to see why it wouldn't run right. Eight years or so of sitting, and that crappy fuel really did a number it.
The jets were so plugged, and the bowls so full of crap that I'm surprised it ran at all! The visible crud on the bottom covered the entire bottom of both bowls. Much of it came floating out when I flushed the old gas out of it.
I went ahead and pulled it completely apart to start the cleaning process. I also found out that there is basically only ONE rebuild kit available for these old 4100's. Well, 2 I guess, but one doesn't contain the vacuum secondary diaphragm, which this one needed since the old one had a tear in it. Hopefully it's a decent kit.
Laid out with some components marked...
So today I got my butt in gear to pull the engine, despite 90 degree temps and bad humidity, which means the garage was about 95-100 inside
After getting it pulled out, I went to put it on my new geared engine stand, but couldn't since the old bolts I had weren't long enough with the new stand. So I started pulling stuff off to get it ready for cleaning, the new water and fuel pump, new gaskets etc. I decided to pull a valve cover off because I really wanted to get a look inside. I was
not encouraged by what I saw inside!
The gunk and crud buildup was disheartening to say the least. While I've seen engines back in the day that were much worse, this is not what I wanted to see right before taking a 3000 mile trip. My concern is that some of this stuff will start to break up during the trip and either get into the oiling system, in which case it will either score pretty much everything in the engine, or it will just plug up the pump screen and/or filter and I'll lose oil pressure. I was pretty disappointed at that point, and since it was getting late and I had lost a few pounds from sweat, I threw in the towel, hopped on the bike and went to get an ice cream cone to cool off and think about what to do. I'm really at a crossroads here; either I throw in the towel, not wanting to risk a breakdown while a thousand miles from home, or I go ahead with the plan of re-gasket the engine and throw it back in in the hopes that it makes it back home, where I can pull the engine later on and give it a proper cleaning and rebuild.
Bob had mentioned running a cleaner through the engine, but I'm really against that idea. I know from experience that when there is a bunch of crud buildup in a high mileage stock engine, once all that crud is removed, a drastic loss of oil pressure is usually the result, unless everything is checked for tolerances and addressed or rebuilt properly. I don't have the time to do that.
What would you guys would do?