A little back story is due here. As I understand it, prior to the last 12 months or so, the same person had owned the car for 28 years. The car was parked some 4-5 years when he sold it to a friend of his, Tom. Tom bought the car with the intention of doing a little TLC and getting it on the road as a driver. When Tom got it, all four wheels were flat and would not hold air. He ended up getting a replacement set of original Campagnolo wheels and new tires as well as a new battery. He also got a slave cylinder for the clutch but never actually installed it. He buffed out the paint and discovered pretty severe cracking in the paint and bondo. At that point, he decided it was too much of a project for himself and decided to sell it, which is where I come in.
So the first thing I wanted to do was assess the engine. If it is OK, I'm in business. If not, it's not the end of the world. It's a 351 Cleveland. I can build one for cheap, especially compared to a Ferrari or Lamborghini engine.
First thing I did was pull the plugs to see if there was anything there. I started with bank 2 (driver side) and then did bank 1. All was OK until I got to the very last plug (cylinder 1) and found it to be cross threaded. Not good. After getting the plug out it got worse. Water started pouring out of the spark plug hole. I have to admit that my heart sank a little here, but after getting over the initial shock, I kept going.
It was water in the cylinder and not coolant. I don't know where the water came from, rain water or car wash? At any rate I pulled the bulkhead cover from the interior to gain access to the front of the engine and put a breaker bar on the crank pulley bolt to see if I could turn the engine over. After initially being stuck, the engine broke free and turned. I continued to turn the engine and blew water out of 5 of the 8 cylinders. Am I ever glad I decided to pull the plugs before cranking the engine over. Disaster averted.
I blew the cylinders out with compressed air and then sprayed WD40 in all the cylinders and continued to crank it over and got it turning pretty smoothly. That weekend, I changed the oil and installed new plugs (No 1 plug threaded in no problem - got lucky again) and then cranked the engine over a couple more times by hand. All seemed OK so I went big and cranked it with the starter. All sounded good so it was time to try and get her started.
After tinkering around with the ignition system electrical connectors and coil secondary wire, I got good spark. We filled the carb bowl with fresh fuel and turned the key. She lit off right away and blew smoke everywhere while at it. She's alive but I couldn't get her to draw fuel from the tank. I ordered a new fuel pump. While waiting for that I installed the slave cylinder Tom had bought.
After installing the new fuel pump and fuel line from the tank to the pump, I had this to show for it:
I know this was a long post. I'm still catching up to real time. The next posts should be a little shorter and hopefully more pictures.
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