IML: my '72 nightmare (days of agony)

[Kenyon Wills <imperialist1960@xxxxxxxxx>]

I spent about 2 hours trying to figure out why I was
not getting the car to fire.  Answer is at the bottom.

Pauline Yetter and I co-own a 1972 Imperial LeBaron. 
It's a nice, well preserved car.  She sold it to a
guy, and he drove it until it wouldn't run.  Then he
abandoned  it.  He never registered it, and the tow
company that came to possess it contacted Pauline. 
She got it out of their possession for way too much,
and all of this with the words "blown engine" written
on the front glass.

I agreed that my buy-in on the co-ownership would be
to fix the car.

With the help of Tim Hulse, I was able to find a donor
car with a rebuilt engine.  The guy was willing to
drive the car up several hundred miles from
Bakersfeild Ca to the SF Bay Area.  I figured that if
the car made it that far, that it was probably a good
drive train.  

The car arrived and was even more hammered than had
been described, and he had been talking about it
getting "restored".  Well, it was cosmetically a
basket case, and all remorse and guilt that I'd been
feeling about raping it for the engine disappeared
when I saw the cracked glass, blown interior, and
paint applied with a roller.

I had confirmed that the keeper-car's engine was
seized by installing a battery and trying to start it.
 All I got was a click of the solenoid shooting the
starter gear out, and a seized engine won't allow the
starter to turn it at all, so there you go.

So I got some buddies and had an engine-swap confab at
my house.  Swapped the engines, and I plopped the
seized motor into the bad car, mixing and matching the
best parts to keep.

A few days later I had all the various hoses and
connections made and excitedly plopped into the
drivers seat.  I turned the key and got the EXACT SAME
RESULT as before.  I had decided that the original
starter was so clean-looking that it MUST be worth
keeping.  

Wellll, turns out that the original engine was likely
just fine.  Bad starter.  That's the last time that I
put so much stock in what someone else concludes about
a car's problems.

======

So I put a new starter in and the car still refused to
start, although it was now turning over.

I figured that I had something mis-wired or something,
so I turned it over to my mechanic.  They got the car
to run by bypassing the hot-rod Mallory ignition that
someone had installed previously, going back to a
coil.

I went down to pick the car up and agreed that it was
running really nicely, and looked forward to returning
it to Pauline's garage.

I took the car on a test drive, and it ran very well. 
I nailed the gas going up a hill and the carb stuck
when it was wide open.  

What a ride.  I had to slap the ignition off and brake
manually once the vacuum ran out to power the booster.
 

Limped it back.

Went into my parts stash and got another holley carb. 
Put it on and the car drove home ok.

Until The next day.  I drove it, and when it came up
to temperature, it started to pop and spit and miss. 
I drove it about 10 miles away, and it was running
rough.  Did some stuff and convinced my girlfriend to
drive it home while I drove the truck.  She pulled
into the slow lane suddenly and I heard the car
backfire a couple of times and I knew that she was
having trouble.  We got closer to home, and went
through a major freeway interchange that required
merging and the car died in traffic.  Turns out that
some lady in the next lane over got piggy and wouldn't
let Liz get through to pull off.  

The car promptly restarted but was running really
rough and had been getting progressively worse.  It
died for good on a surface street.  I ran back to the
house to get a tow chain.  Passed a CHP on a bike who
was going the other way.  Knew that he was going to
pay attention to Liz still sitting in the middle of
the street with the hood up...

Got back and they had pushed the car off to the side
of the road.  I was pissed at it.  Liz was pissed at
it.  We left it overnight.  Came back the next day and
it started right up.  I guess it was a heat-thing?

So I told my parts guy about this, and he's a Mopar
Muscle guy.  He had a Holley carb and offered to
rebuild it for me and give it to me.  Now when your
parts guy offers to rebuild and give you a carb that
you're in sad shape.  He works where they had redone
the wiring and all, and had watched and heard about
all the problems.

I bring this carb (no. 3) home, and after waiting a
few days for him to rebuild it.  I took that time to
remove and rehab the intake manifold and exhaust
manifolds, which seemed leaky, so I resealed them and
repainted them.  Neat-O.

Put the fresh carb on.  It proceeded to leak like
crazy and turn my intake manifold into a gasoline
bird-bath.  The engine paint on the manifold dissolves
in gas, didja know that?  Great.

I tried again to reseal it, but it leaked somewhere
else and I got pretty frustrated.  So I got a Carter
AVS carb off of an earlier Imp and put that on (carb
no. 4).  Worked fine.  Finally.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that carb no. 2 was leaned
out so bad that it cracked the exhaust manifolds. 
That's where the leaking sounds were.  Had to get
replacements.  Great.

Car drove now and I took it BACK to my parts guy for
some advice on tweeking the carb.  

Didn't make it.  Car died and refused to restart on
the freeway near the SF Airport.  Caltrans came by and
gave me a free tow to my parts-guy.  BONUS!

Turns out the starter was bad.  No explanation on why
the car died, but He had a starter there, and we
busted butt and installed it on the spot.  It was
Thursday, and I wanted to give Pauline the car back
for the California Statewide Meet Saturday Morning.

Car started with the new starter (no. 3, remember?). 
He richened the mixture a bit and the car IMMEDIATELY
ran better and smoother.  Like it should.

I took off with Pauline following me (I'd called her
to pick me up when I got stranded before I knew I was
getting the free tow).

I let her drive the car and she was delighted.  I was
delighted too, since the car was running so nicely.

I hopped on the freeway and on the flyway going over
the 101 the car started to sputter.  AGAIN!!!  I
noticed that the oil pressure was dropping rapidly.  I
nursed the car off the freeway.  It was overheating. 
I got into a gas station and figured that maybe there
was funk in the coolant or something, so I drained the
water and replaced it.  Car started and ran fine. 
Good oil pressure.  Cool temp.  Cool.  Let's go.

Took off and about 4 miles later the oil pressure
dropped, the idiot light came on, and the car started
to sputter and died outright.  

On the San Mateo Bridge.

Called the toll plaza, and they sent out the tow truck
for tow number 2 of the day.

Towed it to the end of the bridge and dumped it on a
side street.  I had called my parts guy on the cell. 
He said that if the car conked out that he'd come help
me out.  Somewhere on this project I transitioned from
ding-bat customer (we've known each other for about 10
years) to insider.

He drove the shop van out and decided to try to get
the car home.  Went to start it, and guess what?  The
new starter that he'd supplied and helped install was
DEAD.

Went back to my place.  Got another starter out of my
parts stash that came in one of the cars that I bought
and we went back and put it in (starter no. 4).  This
was at 10 at night on the street.  Great.

Car fired right up.  Drove it home, but this time I
knew that it had oil issues.  

Flew home and the idiot light came on just as I got to
the corner and I shut it off and coasted into the
house. 

Figured that the oil pump was bad.  Seems like it was
working and then fouling or something when the oil
reached a certain temperature or something.  Some sort
of blockage or something?  Dunno.

I also replaced the oil-pressure sensors under the
assumption that I didn't want a faulty oil sensor
creating a problem.  The electric fuel pump runs off
of one of them, so maybe I was getting starved for gas
as the sensor registered no pressure?  Who knows?  I
just did it all.

Put the new oil pump in.  Had to force it into the
block, so removed the distributor in the (wrong)
resumption that it was preventing the oil pump from
going into the block.  They run off the same shaft,
but  are not connected in Chryslers (now I know).  Put
the distributor in and verified 8 ways that it WAS in
the correct way.  I wrote in and asked here cause I
just couldn't get it to fire.  Very frustrating.

After I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the spark was
happening as it should, Two hours in, I took a last
stab and poured gas down the carb just to see.

Engine fired immediately.  Wow.  

WOW.

WOW!!!

Pulled the fuel line. -Dry.

the guys at the parts place (not my regular guy) sold
me the wrong oil sensor.  Put the old one back in, and
the fuel pump worked immediately.

Put it all together, started the car, put the timing
light on it and got it all set. 

Great!! !  

I'm so excited about it that I'm not paying attention
to the car.  I suddenly become aware of a knocking
sound.  

After all of this, the oil starvation apparently has
damaged something in the valve train.  Lifters?  Cam? 
Something.  

So I guess that I get to rebuild that too.  Hopefully
not 4 times.  

What does the knock in the valve train mean?  New cam
and lifters?  

Bummer. 

Kenyon Wills
 
 






















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