Has it been a year?
I got my new tabs in the mail for '07 and realized I've had this cool little car for a year now! I've barely put 5,000 miles on it and yesterday I adjusted the valves for the first time. It runs like new now, especially as the carburetor's been rebuilt and the oil bath air cleaner's been cleaned out.
I avoided the valve adjustment for a long time due to this irrational fear of it being more difficult than it really is. Everyone told me adjusting your valves was easy but I didn't listen, and assumed I'd be fighting with rusted-out this or that and waste a whole lot of hours.
Reality was much nicer: a true 15 minute job. Just use a screwdriver to pry the brackets down to remove the covers and then the adjustment itself is very easy. I won't go into details about the procedure as there are plenty of sites and books out there that cover it just fine.
First thing I noticed with the adjustment was the sound of the motor. It's actually louder than before. That's because the valves are actually seating into the heads so there's that extra "tapetta-tapetta-tapetta" sound of them closing. I can't believe the car run the way it was before. How did I get any compression to get any power?
Something about the extra rattling sound is satisfying. That's what Dad's ghia sounds like as well as a Porsche 356 and 914 I saw last week. So, right there I knew I was doing something right because there was a good, strong, loud valve rattle.
Well, that and the motor runs a hell of a lot smoother now. I have the carburetor adjusted much closer to spec (about 3 1/2 turns out on the volume screw as opposed to 8 or 9) and it doesn't want to die at idle for the first 10 minutes of running.
Also, just wanted to follow up about the electronic ignition upgrade I did at the beginning of the summer. The module crapped out on me, but partially due to my hack job of it. The disk that contained the four magnets rubbed against one of the wires through the insulation and must have shorted the unit out when the bare wire touched one of the magnets. I replaced it with the good, old points-and-condenser combo and haven't looked back.
Another distributor fix to note is my improved distributor clamp. For $2.50 I bought a brand new chrome distributor clamp and it broke after only a few timing adjustments. What I did to fix it was hacksaw away the old bolt that had only been tack-welded on and replaced it with a good, heavy-duty allen bolt and nut combo. I have to use both an allen wrench and 10mm socket to tighten and loosen the distributor, but now I can tighten it down as much as I want without fear it's going to bend or break. No more gradually retarded timing due to loose distributor. That's good!
Other than that, no issues with the car this summer. I'll need to keep an eye and ear on the valves. If they tighten up again I could be in for a header replacement or overhaul. At that point I may as well do an entire engine overhaul. Then, as long as I've got the engine out of there I may find I want to replace the tranny and while that's out of there take the whole body in for a complete restoration ...
... I'll wait a few years on all that, I think.
I avoided the valve adjustment for a long time due to this irrational fear of it being more difficult than it really is. Everyone told me adjusting your valves was easy but I didn't listen, and assumed I'd be fighting with rusted-out this or that and waste a whole lot of hours.
Reality was much nicer: a true 15 minute job. Just use a screwdriver to pry the brackets down to remove the covers and then the adjustment itself is very easy. I won't go into details about the procedure as there are plenty of sites and books out there that cover it just fine.
First thing I noticed with the adjustment was the sound of the motor. It's actually louder than before. That's because the valves are actually seating into the heads so there's that extra "tapetta-tapetta-tapetta" sound of them closing. I can't believe the car run the way it was before. How did I get any compression to get any power?
Something about the extra rattling sound is satisfying. That's what Dad's ghia sounds like as well as a Porsche 356 and 914 I saw last week. So, right there I knew I was doing something right because there was a good, strong, loud valve rattle.
Well, that and the motor runs a hell of a lot smoother now. I have the carburetor adjusted much closer to spec (about 3 1/2 turns out on the volume screw as opposed to 8 or 9) and it doesn't want to die at idle for the first 10 minutes of running.
Also, just wanted to follow up about the electronic ignition upgrade I did at the beginning of the summer. The module crapped out on me, but partially due to my hack job of it. The disk that contained the four magnets rubbed against one of the wires through the insulation and must have shorted the unit out when the bare wire touched one of the magnets. I replaced it with the good, old points-and-condenser combo and haven't looked back.
Another distributor fix to note is my improved distributor clamp. For $2.50 I bought a brand new chrome distributor clamp and it broke after only a few timing adjustments. What I did to fix it was hacksaw away the old bolt that had only been tack-welded on and replaced it with a good, heavy-duty allen bolt and nut combo. I have to use both an allen wrench and 10mm socket to tighten and loosen the distributor, but now I can tighten it down as much as I want without fear it's going to bend or break. No more gradually retarded timing due to loose distributor. That's good!
Other than that, no issues with the car this summer. I'll need to keep an eye and ear on the valves. If they tighten up again I could be in for a header replacement or overhaul. At that point I may as well do an entire engine overhaul. Then, as long as I've got the engine out of there I may find I want to replace the tranny and while that's out of there take the whole body in for a complete restoration ...
... I'll wait a few years on all that, I think.
posted by Chris Druckenmiller at 12:27 PM
1 comments
