17 replies to this topic

[The Quaff]

Thanx to OG TJ for the insight above.  I actually had/have to do something similar with my fuel line to the pump.  I couldn’t get the hard line out of the little “fitting block” where the hard line changes to the rubber line for the pump.  It was straight up rusted in there, solid, and aside from heat, I tried everything I could think of before cutting it (heat + fuel = BOOM!)…  I hate cutting parts that are discontinued, but I figured out a way to make it work, I hope.

 

 

Wiring is pretty much ready to go.  I have the wiring out of both cars and cleaned up.  There was a huge buildup of crap on the backside of the fuse panel/main connectors, which, with the help of compressed air, came off fairly easily.  It looks good and is ready to go into the carb’d car.  I have not taken out the rear wiring yet, but that is coming soon.  I figured, while the interior is out of the car I am going to line it with Dynamat for ultimate daily driver comfort.  Dynamat is on order and should be here later this week.

 

 

 

There's the brain!

 

 

I found a couple of rust holes in the floor on the driver’s side, that I need to repair before it all goes back together.  I am thinking I will cut out the rusty spot, clean it up, and weld in a new piece.  Sounds like a good excuse to get a welder J  I’m hoping to find some time this weekend, weather permitting, to get the rust taken care of.  That is on the top of my list, because once that is done I can Dynamat and reinstall the wiring, fuel lines, and interior.

 

 

Next steps: Pull carb’d engine out and clean/paint engine bay.  Wiring install is after that, and I need to figure out how to get all A/C wiring in there too.  A/C would be ideal in the “ultimate daily driver.”

I think that brings me up to date.  I am definitely going to try to update this thread more often, because this post has taken far too long to write.  Again, I really appreciate all the feedback/help I’ve gotten so far.  This community is truly awesome.

-Matt

[The Quaff]

Alright, 7 month update time again.  I am sorry that it took so long to get behind a computer to update this thread, but life is in the way of life.  Anywho, since my last update I’ve gotten it 99% complete.  A coil is the only thing holding me back currently and I just picked one up yesterday so hopefully I can get it in tonight and fire it up.

 

I fixed the rust holes in the floor pan and installed Noico sound deadening material (Dynamat).  I think that will make a huge difference in road noise, and make for a comfy daily driver.

 

 

 As you can see the rust behind the seats was pretty serious so I made sure to take care of that properly.

 

I figured while I had my neighbor’s welder at my house I would deal with the fuel filter mounts as well.  I took the old fuel filter mounts out of the FI car and welded them into the bay of the carb’d car.  I wish I had noticed the coil mounts while I had the welder, but those can come later.

 

 

Wiring was next, and man, what a pain that was.  I didn’t realize that every single connector was different, even the tail lights… Why Honda, why?  I ended up swapping out the tail light harnesses in the tail lights to make those work.  As for the other connectors, I cut the old connectors off and spliced them on to the “new” harness to make them fit the reusable Carb’d car parts (interior bits, front lighting, cooling fan, etc.)  It was then time for dash and cluster.  Those went in surprisingly easy and I was even able to get the wiring back where it should be.  I also put a bunch of the sound deadening material on the firewall, that I didn't take a picture of...

 

Next I decided to tackle the fuel pump issue.  I did something very similar to what OG-TJ did, thanx for the idea.  Basically it’s just a bunch of connectors and some stainless braided fuel line.

 

 

I was actually pretty proud of my flaring skills on the hard line that goes into the car.  It has been 13 or so years since I last flared a line, so when I got it on my second attempt I was pretty psyched.

 

I then pulled the Carb’d engine out and cleaned up the bay a little.  I wish I had the time/desire to paint the entire bay, but I got lazy and just cleaned what needed to be cleaned.  Next was one of the most rewarding times of this project.  Engine Install.  It went in smoothly, in fact, it went in much easier than I thought it would.  I was PSYCHED! 

Coming out

 

It is IN!

[The Quaff]

So my thoughts of replacing the coil and firing it up were way off.  I installed the coil and checked for spark.  I would get one to two sparks on cylinder #1 and then nothing…  I got one spark on cylinder #2 and then nothing…  And I didn’t get any sparks on #3 or #4.  I pulled the distributor cap off and saw that the rotor was hitting the cap on one of the cylinder “terminals” that is on the cap.

 

 

 

This made me wonder why.  I took the distributor off the engine and turned it by hand, well, tried to turn it by hand.  It turned about a quarter turn and then locked up.  I pulled the cap off the distributor and started to inspect it closely.  What I found was devastating.

 

 

 

It looks like one of the advance weights broke off and wreaked havoc inside the distributor.  This means more time wasted waiting for a distributor to come in the mail, and an extra $180 that I had not planned on spending. 

 

Once I got the distributor I knew it was go time.  I installed the new distributor and fired it up.  It took a bit to get going but once it did I was psyched.  It was running rough, really rough, and barely keeping itself alive.  I started looking at stuff and thought maybe it was just a bad injector causing the rough running because everything else looked good.  The car was very loud (because I hadn’t put the exhaust on yet) and as i mentioned very rough, but I could hear some valves making noise over the loud engine.  I tested compression just to make sure there wasn’t anything catastrophically wrong.  I tested #1 first and saw about 90PSI, #2 105PSI, #3 105PSI, #4 105PSI, uhh ohh.  I thought I would start with a valve adjustment, because I read somewhere that if the valves are way out of adjustment it may affect the compression.  I definitely should have adjusted valves before I ever tried to start the engine... but I didn't.

 

Sure enough I started my valve adjustment with #1 and man, it was way off.  I moved onto #3 next and as I was watching the distributor rotor make its way around I realized that it wasn’t pointing to #3.  I’m very embarrassed to say this next part…  I had #2 and #3 wires in the wrong spot on the cap…  Here I am thinking “I was a professional mechanic for almost 8 years, I know what I’m doing” WRONG!  But I knew that once I had the valves adjusted correctly and the firing order correct I was golden. 

 

I finished adjusting the valves and crossed my fingers and fired it up.  Crank, crank, purrrrrrr.  Man it sounded good.  My wife even came out and said “Well, that sounds better”.  I was ecstatic, and I walked around the front yard with my fists above my head celebrating, for probably too long, but whatever, it was running good.  Once it warmed up though…  Hunting idle.  DAMN!  I thought I was there.