The engine was actively being built (yes, by me) starting around June-ish. The big delay was due to doubts about the oil pump and how to solve a major clearance issue between the pump and the gearshift linkage. Short story long, the most common Formula Ford oil pump basically would not allow the use of the Tiga shift linkage. The second- and third-most common oil pumps also wouldn't fit the chassis because of clearance issues, but these issues were much more serious (think motor mount and oil tank clearance). With a bunch of help from (who else) Bruce at Lindstrand Motorsports, the shifter has now been modified to clear the most common oil pump. A new oil pump has been fitted, the engine has been assembled and installed in the car, and we tried to start it this weekend.
And we tried. And we tried. And we tried.
First, the easy part. I have now built literally more engines than I can remember. I am always very careful to install the distributor with the rotor pointing at the #1 post with the #1 cylinder at Top Dead Center. But I have never once managed to line it up at TDC on the compression stroke. I always manage to end up with it lined up at TDC on the exhaust stroke. This time was no exception. Fortunately, I will never forget what Pete Wood told me when we put the car together in preparation for him selling me the car: "My mama told me that when it 'pops' through the carburetor, you're 180 degrees off." And that's exactly what it did -- after a while. After the starter battery had worn down to the point that it was cranking the engine noticeably slower than it had that morning.
Off came the plug wires. I swapped 1 for 4 and 2 for 3, but several more minutes of cranking and cranking and cranking yielded nothing at all. Not even a pop. Checked the timing again. Gave it a little more gas. Cranked some more. More gas. Suddenly the car made a loud clunk that I've never heard before -- and I've heard this car make a LOT of noises -- and then the starter refused to do anything.
The drive on the old Lucas starters is an interesting, if convoluted layout. The starter motor is in front of the flywheel, but the drive gear is behind the flywheel. When the starter motor spins, the rotation forces the drive gear towards the flywheel by means of a screw thread on the driveshaft which engages a similar thread inside the drive gear. The rotation of the starter motor basically "screws" the drive gear into engagement with the flywheel. When the flywheel starts turning faster than the starter (when the engine fires), it spins the gear faster than the starter is turning, "screwing" the gear back to the end of the shaft. Sometimes when the engine doesn't start, the drive gear remains engaged to the flywheel, because the flywheel hasn't kicked it back out. You can turn the driveshaft backwards by hand to release the drive gear in this case. But once in a great while, the gear jams itself so tight that nothing will turn. And yes, we were now witnessing once in a great while.
Even the flywheel wouldn't budge. A prybar in the ring gear teeth couldn't turn the flywheel. Jamming the car in gear and bumping it back and forth only made us tired. Fortunately, Lucas extended the shaft out the other end of the starter motor and put a 3/8" square drive on the end for just such an occasion. It took the longest 3/8" wrench I had and all the strength I could muster to get the shaft to turn. When it finally disengaged the gear, you could almost hear the car heave a sigh of relief. Of course, the wrench was now stuck on the square drive, and it took several minutes of creative prying, chiseling, and hammering to get it off again. Back to cranking.
More gas. More cranking. More cranking. More cranking. Occasionally there would be a slight poof of one cylinder firing weakly, and a plume of acrid smoke would gently waft into my face. After I noticed the garage getting rather cloudy I pulled out my industrial-strength fan to get some fresh air. A few more cranks and I realized the starter needed cooling air more than I needed to breathe, so I aimed the fan square at the starter and went back to cranking again. At this point the starter battery had been run pretty much flat. Time for a Plan B. How about jumper cables hooked up to the truck?
Problem A with Plan B: You can't clamp a big jumper cable clamp onto the little battery quick-connector we use for hooking up the starter battery. So we made a "jumper jumper" by installing another quick-connector to a pair of cables, stripping the other end of the cables, and clamping the jumper cables to the jumper jumper. Only that made the starter turn even more slowly than it had with the dead stater battery. These were brand-new jumper cables from Wal-Mart, which must mean -- they're crap.
Plan B.2: Dad had jumper cables in his truck. Problem A with Plan B.2: They were so buried it took a while to get them out. No biggie. I wasn't going anywhere for a while. Several minutes later (it felt like an hour -- that man can pack 300 pounds of emergency supplies and tools into his glovebox) we came face to face with Problem B with Plan B.2: The cables were warm to the touch after the first attempt at cranking the engine. Reason 1 for Problem B with Plan B.2: These jumper cables were older than both of us put together. What were they using jumper cables for before they had cars?
Plan B.3: Skip the jumper jumper, pull the positive contact out of the quick-connector on the car and use some kind of adapter to clamp the one good set of cables (which have huge clamps) onto the microscopic contact. A small pair of needle-nose vise-grip pliers did the trick, but the weight pulled the positive cable dangerously close to the frame of the racecar, inviting a short. What did we have handy that we could use to prop up the cable? We had a half-full water jug left from filling the coolant, so we stuck the end of the pliers in the neck of the jug. Lovely. Electricity plus water. Hydrogen fuel cell, anyone?
Fortunately, the water jug did not actually qualify as Problem A with Plan B.3. Problem A with Plan B.3 was that the starter at this point was drawing so much amperage that the truck couldn't keep up at idle. So the new procedure was: Squirt gas into carburetor, Rev truck to 3000 RPM, Push starter button. Good thing we had two people. Bad thing we still had no noise from the engine. Could the race gas be so old that it won't even burn?
I took the air cleaner off with the intention of spraying some starter fluid in the carb. Fortunately I looked down into the throttle bore first and saw myself looking back at me. I had flooded it so badly that the gasoline was pooling on the bottom of the intake manifold.
New procedure: Hold the throttle wide open to get some fresh air in the engine while cranking the engine and revving the truck. Wait, we need a third person for that. I tried holding the throttle open and blowing in one carb throat, hoping the gas would evaporate and the fumes would blow out the other throat. Half an hour later, the reflecting pool was gone. We cranked the car with the throttle jammed open and it gave a promising pop, so we went back to just cranking.
The starter was now very warm, even with the industrial blower on it, and it cranked so slowly it sounded like it was just ratcheting the engine over. Dad promised to be home a half an hour ago. Still, we were just SO CLOSE. It had to fire soon.
Half an hour of agonizing cranking later (sorry Mom) we gave up for the night. Actually, I just sent my dad home for the night. I tried a few more times after he went home, with similar results. We concluded that the starter must have worn out from the strain.
I tried it this morning just for fun and it started on the second try.
I can't wait for Road America on Sunday.
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