8/26/08

I promised the George story today. Here it is. So I'm sitting there watching TV Sunday morning when Gregg calls. He’s living in a travel trailer on some dude’s land for reasons… well, for reasons, and is getting stir crazy. I tell him to meet me at the shop, we’ll look at stuff, and I'd spring for Genghis Grill. We meet at the shop. While I'm waiting for him, I start thinking about back burner projects. I'm sitting next to Timmy, whose ass-end is up in the air like a cat in heat, and think, “That mid engine V6 is sure going to be a lot of work.” I then think about the Chevy 10 bolt axle in the back of Fifi and that pile of Chevy hot rod V8 parts on the floor. I whip out the Dingleberry and text John asking if the Chickenhawk would ever “turn” again if we dropped a small block in the nose. Before he replies though, Gregg shows up and I pose the question to him. We take a look at the Edelbrock manifold in a 1200 engine bay to see if there is physically room enough. There is, just. I'd probably have to rear mount the radiator though. We discuss transmissions for it and he asks when this project might happen. I tell him it would probably be next after George. This inspires him, apparently. We then take off in Darth Versa to go eat. We, of course, eat too much. During lunch we talk more about a V8 powered Chickenhawk. He wants to go back to the shop to work on George but I'd rather stay in the air conditioned car and hoon. I take us on a hoon. We go out FM 5 and finally wind up back at the shop. I hand him the list of things yet to be done on George and he looks it over. He finally asks, “What is left to do to before we fire this thing up”? I tell him it has no driveshaft, probably no oil in the transmission, no oil in the crankcase, no battery, no gasoline, and the timing hasn’t been set. He stares at me. I get to work on the timing. I roll the engine up to 5° before top dead center on the compression stroke, noting that it does in fact turn over and is not hydraulically or otherwise locked up, and we have a look at the rotor. It needs to be re-stabbed. I re-stab it a few times until we’re happy with the setting. Of course I have to take it out again to put the nut on the hold-down stud. I re-re-stab it a few times and get the nut on there and the timing set. I put on a cap, rotor and wires then we talk gasoline. “You mean to tell me,” he said, “there is no gasoline around here?” I find a half gallon left over from that time my laptop caught fire. I dump that in the tank. We have a look around for conventional motor oil. I don’t want to use synthetic yet since this will be the first time this engine fires and Juan isn't supposed to break in an engine on synthetic. “You mean to tell me,” he said, “there is no motor oil around here?” I call Marty Smith to see if a) he’s home from his hoon yet and 2) if he has any “dinosaur juice” oil. He, Marty, isn't home yet but is willing to stop and buy me some oil. While waiting for him I top off the radiator and Gregg and I discuss batteries. “You mean to tell me,” he said, “there is not a battery around here?” He convinces me that I don’t need to drop $50.00 or more on a battery for a car that just might sit for another couple months before ever seeing the road. We steal the battery from Shi-Chi. Marty shows up and we pour in the oil. It stays in the engine, which is a good thing. I connect the battery and the radiator fan fires up. I disconnect the battery and find the keys to turn off the ignition switch. With everything, theoretically, electrically cold, I reconnect the battery. We all look, listen and smell for smoke, fire, and whatever. Everything looks good so far. I turn the key on while Gregg watches the fuel pressure gauge. Nothing. We stick a set of tires on the front and lower the nose to the ground. Now we have two 1200s looking like cats in heat, but I digress. The theory is: if the tank is higher than the pump it should/could/might prime. It didn’t. We decided more fuel was in order. I borrowed two three-gallon cans from Marty and went to the store. I bought about four and a half gallons of 93 octane and headed back. I poured it in the tank and we tried the pump again. Nothing. It was decided that someone, who shall remain me, would have to suck on the line to overcome the siphon and get fuel to the inlet of the pump. I hooked up a hose and gave a suck. Almost immediately I had a mouth full of gasoline. Yum. I reattached the hose to the pump and took off outside to hork and spit for a while. I even went so far as to rinse my face and mouth with the well water from the tap. I finally got most of the taste out and went back to work. We tried again but still couldn’t get a reading on the gauge. I tell him to remove the banjo and let’s just see if there is fuel at the carburetor. Oh yeah, there was fuel at the carburetor when the pump came on. We decided “bad gauge” and moved on. With fuel to the carburetor, we had one last look around for things we might have missed. The only thing left was a semi-empty transmission. We decide to risk it. I try the key in the ignition. Nothing. The starter doesn’t even click. We check voltage at the battery, 12 volts. We check voltage at the hot post of the starter, 12 volts. We check the starter signal voltage, nothing until the key is turned and then 12 volts. Finally we decide it is a bad starter. I have a new starter but don’t feel like changing clothes to crawl under the car to install it. Gregg puts on my spare shirt and goes under the car. We have the starter changed in about five minutes. I disconnect the hot lead from the distributor so we can spin up some oil pressure and he hits the switch. It cranks nicely this time. It doesn’t sound like it has too much compression but it doesn’t sound like a soggy compressionless wuss either. I'm not sure if he ever saw the oil pressure needle fluctuate but we decided to gopher fire. I reconnected the distributor and we checked for spark. I set the coil wire in the hood pin retainer and had him crank again. Oh yeah, we’ve got spark. I reconnected that wire and we gave her a try. Two cranks and she barked to life! I had to hold an idle for a moment but it finally settled in. I cranked the speed back down a bit and we watched it. I checked my turbo oil return hoozis and could see oil flowing in to it. It didn’t fill to the top so I assume it is flowing back into the pan as well. Gregg saw 50 psi on the oil pressure gauge once it fired so I stopped worrying about that. The tachometer is reading double speed but that might just be that it is set for a V8 rather than a four-cylinder. The fuel pressure gauge also began reading properly too. Best of all, the fuel level gauge read ¼ tank with four gallons in it! Unfortunately the temperature climbed a little too rapidly for my liking, all the way to the top of the gauge. All of the hoses were hot so I'm sure there was circulation. We’re stumped at this point. We shut it down and Gregg is beside himself congratulating me. I'm worried about the temperature so I'm not ready to celebrate yet. I'm afeared that going with the A-14 pistons in an A-12 block might have made the cylinder walls too thin. It is at least a 0.120” overbore. We’re going to look at some things to see if we can diagnose it as something else, but I'm worried. We tested out some of the other electrical systems and they all worked. The “amber-red-amber” taillights all worked and look totally awesome! Yeah, “The eighties called and want their catch phrase back.” I hear you. Shut up. So, if the temperature thing isn't terminal, all I need to do is finish buttoning up the rest of the car and we’re a-hoonin’! And there you have it, the tale of George’s initial up-firing. Let’s hope it wasn’t the last.