Cooling System Refurb Continued

So where I left off with the Cooling System, my radiator was at the radiator shop being boiled out and soldered up where it had a leak.

Unfortunately, I got a call from the shop and they asked me to come in. When I got there, they had the radiator off to the side. Boiled out, but obviously not soldered up. They basically told me that it had a header leak, and because it was a 40 year old radiator, they would not solder it up. They offered to re-core it for $400, but a new rad is only $260, so I said no thanks and went on my way.

When I got home, I had to figure out how to seal the radiator. I had read that using a vacuum to pull the epoxy into the joint would make the repair much stronger. Talking with a buddy who works on vintage Volvos confirmed that this repair could work.

With all that in my mind, I pulled out the automated vacuum pump I built a few years ago for building composite airplane parts. I sealed up the radiator and then hooked up the pump system and pulled a vacuum. I could hear the leak 'sucking'.

I worked up a batch of JBWeld and spread it around the leaking area. I could actually hear the epoxy being pulled into the leak and then there was silence! After letting the epoxy cure overnight, I pulled a vacuum against the radiator and it held for several minutes. Definitely a successful repair.

Next up, I needed to install the fan on the radiator. I used some self tapping screws to mount the fan to the outer edges of the radiator shroud. This is a definite measure twice, drill once type of job....

With the fan mounted to the radiator, it was time to install the whole assembly back in the car. The fan motor did not clear the frame crossmember. I elongated the holes in the radiator braces to get the fan motor off the crossmember, but will eventually make new longer braces to pull it completely off the crossmember.

To be continued......

Chasing Gremlins

Old cars were not perfect when they were designed. Even the Jaguar XKE had its issues. Now these same cars are much older and with time comes age related flaws......

Inattention also breeds issues. Unused seals wither and crack, hoses get old and vinyl begins to look like the floor of the Mojave desert.

Finally, when you're away from something for so long, you forget how it should operate, how it should sound and the way it really should perform.

Inattention over the years really wore down my '73. All the things above happened and in many bad ways. The good news however is that I like fixing things. A couple posts previous, I listed a huge list of things that I've set right on the car - and had fun doing it.

All through that work, as I drove the car, it seemed to run well, but it was somewhat down on performance. Idle kept climbing, power seemed good but not great. Finally, it backfired and popped at odd times.

Then I read on the 6Pack forum about a different way to set the timing on a car. Instead of using a timing light like in days of old, the thing to do is to use a vacuum guage.

So the process is simple. Get the car warm and at an idle of 900rpms. Then take a gauge reading from the vacuum gauge with it attached to the intake manifold. Simple!!!! With the cam I have installed, the initial goal vacuum measure was/is 13HG. Stock Sixes start usually at around 18HG!

Not so fast..... The car warmed up easily enough. 900 rpm idle was the issue. As I mentioned above, the idle has been climbing over time, to the point that the car was now idling at about 1200 rpms. Not a lot of fun. And not very good for getting good readings. So first order of business was/is getting the idle right.

I decided to give it a whirl first and get my reading. First reading was 6HG!!!!!!! Yowza! Severely retarded my ignition was. I started advancing the ignition (twisting the disty) and got to 10HG, but that was with an Idle of 1400RPMS. The test drive however told me I was on to something. The car was definitely not tuned correctly before - and I did not know it because it had been so long since I had driven it. With the ignition advanced, the thing had loads of power. Stump pulling power, the power of a modified TR6!

With help from the 6Pack forum members, I began chasing down the cause of the high idle. It eventually took all weekend, but I found that most of the cause of the high idle was an improperly rebuilt bypass valve on the Zenith Strombergs.

With the right gasket in the valve, the right seal in the adjuster (in the background in this pic), I finally got the car to idle at approximately 950 rpms and 12HG. A pretty cool number. So better performance is on the way!