FirstCoastCobraClub

Success…bought some rubberized gasket material and made a thermostat housing gasket. Installed it without sealant and re-pressurized the system. It held pressure rock solid. Now I can move on.

Incidentally, I first tried a store bought gasket, but the oval bypass hole didn’t cover the o-ring and it leaked, which is why I made the gasket.

Next I installed the new MSD Pro-Billet Distributor, PN 85786 with a steel gear already installed. Btw, MSD now stamps the steel gears with an S.

I set up the mechanical advance with the black 18 degree bushing and two light silver springs. Weber IDAs like a lot of initial advance, and the light springs will bring full advance in quickly. Just a starting point, I’ll likely have to make some changes after road testing.

When I removed the carbs many moons ago, I drained them thoroughly and stored them dry. Just to be on the safe side, I opened each one up and sprayed some carb cleaner to make sure nothing was gummed up. Carbs, fuel lines and home made heat shield are now back in place.

Just need to reinstall the exhaust system and put some fresh fuel in the tanks to go for restart…

Mike,

Looks amazing!

I hope you can provide a little video with some sound when you crank it. Should make some great music

Tom

Exhaust system is back in place. Just need to mod a small bracket, install the O2 sensor and plugs, go get some fuel and connect the battery…

Getting close.

Pretty much done with the motor now, ain’t she a beaut?

Tomorrow I’ll feed her some premium fuel, reconnect the battery, hit the start button and

Put 5 gal’s of 93 octane fuel in each tank today. Connected the battery and waited for William to swing by on his lunch break. Always best to have an extra set of eyes and hands to do this. After a handful of tries, it fired off with Williams help goosing the throttle. Had some noticeable belt/pulley squeal, but that subsided after 30 seconds or so. I set it to run at fast idle (1,500 RPM, watched the gauges and looked for leaks. Motor looks bone dry so far!!

Had to add a bit more coolant to the expansion tank to level off the coolant level and let the thermostat open. I intentionally left the level low knowing that with so much fluid capacity, the coolant would expand quite a bit, and it did. It nearly overflowed before snugging the cap down and cutting the engine. Will have to wait and see what the static level will be.

The new vent system seems to be functioning very well removing steam pockets and purging air from the system!

Temp rheostat needs to be adjusted, I think it’s set too high, so had to manually activate the fans with the override on the dash. Fans work well bringing the temp quickly under control, however, after shutdown, the fan motors seemed unusually hot.

AFR gauge seemed overly lean and somewhat erratic. Lots of carb tuning and timing adjustments to do, but she’s running again…

[youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/2Rdld3iUDCA? ... Tu2z6dbHOH[/youtube]

Sounds great....Even after all these years doing engines, that first start is always so satisfying...Ken

Sounds great....Even after all these years doing engines, that first start is always so satisfying...Ken

My half-shafts were looking pretty grungy, so I cleaned them up and shot some black paint on them today. Paint was still a bit tacky, so I’ll reinstall them tomorrow.