September 25th
So, it
was a Saturday and the sun was shining so we pushed the car out of the garage and posed it on the drive. (It's
now made an appearance as my Windows 2000 desktop.) The intention was to start the engine but first the manual
recommended squirting oil into the main gallery through the hole that the oil pressure sensor screws into. This
was done and, with the plugs removed, the engine was cranked on the starter until there was some sign of oil pressure.
This only took a few seconds really.
Next, the plugs were reinstalled, the throttle pedal was prodded a few times and the engine turned over. I had convinced myself that we would take ages to get it going and I was rather surprised when the it burst into life almost immediately. I suspect the rest of the street wasn't too pleased though.
The only problem was that the idling was horrendously lumpy. However, two other problems were that fuel was pouring out of the fuel pump (so that's what the smell was!) and oil was dripping out of the engine, out of the oil pressure sensor hole that had previously been subjected to maltreatment with an oil can.
The fuel leak was caused by fuel leaking from the union that screws into the pump body. This is a tapered brass thread and I did it up so tight, with it still leaking, that I was worried about breaking something. So, I used some plumber's PTFE tape on the threads which seemed to fix it. I hope it's all right to do this, but I can't see any other way of stopping the leak. The oil leak was fixed by a similar process with the pressure sender.
We ran the engine for a while, hoping that the lumpiness would go away and wanting to check that that water didn't leak and that the fan started up. It didn't and it did, in that order.
And then, as seems true to form for sevenesque cars at their first startup in Cambridge, it rained and the car was rapidly returned to the garage.
In there I was looking around the car and noted something that seemed relevant to the lumpiness.
Two of the exhaust pipes were changing colour, due to heat, and two of them looked as they had done for weeks.
This seemed to imply that cylinders 3 and 4 were working properly and 1 and 2 were not contributing much. I had a look at the plugs and this seemed to confirm this. Mind you, the front ones were not spectacularly oily or sooty, they just didn't seem to have been doing much.
The next possibility was the carbs, as the pairing corresponds to each of them. I dug out my ancient carbalancer--a primitive device for measuring air flow through carburretor inlets. This showed that the rear-most carb was indeed sucking like mad but the front one was asleep.
So,
a brief fiddle with the balance screw and all of a sudden the engine ran all smoothly again. Although no-one could
call it quiet.
What's more the pipework was all starting to become the same colour. (I wonder what that colour is? Perhaps it's charred metal polish?)
I'm still amazed that it started first time...
I guess I now need to concentrate on some aspects of the trim, Of which there's a lot to do.
September 26th
First thing in the morning showed some water on the floor of the garage. It seemed to be leaking (well, dripping really) out of a connection on the bottom hose. I tightened up the hose clip and it seemed to stop but we'll see tomorrow. Whatever happens we will have to slacken this particular joint anyway so as to drain out enough water to replace with antifreeze.
This means that since the car was started it has leaked oil, water and fuel. That's half way through the list of available fluids. I hope this isn't an omen.
I'm
afraid I behaved like a hooligan today. Just over the road from our house is a car park and we took the Westfield
over there for a charge around the place. It was great, especially so as we got a couple of visits today from other
cam7 bods to have a look. The car makes a wonderful noise, especially from the carbs. However, we did get one complaint
from a neighbour... The only problem was a feeling of being pebble-dashed due to the lack of front wings causing
stones to go all over the place, including on the occupants. It makes it obvious why some coating on the inside
of the wings is a good idea.
Of course, some seats would have been useful too...
Later on we looked at the carpets a bit. We fitted the tunnel carpet which involved a fair bit of cutting to provide holes for handbrake and gearlever. We have decided not to send the carpet back to Westfield for fitting the gaiters, mainly due to losing control of the situation, and the rather naff gaiters. At the moment we are trying to find some leather to make rather better gaiters out of. Even if we can't find some the provided gaiters are far too small.
in case you've got to this frame directly and can't get out, go here.