No Pressure!

Where do I begin to try to catch up on this blog to present day. June 1, 2014, I was bought a 1962 Triumph Spitfire 4. It's commission number is FC699L making it one of the oldest, if not thee oldest racing Spitfire on the planet. I have a SCCA logbook with races starting in 1973. I got the car from Bobby Whitehead who purchased it off an eBay auction. More about that in a later posting.

On her way to her new home

Bobby didn't seem to have much luck with the car and "pawned" it off on me. He wasn't sure what was wrong with it, something to do with lack of oil pressure. The gauges had been taken out and the oil temp. sending unit had been cut as well as the oil pressure line, which had been tied in knot to seal it.

tie one on... or off

In her new home

First thing I do when I get her home is check the oil level. She's reading full. So I open the valve on the Accusump and look inside the valve cover and I see oil oozing out everywhere. Next, I install a new oil pressure gauge and line and again, open the ACCUSUMP to bleed the oil line. No problems so far. So now I attach the line to the oil pressure gauge and open the ACCUSUMP again, the gauge reads twenty PSI, which is what the gauge on the ACCUSUMP reads. All's looking good so far. So now, I remove the distributor and the drive dog making sure I know it's clock position so I can put it back on the same position. (Lot's of photographs being made of all this stuff as I go.)

drive dog position

So I put a flat blade screwdriver that I broke the handle off of into my drill motor and insert that into the oil pump and spin up the oil pump. I had removed the valve cover and I could see oil flowing out everywhere. OK - got oil pressure so far, oil pump seems OK, let's see if she'll fire up!

I try to start her but all I get is some coughing out the carbs. I figure now is a good time to take the fire extinguisher off the wall and set it between me and the engine bay. Turn the car over a few more times noting I am getting about 20lbs. on the oil pressure gauge.

mis-fire order

Bobby told me he installed a new ignition system. Maybe it was thirty years of starring at Spitfire wires but something just didn’t seem right about the ignition wires. I put the number one piston at TDC and verified I was on the fire stroke. Since I had the valve cover off, I just checked that both the intake and exhaust valves on number one were closed. Then taking off the dizzy cap noted where the rotor was and when I put the cap back on the rotor was pointing at the number three wire. I made a photo of the wires then proceeded to change the wires so that now the rotor was pointing at the number one wire and changed the rest of the wires to have the 1,3,4,2 firing order. Next, I pressed the start button and she fired right up! YAY!!! 60lbs. of pressure on the oil gauge as well.