It Was Cold Outside Last Night

Ariel had been complaining about two problems with Ringo - dying at stop lights and stop signs and the starter not engaging consistently, so last night I decided it was time to brave the cold and try to do what had to be done. After starting him up, I could hear there was an exhaust leak. Since I’d re-used the exhaust packings, one or both probably needed replacing. That’s okay – I had two new ones on the shelf – piece of cake. First things first – deal with the poor idling. While driving down the driveway the GEN/FAN light came on and stayed on. I inspected the fanbelt and found the generator was loose. Further investigation revealed one of the mounting ears had broken on the endplate. Now I had a new “first thing” to put first. I went to the shelf and found a complete generator and installed it. Turned the engine off and the light went out and stayed out. Yay! Back to the idling. After the engine ran for a few minutes, I noticed the choke on the driver’s side was wide open, but the passenger side was only about halfway. Pulling the spark plug leads on the right side had no affect on the idle speed, so I swapped the right side carb with one that had been on Lucy. After some adjustments, Ringo was idling nicely, and both chokes opened up properly. I wanted to balance the carbs using clear tube technique, but the oil in the tube was too cold to flow properly. Hopefully, it’ll be warm enough this weekend to have the oil flow. I stuck my head under the car and confirmed the exhaust leak. With the engine off, I put the air cleaners back together and put the car up on a jackstand while I let the exhaust cool down. I was then able to easily remove the nuts holding the exhaust pipe ends to the manifolds (thank You Lord for stainless steel hardware). Unfortunately, as the pipe ends were released, the muffler hanger broke. Irrr. Back to the shelf to find a replacement hanger. I found a good one, installed it, and put the exhaust system back together with the new packings. With the car running again, I tightened the nuts until all the exhaust was coming out the tailpipe and none at the joints. Off the jackstand and it was time to call it a night.

Oh yeah, the starting problem. While lying under the car, I took a look at the condition of the ring gear on the torque converter. The starter pinion drives this gear to turn the engine when starting. The ends of the teeth where the pinion slides in from are worn, so it looks like replacing the torque converter is in the near future. That requires dropping the drivetrain and splitting the transaxle from the engine. It’s a good thing I enjoy this stuff.