Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Ringo’s a Riot

Sunday afternoon, right after I’d finished the tune-up on the PT Cruiser, I received a phone call from Ariel. Ringo was not running right. She had her foot to the floor and he could only manage to eek out a paltry 40 mph. I asked her to try and nurse it to her destination a few miles down the road. The car didn’t make it dying a few moments after we ended our phone call. I topped off the Suburban’s with water, tossed the towbar and support equipment (wrenches, tow-rope, tow-lights, etc.) into the back and drove to her car. I hitched the car up and drove home and then spent an hour and a half dealing with carburetors. The engine ran smoothly, but wouldn’t idle. By this point it was very late, and mercifully I called it a day.

Monday, after work, I pulled the carburetors off Lucy knowing they worked fine and put them on Ringo. He started right up and after a few adjustments and balancing, idled nicely. I had Ariel drive him around the neighborhood and she came home and gave me the thumbs up.

I took the carburetors that had been on Ringo and installed them on Lucy. They balanced up nicely and I was able to get the engine to idle, but not smoothly. I took him for a drive around the block and took the tach up to 5 grand trying to suck out whatever was causing a problem. It worked and the idle settled at a steady 1100 rpm. That’s a little high, but I’ll drive it a few days before turning the screws again.

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