Sunday Was a Productive Day

Sunday afternoon I convinced the lovely Loriann to accompany me while I took Glinda out for a drive My intention was to replicate the drive Victoria does when Glinda stops running. After a long, hi-speed run up a hill on I-70, the engine was pinging quite badly. I pulled off the highway and onto a shoulder let things cool a bit. I noticed smoke coming off the engine caused by quite a bit of oil leaking past gaskets. This, painfully, was expected given how long the engine had sat. I got back in the car and eased her back up to highway speeds heading back home. After a few miles, the pinging got worse and the car started losing power. Before I detonated the engine, I pulled off the highway and sat by the side of the road in neutral trying to cool the engine. The TEMP light didn’t come on which is a good sign. After a bit we continued on our way nursing the car home via Advance Auto (where I bought and poured in an oil additive to help the gaskets swell up). Safely back in the driveway, I loosened the distributor clamp nut and rotated the distributor to retard the timing. Then, using the hill down the street from our house as my ping detector, I kept adjusting the timing in small amounts until the ping just went away. Back home again and up on ramps, I tightened some of the pan screws and a valve cover screw where it appeared a majority of the oil was leaking. Afterwards I drove her to the gas station and put in 10 gallons of 93 octane plus half a bottle of octane booster. Later that evening A and V drove her about thirty miles on the same interstate route with no “rattling” (Victoria’s description of pinging) and no dying. I’m going to let this fuel mixture run through the engine for a couple more days, and then I’ll try advancing the timing to improve performance and mileage while not pinging. I’m also going to wait a while and see if the oil additive stops or significantly slows the dripping before I go replacing gaskets and seals. Fortunately, most of the oil leaks are at the rear of the car where that crank seal is easiest to replace.

With Glinda dealt with, I went to work beginning the rearrangement of the garage. I emptied the storage shelves onto the floor of the right side bay throwing away some extra parts while I was at it. Three extra starters is probably a couple too many. Then I disassembled one of the shelf units before it was time to knock off for the evening. I’m hoping that setting it up like the picture below will give me better access all around any car I’m working on. It will also be nice to have the rolling tool cabinet free to move to each project’s location instead of stuck in the corner like it is currently.