The bad news or the bad news?
During my morning commute, I got about a mile from home when Lucy's engine died like she'd run out of gas. I coasted to a stop a hundred feet short of a gas station and hopped out to verify the fuel issue. Even though the gage read about half full, there was little to no gas squirting into the left side carb (the one I exposed) when I blipped the throttle. I thought that maybe the gas gage was wrong since I haven’t been driving the car, I wasn’t sure when it was filled with gas last. Using the starter, I “drove” the last feet to the gas station and filled the tank. Only 5 gallons, so there’s plenty of gas in the tank.
I called the house and asked Ariel to come rescue me. I returned to Lucy with the towbar in the back of the Suburban and towed her home. Now I have something to do this evening (like finding something to do with my evenings is a problem).
Thank You Lord this didn't happen when Ariel was driving back from school.
On the other negative note, I got a call from Jeff at the Corvair Ranch yesterday. While I had measured, with my crude instruments, the diameters of Ringo’s cylinders and found them to be within spec, his machinist, with much more accurate instruments and skills, found them to be unsuitable for just honing. That means this engine rebuild is going to run me an additional $300 or so. Ouch!
I do have a possible option. Bolted into Betty’s engine bay is a 95 HP engine of unknown condition. I do know it starts and runs, but I don’t know what kind of compression each cylinder has. This engine came out of Old Betty before I hauled her up to the ranch. Before I commit to spending the $$$ on rebuilding Ringo’s engine, I’m going to check out Betty’s old engine. If the compression checks out for all cylinders, I’m not averse to playing musical motors again.
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