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3 minute(s) of a 26 minute read
5-20-2014
The 'Vo and I had a bit of a falling out tonight.
The old brake switch is absolutely welded in place after 50 years. After many frustrating attempts to get it loose, it's spending the night in a PB bath.
On to the back seat belts... I purchased retractable lap belts, and the design is rather silly:
The spooling bit (top) is huge and clunky, and I'm thinking I'm going to have to modify the back bench to get it to slide in around this behemoth. Anybody have any experience with this type of install?
No progress at all tonight - I just laid the carpet in, laid down on the squishy floorboards and wept into by beer. I need to get this thing back on the road soon or I'm going to forget how much fun it is.
It is a LOT of work. I have a ton of new-found respect for anybody who has (or will) resurrect these beautiful machines on a regular basis.
6-19-2014
Ladies and Gentlemen.
The good news:
After 8 months of living in my buddy's garage, and discovering that BOTH of my front calipers were seized, my Amazon is back together and home. And it looks gooooooood - I got 2 waves in the 4 1/2 blocks from my pal's house to mine.
The bad news:
It's running like dog poo. Rough idle (sometimes doesn't run on cylinders 1&2), almost no power on the road, the rear float bowl leaks gas when it's running poorly... it's not good.
I'm extremely unhappy with the job the local carb guy did with these SU's. Lesson learned: don't assume sending something out means it's done right. Shortly after getting the car running, I quickly learned that the carb pistons stuck and one of the floats had a pinhole in it, so it was filling with gas. I got the pistons working and replaced the float with a new-style (no adjustable metal bracket) from IPD, and then figured out that it wasn't running on 1 & 2 at idle, even with the other adjustments. I can get it tuned to run pretty well if I mess with the jet screws, but then if I let it sit and start it again awhile later, it's a mess again. Absolutely no power on the road.
Tomorrow I'm going to check the weights in the distributor and then start fiddling with the carb tune again.
Good news: I found out my dad's neighbor drove P544's daily until the mid-90's, and has given me all his extremely awesome 60's shop manuals, parts catalogs and Unisyn. He is also willing to come help me tune this bad boy if I figure out that's what it needs.
Thoughts from you gurus? I have some time to try some things this weekend.
Does anyone know any SU pros in the Mpls/St Paul area? I might need to call in the big guns for this.
