mr mikey

With me doing the mechanics and my buddy doing the welding....parts alone are going to put me back about 6k most likely, and that's on a running/driving car(well, it was till the crane fireball lived up to it's name today and started spewing white clouds)........and I'm not even including the cost of the 6-pack webers, still using the 2-pack 3-bolt SU's. But I promised myself I wouldn't let myself get deterred, so there I go getting myself in financial stresses again ..... If you need any parts for your's, just ask and I may be able to scrounge around and find something for ya. I know I got a set of either 3 or 4bolt SU cores around here somewhere, would have to test for rebuild'ability tho. -Mikey.

Well, I ordered a Pertronix unit/coil combo to replace the Crane assembly. My dad's opel gt still has it's pertronix in it, and it's going on 20 next year.

Well I undid the hoses from fuel bowl lids and it fired right up(had to hold gas to floor with choke on and jump off gas soon as it hit)....but it fired right up with no real hesitation. Or so i thought....i walked around to adjust choke a tad while running(choke cables are seized up, so i leave the holders on carbs a lil loose to move cable housing up and down to adjust choke), soon as it idles up and is sounding really smooth it starts to cough and sputter and then starts falling in rpm and goes dead....i smell something weird, and look down to see white smoke pouring out of where the 6wires go in/out of the xr3000 box. Now, this may not even apply here, but my old ford with an msd6 burned it's box once also....and what did it was the coil had failed(either the coil burnt the box or the box burnt the coil, not sure.) I'm having such shitty luck, this is truely laughable and yes, the crane box IS wired correctly....everything grounded well. *sigh*

Wow, ok, thanks guys....now I got lotsa excellent tips to keep me busy for a while. 5thhorsemann, I actually did replace the vaccuum lines and ran them to the air cleaner. Could that be what's making it not wanna start? I have to spin the motor over atleast 10sec before I even get a response sounding anything like it wants to crank, and this is with jets lowered to full choke position. I know that spinning the motor extended periods is bad on starting system, hence why I'm wanting to get this starting issue straightened out first. On another note, I noticed I keep losing clutch fluid somewhere when it sits. I parked it on the concrete, filled up reservoir, and let it sit overnight. This morning the reservoir was empty(even the part below level of tank, so it's not just the tank-to-cylinder seal), there was no fluid, not even a stain, on the floor(so i guess it's not siphoning down like i'd thought). Anyone else had a similar problem? Only other thing i can think of is maybe it's leaking past the rear seal. As far as i know, it's the original clutch master....clutch slave was replaced when carbs were rebuilt. And from what i'm told, it was a local datsun specialist that did the carbs; I think he's retired now, but maybe I can have him take a look at them for me. I pulled carpet and now realize why i got such a good deal -.- All metal between firewall and front of spare-tire area will have to be replaced. Good thing is the previous owner felt bad enuff after seeing it, that he's going to provide all metal needed.

Thanks fellas!!! Central MS pretty much means the 3 towns I spend my time in....Starkville, Meridian, and Vicksburg. Yeah, MS really needs some sort of specialty club....I think all we have is the MS-NATS, or something along those lines. Vicksburg and Jackson have a few local hotrod/street rod clubs, but a Z-club is definitely a necessity.

Another oddity I noticed, but it may be because of the electronic ignition....the previous owner had loaned me his boat battery to drive the car home, so after it was running good today, I unplugged it to make sure charging system wasn't at fault. Oddly enough, when I unplugged the battery, it stayed running for about 2-3seconds then just shutdown like you turned the key off. It just donned on me that it was probably the electronic ignition(xr-3000), can anyone confirm this? Thanks, Mikey.

Got the previous owner to come look at it and he got it to bust off, but it was idling so low that anything lower and it would've died. Touching the accelerator during that time would've killed it. Moved choke down to half and it slowly and steadily idled up to maybe 400-500, and when given a little pedal it would respond correctly(except for the loaded-up sound). After it started to warmup good, we eased choke to off position, it would accelerate then, but would backfire out tail pipe with a lil poof of black smoke when you let off the gas. It also seemed that everytime it would backfire that the idle rpm wouldn't be as low as before it backfired. After we got it idling somewhat smooth around 750rpm, it would sometimes have a light "thump" out the front carb when you goosed the pedal. I'd read somewhere on here that a lean condition will cause an SU to backfire, so for a temp test, I lowered the jet on the front carb to about 1/3 choke, and the light backfire problem went away. Well I went into town and ordered a tuneup kit and some other doo-dads....got back here and couldn't get the car to crank without flooding. Tuneup components won't be here till monday, didn't realize everything except spark plugs was special order.

The poor running is during full, half and no choke. When I turn choke off, the levers lift up, but the jets do not retract up to their resting position until it cranks(i can manually push them up and yes, they bottom out). I do know that they don't exactly have an accelerator pump, but it will not hit a lick unless there's a little back and forth movement of the butterfly valve. The "tap" sound(sounds like a ball peen hammer tapping an iron block) upon quick acceleration does go away once the engine has actually increased in rpm, it just makes that tap 2-3times in the first second after hitting the gas. The engine was a crate that was installed 15yrs/35k miles ago....the guy that built the car at that time was a retired race car builder/driver. All I know is he put about 12k miles on it, then passed away and his son used it as a weekend cruiser a few years....it's been sitting garaged since '02. If anyone wants/needs to know any info, just tell me and I'll see what I can do about getting the info for ya....if I don't understand the terminology of something, I'll quickly say "wait...what?!". That's the queue for you to explain your meaning. -Mikey.

Hey, this car drove perfectly with no problems yesterday....now that it's morning time it takes lotsa cranking and lightly pumping pedal to get it to bust off. Using choke ofcourse, it will start hitting and finally crank just enough to stay running while my foot is barely touching pedal. After it cranks I move the choke to half and it idles on up a little, but it still has a slight sputter sound to it. It'll rev fine with just easy presses of the pedal....but with a swift 0-75% kick of the pedal and holding at the 75% for a couple seconds, a loud tap sound comes from the 5th or 6th cylinder area. Detonation? Back to the sputtering, it sounds almost like it's loading up(or not burning all cylinders) and when I'm driving, it poofs black smoke during shits or hilly accelerations. It's got the xr3000 and ran fine the days BEFORE i bought it. The carbs were rebuilt last spring according to receipts....if I didn't have a bunch of other things(projects) on my mind, I'd probably have figured this out already. It won't idle once choke is completely off, and the last time it ran this morning, it wouldn't idle at a steady rpm, it kept going up and down like someone was slowly depressing and releasing the accelerator and each time it would decelerate it would get lower and lower in rpm till it finally just stalled. Once i get somebody here to actually hold the throttle at a run'able position(and it warms up a few degrees outside brrrr), I'll try to record the sounds it makes and upload them. Thanks in advance to any help that can be thrown this way. -Mikey. Forgot to mention, it has the round top carbs with the spacers and the oil levels are full, so the pistons aren't fluctuating erratically....and it's using the early-style air cleaner. I noticed early this morning the vacuum advance hose wasn't hooked up to the front carb, when I hooked it up, it didn't seem to effect the acceleration much, but it did kill the tap sound when you goose the gas pedal.