No Pleasure Without Pain !

I finally managed to get to work on my car and it has been nearly six weeks since my last visit owing to personal and work commitments.

I had hoped to be further along in my restoration but having had many classic cars knew the journey would not be straight forward.

To recap on our last visit the sender unit had been removed and unblocked and we had fuel coming through. I could not tell how much fuel I had in the tank and so decided to replace the sender unit at this stage and this would also allow me to fit a new sender unit with the mesh filter attached to prevent any further blockages in the near term.

The old sender unit was removed as well as the rubber seal which although compressed was not damaged. I decided to replace it anyway , this time the bolts all came of a lot easier after their previous WD40 bath.

On removal it was clear that the existing sender unit was in very bad condition.

The hose clamps had seen better days so the new sender unit was fitted with new hose clamps. The electrical connectors were quite loose so they were gently tightened with some pliers and connected to the new shiny spade connectors. This was a job that I would not have to touch again for a long time and the new hose clamps would make life easier in the future.

The car was powered up and the fuel gauge worked and showed that we have a full tank of go juice.

We had been charging the battery overnight in a bid to repair it but it just had no oomph.

A new shiny battery was installed and the engine was coaxed to life with some easy start to try and get the fuel to the carb.

In addition the starter seemed very sluggish despite a brand new battery and a booster pack attached. After a few attempts to start the car the ignition would just click and then engine would not turn over. I had to wait for a few minutes and then try again at which point the starter would engage. I have had this issue starting the car since the day I purchased it and had never got to the bottom of what was causing the issue. I had also tried to change the ignition barrel but it did the same thing.

Eventually there was a bang... the car started to run. Very lumpy but it ran feeding on the fuel from the petrol tank confirming that there was no blockage in the fuel tank.

I ran the engine for about 15 mins and was very encouraged. Yes it was lumpy but that was to be expected after the duration of its slumber and the best thing was that it was burning fuel from the petrol tank. The radiator pipes were getting warm and I was smiling.

I could see smoke coming out from somewhere on the bulkhead side of the engine and I will need to investigate this more but hopefully it is something minor like an exhaust gasket that has failed.

What I did notice was that the car did not want to rev and was spluttering a lot and also the battery was draining. i suspected the alternator may not be working properly.

I turned off the car and put the battery once more on charge. the next morning the battery was fully charged and i went to start it again. The starter motor barely spun like it had done previously, I continued trying but all of a sudden I saw smoke from the starter motor.

It had completely died.

This was another issue to resolve. But the positive was that the car did start and fuel was flowing. I have a spare starter in my trove of spares and will try and replace the smoky starter. My spare starter looks new but may be faulty also and I will not know until I fit it.

Worst case I will get a replacement starter motor and alternator and hopefully once fitted we will be able to start the car a whole lot easier. The plan is to get reconditioned units locally sourced in Handsworth and this is the next job along with identifying where the smoke is coming from.

Although my progress has been slower than anticipated, I have still made big steps forward.

Till next time..