The Resurrection of Vixen Continues...

["Stragand, Dave" <dave.stragand@xxxx>]

Hi All,

I did make a bit of headway in my idling problem. It seems that the J&S
spark controller was the issue. However, it boiled down to a bad crimp
on one of the unit's wires, so I soldered it, and then it worked fine.

The car then idled fairly well, with just a little 'burping' here and
there. While doing some adjustments, I noticed an odd reaction. If I
backed out the set screw for the idle microswitch, the idle speed would
jump and the engine would run much more smoothly. I'm stumped on that
one.

Also I noticed that spraying a very -light- mist of carb cleaner on the
air intake resulted in a very smooth idle. This would lead me to
believe there is a vacuum leak or lean condition. I did check all of
the vacuum lines and could not see anything amiss there. So it's
running lean methinks, but perhaps due to low fuel pressure? The CO set
screw has not been tampered with.

Disconnecting the O2 sensor (but not grounding the wire) did not have
any effect on the idle.

I tried to remove the fuel distributor in an attempt to clean the
piston, but only one bolt would break free. I got around that by
bending a small piece of brake line into a curve, and inserting it down
through the intake and through the back middle of the lever on the air
plate, and sprayed carb cleaner through the line. I am fortunate enough
to have a parts engine, so I mocked this arrangement up and verified
that the cleaner did indeed hit the bottom of the piston. With the
control pressure line removed, I worked the air plate quickly back and
forth and heard/felt the little puffs of air from the outlet, and I'm
now satisfied that the piston is clean and free.

With that, I moved on to the control pressure regulator, and removed the
fuel lines and blew compressed air through the smaller port to clean the
screen (it was already spotless by the way) as per the instructions on
the Tech Page. I also shot a little carb cleaner through the idle speed
motor, and verified it was moving correctly & smoothly.

With all of that completed, I restarted the engine and the car idled
fairly smoothly, and had snappy acceleration for about an hour. Then,
it suddenly just quit, and would not restart. In fact, it still will
not start. Well, let me correct that statement -- it will start and run
briefly, then quit. And that's not just at idle, but at any
pedal/throttle position.

I tried the quicky hot-start trick by using the connector from the CPR
to the cold start injector, and the car started. So now I'm thinking
fuel pressure. (I'm ruling out an ignition problem if the car will
start with this trick, and the J&S spark controller is currently
bypassed). There is enough residual fuel pressure to give the air plate
a firm feel though. Unfortunately, I do not have a high pressure fuel
gauge as yet, so I am just guessing. Since my pump -is- rather loud, I
decided to check the suction hose in the tank. The hose is in nice
shape, but rather soft, so I am going to try the stainless steel spring
fix to ensure there will not be a collapse.

What -was- rather distressing is that some fuel additive or other had
started to melt my pump support boot. It was a new boot, but probably
from around 89 or so, and was likely made from a compound not suitable
for today's fuels. That will of course be replaced. Glad I caught it
before it got bad. It is something like black "gel" around the bottom
right now, but there is no contamination that I could see in the tank.
In fact, the baffle is still bright and clean, and the pickup screen is
clean and fully intact.

Tank problems aside, any guesses as to what I might be missing here in
diagnosing/fixing my engine problem?

-Dave Stragand
Vin #05927
http://www.projectvixen.com
54 days until Memphis!


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