Out of Commission

Not the car, just me.  I sneezed yesterday and blew out my back.  Hopefully it's not too serious.  I wasn't planning on doing much this weekend anyway.  Happy Thanksgiving.  

At least I can still eat turkey!!!

Cold weekend; little accomplished

So it was chilly this weekend.  My one repair project met with minimal success.  The exhaust has some small holes, I thought I could patch them with some muffler tape...No such luck.  After curing overnight, the test drive today burned right through the patch.  The LandShark will just be loud until I order a muffler.  On the plus side, I created a long and seemingly daunting list of things to do.  http://jacknsundrop.tadalist.com/lists/1156806/public.  Hopefully, I can roll through them pretty quickly.  The only real excitement, other than how much fun the LandShark is to drive, is when my hood latch let go somewhere past 85 mph.  Fortunately these old BMW hoods are hinged in the front, so it did not fly up and block my view.  The speedometer only goes up to 85 as well, so it's hard to say how fast I was going.  The long drive did wonders for my clutch and transmission.  Shifting was much smoother on the return trip.  I should have taken a picture.

Success!!!

Who knew that an engine could be so sensitive.  I left the snorkel off the air filter case while working on the engine.  It's in the way, and when making adjustments, I am constantly taking the air filter case in and out of the car anyway.  With the snorkel off, too much air was getting into the engine at idle, snuffing out the combustion.  The snorkel is part 4 in the diagram below.  

I know, that's a lot of parts to hold an air filter.  Until I had made these adjustments, the snorkel didn't really make a difference whether the car ran or not.  It was actually harder to start with the snorkel on before I cleaned and tuned up the engine.  Now it fires right up.  The throttle was unresponsive too before I made all the adjsutments and cleaned/checked/replaced various fuel injection components.  Now it runs as much like a scaleded dog as a car with only a little over 100hp can.  Now I just need to start my search for a passenger seat and center console. 

I have a suspicion that my heater vents are all blocked.  Possibly with dirt dobber nests. Thankfully I have a warm coat and a short drive to work.

Still sitting in the carport

Now that it is very cold working on the car is less exciting.  Riding the bike to work will be even less exciting next week if I don't figure it out tomorrow.  The Landshark will run, he just won't idle.  It's hard to hold down three pedals at a stop sign with only two feet.  I've gone through everything, but may have overlooked something simple.  I have an idea to try tomorrow.  We'll see what happens.

I should have left well enough alone...

I'm back to the bicycle for a day or two.  

By trying to fix my hard cold-starting problem, I've created another.  I hooked everything back up and the Landshark wouldn't start.  I think with these cars, "if it ain't broke enough, you can wait to fix it".  Running, with a long warm-up time was ok, compared to not running.  Maybe, just maybe though, I'm only out of gas.  I was heading toward a 1/4 tank on Friday, which is empty for the Landshark.  

Sadly, I only thought of this possibility after sunset, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings.  At least it will be bright and sunny for my ride into work tomorrow.

New month, New projects...

The trip to homecoming went really well.  I stayed in the right lane and pretty much kept my foot on the floor.  It's very easy to drive like that.  

Thankfully, my friends are lazy and out of shape.  They attempted to return to their college glory days by picking up and moving my car inside the fraternity house.  While the Landshark did get off the ground, they compromised at carrying it 5 feet.  I was still not amused.

I'm missing some power and throttle somewhere.  My goal this month is to find them.  I'll be adjusting the throttle to make sure it is set properly and getting its full range of motion.  These cars have mechanical fuel injection, so I'll be adjusting that a little.  The car still takes many tries to start and stay running when cold.  Before I fry my starter, I'll be adjusting what the books call the "warm-up regulator".  It gives added fuel when the engine is cold and helps regulate the fuel pressure to the engine throughout the driving cycle.  The last project for the month is to slap a patch on my exhaust pipe so that people stop asking, "So, is it a diesel?"  It's a little loud.  I'll also be keeping my eye out for a passenger seat, and a center console so I can put the interior back together.  

Driving this car out on the road was a pleasure.  While it didn't respond to the gas pedal, the handling is fantastic.  The car responds to little movements of the wheel, it is not unconnected to the road like cars today.  Power steering is nice, especially on larger cars, but on a small car like this, it would just get in the way.