The continuing saga of trying to bring this thing back to life

[Jay Kempf]

Well, 

Today was the day to try to get everything up and running. First thing we
ran into was not being able to get the emergency brake cables to tension
properly. The cables are fine, the lever in the car is fine, the levers at
the calipers are moving but the brake handle does not lock the brakes down.
The car hasn't driven yet so I am assuming that I have to bed the calipers,
rotors, pads in to a little driving to drive the ratcheting mechanism
forward. All else bled and came up fine, Removed the upper cover enough to
see the timing belt and watched through a few rotations of the belt rotating
the crank with a wrench and all looked well. Pulled the fuel pump relay and
turned it over and all sounded ok and I got 2 bar just on cranking. Battery
stayed up well even if it was just brought back after 5 years. Jumpered the
relay and heard the pump. So we tried to start it. Nothing. Checked a plug,
good spark even if it was a bit dirty. I'll clean them this week. Traced
back to the pump and it wasn't running anymore. Checked voltage at the back
in the harness and all fine. Jumpered at the connector on the tank and
nothing. Ordering a new pump. I just bench tested the thing when I had it
out and it ran then. Just jumpered it today and we swore we heard it run
three times. Now nothing. Other than that we have no leakage at the rack,
fuel lines, hydraulic lines, brake lines, coolant, all dry underneath. All
systems seem to be working with what we could check thus far. 

Fortunately parts for these things have come down in the last bunch of
years. So I think if I get a pump it will just run. Maybe another week
waiting for parts and one more hour of sucking fuel fumes and I'll be there.
I was worried about the clutch but it feels smooth and solid so far. The
final test will be when we get to drive it. It is easy to be disappointed
that we couldn't get it to run today but I look at the last bunch of weeks
and how far this thing has come from the grips of being a basket case with a
little TLC and I am encouraged. Can't wait to add it back into the fleet. 



jfk