Today I hit another big milestone, testing the engine power right through to actual car movement. In a sense this worked but it wasn't without a few hick ups! I can however say that the oil pressure was ok, the fan kicked in when it was meant to and the seats were quite comfy.
After the long cold winter the car took a little while to start, this was mainly due to a lack of fuel in the carb but also linked to the cold air. Once started there was the usual smoke as mentioned in the last couple of posts, this soon disappeared as the engine heated up. There was also the issue of the high revs, Mike & I set about adjusting the idle speed, the engine might have died down slightly hoverer we never got to really test this as we then encountered the carb issues.
The carb issues are related to the auto choke on the Weber DGAV 32/36 and the point at which the choke opens up the air flaps. Basically these seemed to open up despite the engine not being able to cope with the cold air, therefore at lower revs the engine would stall. The only solutions were to either rev the engine very high for idle (4000 rpm) or for Mike to hold the flaps shut, we went with option 2! Once we were happy everything else on the engine seemed OK, it was time to test the clutch and try moving the car on its own. The fear was that the clutch was fitted by myself early on in the build, the engine & gearbox had come from the Sierra donor but the clutch was all down to me. So I stuck the car in reverse, released the brakes and lifted the clutch slightly - and the car moved!!! Fortunately Mike was paying attention and moved along with the car so the engine would keep running. Also tried 1st gear which also seemed to work OK, my cheeks were hurting as I was smiling far too much, I couldn't believe it was actually working.
I should probably add that my throttle pedal wasn't connected up properly so Mike was also operating the throttle cable. Essential I did gears, clutch and brakes; Mike did throttle and choke which not getting run over.
