stick the sender in a cup of boiling water and see how accurate it is .or find someone with one of those temp gun things and check how hot it actually is ,pugs
Hi Pugs, I'm sort of assuming, as the original big stop light and temp light came on (once) when the gauge was reading 110C, that the gauge is fairly accurate. Not sure what temp the original light switch is set to trigger at, but (at atmospheric pressure) boiling point of water + cap pressure (4psi x1.5) gives a system boiling point of 106C. I would imagine the warning light switch would be set to trip very close to this figure (106C). The car clearly seems hotter than "normal" under the bonnet. It may pay to check with a heat gun I guess, just in case both the gauge and warning light are incorrect.stick the sender in a cup of boiling water and see how accurate it is .or find someone with one of those temp gun things and check how hot it actually is ,pugs
Hi DS/ID.Looks like you are checking the obvious. How about engine timing maybe a little retarded??
Yes Hotrodelectric it has the original charging system. The regulator looks like it has never been disturbed but I will have a closer look at the ring termimals. Thanks Rob.Rob-
Does the car still have the original alternator/regulator setup? It almost sounds like the three ring terminals are mis-connected. Difficult to do with 3 different size rings, but I've seen a lot crazier.....
Edit: stupid me. I typed "cat" for "car"
Hi Roger,Forget timing scales, do it by ear and feel. It's more accurate. Advance the timing a bit, go for a drive and see if the engine pings when you try to accelerate in a high gear. If not, advance a bit more and go for another drive. And so on. Once it does ping, retard the timing a bit and make sure it no longer pings.
The quickest way to set timing is to find the highest idle speed then retard it a bit. But road testing is more accurate.
Roger
Agreed on that Roger. I'll drop a dial gauge down No 1 cylinder and set up the timing scale for now. Be interesting to see if true piston TDC lines up with the flywheel notch? Given that the scale is registering on the cam pulley the TDC position may well be out next time due to cam chain stretch.Hello Rob,
Yes, I was referring to old-technology engines. Where the components are worn, scales might have slipped a bit, and fuel octane levels may be different from when the car was new, I am not convinced the marked scales are all that accurate. Hence my suggestion to time by ear.
Roger
Good reason to use a dial gauge by the sounds of it. I have no idea what month in 71 mine is.If the build date is after 1st July '71 then the notch should be at 0° BTDC, prior to that it is 12° BTDC. With a bit of luck, the car still has it's original flywheel.
Thanks alpine, I'll Google it.ankor wax is designed to protect machinery , works well stops rust and removed with turps, '
sourced 4lt in WA cheaper than smaller quantities , cant remember where from
Mmm, I found a NOS sender online and although no specs are quoted it does have the number 105 on one of the brass flats. One would presume that is the trigger temperature for the light?My temperature sender for the big red light of doom switched on 84C, pretty useless with a 82C thermostat.
If you do check the sender in a saucepan of water on the cooker, make the sender is not touching the pan bottom, nor the thermometer touching the pan bottom.
Here in the balmy UK, I upgraded from two core to three core, then after I fitted an air-con condenser in front of the radiator, I had an aluminium radiator made, it is 78mm thick and cross flow (copied from an injection rad).
That's a bloody nice car Rob... and I m loving your approach... preservation and use is a very honest and practical approach to enjoying what we have here and now...Here's the outside, I have had all the guards off and been inside all the doors and there are no signs of distortion from dents/scrapes. Not sure why but the L front guard and door have a very, very thin coat of red between the original white and the black respray . It's actually glossy red so isn't red oxide primer. Maybe started to paint it red and didn't like it so went to black, who knows? I never took any photos of the boot lid when I bought the car, but is was flopping around on the back like a fish out of water. The lock, catch, badges and struts were thrown in a box. It had 3 big holes cut out of it (where the badges and lock go) with an angle grinder, all the underside panel had rusted off and was laying in the boot floor, the corners and much of the lower edge had been "reconstructed" with fibreglass and bog which was all delaminating as they were very old repairs. I had it flagged for the bin until the $1200 quotes (with freight) out of Europe for a fibreglass one arrived!! Without going into too much detail I rehabilitated the old boot lid and finished it with a "worn look" to match the rest of the car. I know the D Special badge is a 72 but the old 71 script badge was in the box of bits (broken in half) along with the 72 one, so I used the good one. Hoping to get a RWC in the next couple of days and put it on club rego.
Cheers Rob.
Thanks Dino.That's a bloody nice car Rob... and I m loving your approach... preservation and use is a very honest and practical approach to enjoying what we have here and now...
Cheers
Dino
I'm going for another drive in the country tomorrow, I'm going to add a couple of more degrees of ignition advance before I go. Still unsure if the cooler weather or the timing change brought the car's temp down a bit, maybe both?It feels good to tick these jobs off one-by-one, doesn't it.
For a 1971 D Special (i.e car made between September 70 and August 71), the factory timing settings were for a total of 24 degrees at 2000 rpm - so an extra 6 degrees when measured on the pulley (as opposed to 4). Modern fuels combust more slowly than back in the day, so older cars may even benefit from a little more advance than the manual prescribes. So your timing may not be as advanced as it could/ should be. At the end of the day, home mechanics need to be prepared to use their eyes, ears and noses as well as reference tables. If you've set the timing at 4 degrees advance and you have no pinking, your plugs aren't getting fouled, and your engine pulls and runs happily. Then go with your instincts.