well, I dropped my '65 off the other day at a new mechanic with a long list of items to check and work on. Mostly they were basic tune-up stuff and beginning of season maintanance stuff.
Always hesitant going to a new mechanic because of my (bad) luck finding decent ones previously but this one seems to know what he is doing.
I just spoke to him and he's run across a few unexpected problems that means I won't get my car back until the beginning of next week but that's ok as long as he manages to fix everything.
I had a LOT of problems with getting the timing correct since I got the car last year and nobody I took it to was able to get it set up correctly even though it was in 2 different shops for 5 visits and that included a complete rebuild of the distributor. Now this mechanic is sure that the problem lies with the harmonic balancer. He said it's the wrong balancer for the that motor and that when he checked the timing it was reading 54-56degrees!! It's suppossed to be around 34-36 isn't it? He said that the balancer must be off or otherwise if the timing was really that high it would run like crap and be detonating like crazy (which it isn't) which leads him to believe the problem is with the balancer so he is going to have to order in a correct one and install it.
The other problem he came across is after he installed the new battery he checked thru the charging system and discovered the alternator wasn't putting out any charge to the battery! well, that would explain why the old battery kept going dead. He hasn't figured out yet though if the problem is the alternator itself or the regulator but it looks as if at least one of them may need replacing. He also mentioned that the pulley(?) on the alternator (that the belt goes around) is undersized compared to what it should be.
Anyone know what size pulley should be on the alternator so I can confirm this?
Once he gets those two areas fixed than he can set the timing properly and than adjust my valaves and the car will be done.
He said everything else looked pretty good on the car except the carb needed a bit of adjustment and the clutch adjustment was way off but he's already adjusted both of those. I suppose the carb may need more tweaking as he gets the timing set properly though?
Always hesitant going to a new mechanic because of my (bad) luck finding decent ones previously but this one seems to know what he is doing.
I just spoke to him and he's run across a few unexpected problems that means I won't get my car back until the beginning of next week but that's ok as long as he manages to fix everything.
I had a LOT of problems with getting the timing correct since I got the car last year and nobody I took it to was able to get it set up correctly even though it was in 2 different shops for 5 visits and that included a complete rebuild of the distributor. Now this mechanic is sure that the problem lies with the harmonic balancer. He said it's the wrong balancer for the that motor and that when he checked the timing it was reading 54-56degrees!! It's suppossed to be around 34-36 isn't it? He said that the balancer must be off or otherwise if the timing was really that high it would run like crap and be detonating like crazy (which it isn't) which leads him to believe the problem is with the balancer so he is going to have to order in a correct one and install it.
The other problem he came across is after he installed the new battery he checked thru the charging system and discovered the alternator wasn't putting out any charge to the battery! well, that would explain why the old battery kept going dead. He hasn't figured out yet though if the problem is the alternator itself or the regulator but it looks as if at least one of them may need replacing. He also mentioned that the pulley(?) on the alternator (that the belt goes around) is undersized compared to what it should be.
Anyone know what size pulley should be on the alternator so I can confirm this?
Once he gets those two areas fixed than he can set the timing properly and than adjust my valaves and the car will be done.
He said everything else looked pretty good on the car except the carb needed a bit of adjustment and the clutch adjustment was way off but he's already adjusted both of those. I suppose the carb may need more tweaking as he gets the timing set properly though?