Gratuitous Video

I'm posting this mostly so I have a place to go to hear that flathead - it beats running out to the backyard and firing it up in the dark!



Oh, and I suppose I should indicate here I spent a good part of the day running the flathead until it started flooding into near carb-fire territory. My uncle thinks I got the float stuck sucking up junk from the little fuel tank I'm using to gravity feed it. I figured I'd overcome the needle valve with too much fuel pressure and was flooding it: literally fuel dripping/pouring into the intake. I spun the motor several times with the ignition off just to spray the fuel out of the cylinders for fear of a backfire out the carb.

Anyway, you can see that I picked up a generator belt so I could run it with the water pumps doing their cooling duty. Since I didn't have a fan running on it, I continually ran water through the radiator: in the top via the garden hose, and out the bottom via the drain. She did pretty well, but smoked a bit from the right bank; it was blue smoke (oil). I shot Marvel Mystery Oil down the carb, which seemed to clean it up a little. My friend (who couldn't come by today) suggested the rings were frozen to the piston and therefore not rotating(?) to seal out the oil. He suggested Marvel or diesel down the cylinders to free them up. My uncle suggested an old Okie (literally) trick: a teaspoon or less of baking soda down the plug hole with a little oil to help take the glazing off the cylinder walls. Supposedly this trick was told to him by an old-timer long since passed away who was his old car mentor. I may just give it a whirl, although I'm considering Bon Ami, because it "hasn't scratched yet" in the many uses I've had for it.

After playing with the motor, I spent some time on finishing up the transmission: clutch release fork, shaft, and bushings; throwout bearing, and u-joint. Still need to gasket/seal it, and redo the shifter ball cap/spring thing.

Thankfully, I only have one night's obligation this week, and a 3-day weekend coming up, so I hope to get a lot accomplished this week. We'll see...

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