Starting 1963 sitting for years

[mikeoster2112]

Sorry, wont start. Ill make sure to double chack all the vac lines and the bowls are full. Okay thanks! I will advance it enough so the #1 and the cap are lined up, and keep on trying. No giving up yet, as now it is a quest!!

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[mikeoster2112]

Thanks 74 Harley!

Many thanks to you for your advice yesterday. Advanced the timing 10 degrees BTDC and she fired right off. Smelled like mouse pee and other things that may or may not have inhabited the garare for 30 years, but she rolled into a nice idle. A little fast but that can be tamed. All in all the advice was spot on from you. It ran and got up to temp and then I noticed a coolant leak behind the carb on the carb spacer. Mine is pretty shot and rusted and because of that the connection is not air tight. Any ideas who can sell me a new one of these? Ive looked a little bit, but still no dice.

Again, thanks for all your help!

 

[74 Harley]

Post a picture, I may have one.

 

[mikeoster2112]

Will do, here are 4 pics of the existing one. Twp ports on the side and one in the back. And those parts on the carb might be wrongly reassembled 🙄

 

[mikeoster2112]

Thanks 74 Harley!!! for the offer on a the spacer, but I took it off cleaned it up and grinded it down to see where the best hose fitting was. Those are tough to come by...
No leaks and after adding some coolant it fired right up and ran for about 20 minutes with no leaks!! I shut it down and started it again a couple more times. Crazy exhaust leak from the manifiold ( 🙄) but it ran pretty nice and I went out to do some timing on it this am. Ran at a great temp although the guage doesnt work...

Then today..
The ignition switch never worked so I have been jumping it on the solenoid and using a hand held starter. I was playing around with the ignition last night and got the tumbler to seet into the housing and the interior lights, fan, blinkers tailights etc worked as it went acc mode when i hooked up the original wires to it. It even wanted to start the engine. Makes this noise whenever the battery is hooked up or the ignition from the interior is engaged. I was happy that a new tumbler may be all I need to begin using the key to start it. Hopefully.

Anyway, I went today to start it do some timing and idle mixture work, and it will not get a spark. No spark from the coil, tested it for spark as the engine turned and nothing... I took off the d cap and my rotor was 180 off of #1 wire even though my balancer read I was 6-10 degrees BTDC. ?? I think I made sure that the car was OFF in the ignition maybe getting that working caused a problem??. Wierd that it fired up pretty quick yesterday and ran for a long while, and I was able to start and stop it multiple times and then today the rotor was all off and no spark to the coil. Could it be a bad coil? Fried it with all the activity? Maybe the solenoid although it cranks? Or since the ignition switch is kinda working again I have two things going on at once? Fried something else? So Spitballing...

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[MorrisonAF]

Thanks 74 Harley!!! for the offer on a the spacer, but I took it off cleaned it up and grinded it down to see where the best hose fitting was. Those are tough to come by...
No leaks and after adding some coolant it fired right up and ran for about 20 minutes with no leaks!! I shut it down and started it again a couple more times. Crazy exhaust leak from the manifiold ( 🙄) but it ran pretty nice and I went out to do some timing on it this am. Ran at a great temp although the guage doesnt work...

Then today..
The ignition switch never worked so I have been jumping it on the solenoid and using a hand held starter. I was playing around with the ignition last night and got the tumbler to seet into the housing and the interior lights, fan, blinkers tailights etc worked as it went acc mode when i hooked up the original wires to it. It even wanted to start the engine. Makes this noise whenever the battery is hooked up or the ignition from the interior is engaged. I was happy that a new tumbler may be all I need to begin using the key to start it. Hopefully.

Anyway, I went today to start it do some timing and idle mixture work, and it will not get a spark. No spark from the coil, tested it for spark as the engine turned and nothing... I took off the d cap and my rotor was 180 off of #1 wire even though my balancer read I was 6-10 degrees BTDC. ?? I think I made sure that the car was OFF in the ignition maybe getting that working caused a problem??. Wierd that it fired up pretty quick yesterday and ran for a long while, and I was able to start and stop it multiple times and then today the rotor was all off and no spark to the coil. Could it be a bad coil? Fried it with all the activity? Maybe the solenoid although it cranks? Or since the ignition switch is kinda working again I have two things going on at once? Fried something else? So Spitballing...

Any help would be appreciated.

Some of those thunderbird you have to pull up on the column shifter to engage the safety… mine won’t start without pulling up on it… sometimes you gotta wiggle it around too!

Some of those thunderbird you have to pull up on the column shifter to engage the safety… mine won’t start without pulling up on it… sometimes you gotta wiggle it around too!

Should be a relay on the firewall in the middle that activates I do believe

 

[74 Harley]

Ok,so no spark with the key. Let's fix this first. Turn ignition switch to on. Check for power at the coil. If no, then you may have the ignition wire on the wrong pole on the back of the ignition.
If yes, then you may be losing power while cranking. This can be caused by not having a small wire at the solenoid connected. ( It goes from the I terminal to coil) Then there's the possibility of a broken wire.
Up for a timing check? Pull number one spark plug. Remove coil wire. Connect your remote starter switch. Place a thumb over number one and bump the engine over until you feel compression. Now put the balancer in time. It should be pretty close. Now look at your rotor position. Remember that the crank turns twice for every revolution of the distributor. Timing is always on the compression stroke.
And you can always hotwire it again to test its run ability.
I think your issues are probably just electrical, maybe even the ignition switch itself is worn out.

 

[mikeoster2112]

I was able to get the ignition switch undone and free. The red wire leading from the ignition to the coil is completely bare and of course old, and was probably touching metal behind the dash possibly causing a short? Time to replace the switch and see what I can do about the wire running to the coil. Under the dash I go.

 

[MorrisonAF]

You can try to either heat shrink it or wrap it in electrical tape and cut the end don’t stretch snap it… it’ll cause it to unroll

 

[MorrisonAF]

And we have spark at the coil!!

How’s the car running?!

 

[mikeoster2112]

Thanks for asking. darn job got in the way the last few days. After getting the spark back to the coil I decided to work on the brakes. I haven’t tried it yet but hope to fire her up in the next few days. I switched out the master cylinder and beld the rear passenger side then the drivers rear last evening. But I may have to review the process all over again after a review of the front brake hoses. They may need to be changed out? But after bleeding the backs and getting zero air bubbles, I have no leaks anywhere. Any help with making this process more complete and obviously safe would be of help. Most of the jobs on this car are pretty straightforward, brakes are not something I want to half ass lol.
It would be great to have brakes once she runs, then I can see if it will even shift into gear and engage. Thats the finger crossing moment thats been on my mind as it relates to this car?🙄

 

[74 Harley]

If you haven't done it yet,replace the wheel cylinders. And all of the rubber lines as well.
If the car drove in there, you should not have any real transmission issues as long as it has fluid.
It sounds like you are making good progress, keep up the good work!

 

[mikeoster2112]

Perfect! I was wondering about the brake cylinders and the lines. Exactly what I was looking for in the advice category. I should have asked earlier but the bleeding was easy so doing it again is no biggie. Looking forward to dropping it into gear and backing it out into the sunshine for the first time since 1990. At least that’s the last time the tabs were renewed.?

Thanks Harley!!

 

[MorrisonAF]

Thanks for asking. darn job got in the way the last few days. After getting the spark back to the coil I decided to work on the brakes. I haven’t tried it yet but hope to fire her up in the next few days. I switched out the master cylinder and beld the rear passenger side then the drivers rear last evening. But I may have to review the process all over again after a review of the front brake hoses. They may need to be changed out? But after bleeding the backs and getting zero air bubbles, I have no leaks anywhere. Any help with making this process more complete and obviously safe would be of help. Most of the jobs on this car are pretty straightforward, brakes are not something I want to half ass lol.
It would be great to have brakes once she runs, then I can see if it will even shift into gear and engage. Thats the finger crossing moment thats been on my mind as it relates to this car?🙄

Plugged brake line it happened to mine, the rust from the old master gets in there and plugs it up 99%

 

[MorrisonAF]

One thing too is if your have a plugged line you can try to remove the hoses and cylinders and blow the lines out with compressed air

 

[mikeoster2112]

Once again thanks for all the help! I’m going to start over with new cylinders and brake lines.
AND blow out the lines for good measure.
THEN a wash!!??

 

[MorrisonAF]

Once again thanks for all the help! I’m going to start over with new cylinders and brake lines.
AND blow out the lines for good measure.
THEN a wash!!??

My thunderbird had the same issue… I couldn’t figure it out and dealt with it for 10 years lol but it was stored for a bunch of them… turned out at the brake hose junction to both rear hoses the rear
Passenger line was plugged up right at the hose into the line 99%.. looks like it’s more common then I thought lol… I figured it out by getting a pressure bleeder after fighting it to bleed for almost 2 weeks and then hooking it up directly to the brake line and pulling a super amount of vacuum without it actually pulling anything!

 

[mikeoster2112]

My thunderbird had the same issue… I couldn’t figure it out and dealt with it for 10 years lol but it was stored for a bunch of them… turned out at the brake hose junction to both rear hoses the rear
Passenger line was plugged up right at the hose into the line 99%.. looks like it’s more common then I thought lol… I figured it out by getting a pressure bleeder after fighting it to bleed for almost 2 weeks and then hooking it up directly to the brake line and pulling a super amount of vacuum without it actually pulling anything!

I was getting some fluid through the lines but it definitely wasn’t flowing right. I think the new calipers and the hoses per Harleys suggestion will hopefully bring about a better result. I will definitely know more when I get them apart and see if and what the blockage is. And it sounds like it would not be a bad idea to blow the lines out with air. Like I said they are brakes, so no sense in going half a. LOL

 

[MorrisonAF]

I was getting some fluid through the lines but it definitely wasn’t flowing right. I think the new calipers and the hoses per Harleys suggestion will hopefully bring about a better result. I will definitely know more when I get them apart and see if and what the blockage is. And it sounds like it would not be a bad idea to blow the lines out with air. Like I said they are brakes, so no sense in going half a. LOL

I agree the problem I had was getting the rear brake line and hose seperated.. low and behold mine twisted and broke..

 

[mikeoster2112]

Wow!! That front drum was a bit too much!! But it came off just in time for my new hoses to appear and the cylinders too.
Compressed air is going through all the lines shortly but I have a question … any thoughts on running denatured alcohol through them first then air? Once that is done I can bleed them out and it should be buttoned up.