Saturday August 27, 2016 Guerneville CA.
More work on the new engine project
Today, among other things I hoped to get the engine timing squared away. I needed to move the distributor one tooth to get it to line up, so I gave that a bit of thought before starting out.
I needed to take all the spark plug wires off and pull this distributor out to reset it properly.
I pulled the distributor and studied things before attempting to install it with one tooth moved.
Here the distributor is out.
I had to fiddle with this several times to get it all right, but I finally got the distributor in the right place and all the plug wires in the right place. Then I set the idle and timed it at eight degrees.
Good to have that done.
During that process I noticed the oil pressure gauge wasn’t working, nor was the alternator charging the batteries so I had to work on that.
Oil pressure gauge
The oil pressure gauge didn’t work because I had moved the wrong wires on the gauge under the dash, so I had to set that right and now the gauge works.
Getting the alternator to charge
I wasn’t sure why the alternator wasn’t charging. I converted from an external regulated one to what they call a one wire one, but I was suspicious if it really was one wire or not. I did some research and it appeared I might need a battery connection to the field.
So to test this, I hooked a wire from the alternator’s field to the battery and started the engine. It now charged, but.
When I turned the key off, the engine didn’t turn off. I put a rag over the intake to finally get it stopped.
That’s why the use the wire with the light on it
OK, now I know why they said to use the oil lamp lite wire from the instrument panel. That wire is keyed. The light in the circuit lets the engine turn off, which worked after I found the wire and hooked it up.
The batteries were charging now so that was good.
The van has several metal air flow pans under it that needed to be put back on so I worked on that and got that done.
I thought I’d try the air cleaner again to see if it would fit now that I got the distributor in the right place. With the distributor in the right place the new air cleaner now fits, but just barely.
I finished up just before dark and now the engine install is complete.
More stuff to do
I still have a bit more work. I need to seal up the engine compartment and do a little more work routing the spark plug wires. I’m sure there are a couple more things I’ve forgotten.
Oh yeah, I almost have the oil dip stick ready to go, I think, a little more work on that.
I’m also pretty sure the transfer case shifter is set wrong and I will have to do some more work on that to make it work.
I should be able to accomplish most things tomorrow and then it will be ready to get the muffler system installed sometime this week.