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Canyoneagle's 1979 245

SUCCESS!!!!
Got the old girl fired up.
I tested the injectors, and they were fine (jumper pump fuses, lift air sensor plate).

Thinking things through, I had a niggling suspicion that something must not be right with the timing belt, so I re-installed it and voila! car started.

While the battery was disconnected, I went ahead and removed and checked all of the fuses, then used electrical cleaner and a wire brush to clean the fuse holder. It wasn't too bad, but it felt good to at least go through the process.

It runs like s$$%t and now needs a methodical tune up - timing, fuel/air, etc, but it is now running.

In driving it around the block, I noticed severe hesitation under load - the car did not want to rev past about 2k (no tach, so guessing) so I had to shift at low revs. On hills I could only manage about 15 MPH with no response to additional throttle.

When idling (parked, no load), I could coax the motor up to higher revs.

Time to dive deep into the K-Jet tuning process........
 
Good to hear! :cool:

While the battery was disconnected, I went ahead and removed and checked all of the fuses, then used electrical cleaner and a wire brush to clean the fuse holder. It wasn't too bad, but it felt good to at least go through the process.

Cover those brushed surfaces with some kind of ph-neutral grease (electrical grease?) and you don't have to worry about it for a long time!

Time to dive deep into the K-Jet tuning process........

Good luck with that, but at first you should make sure every other thing that is not adjustable is fine and working good. Long process, but don't start with turning the mixture screw... :)

You should also check if the injectors spray equally the same amount, who knows what's inside the distributor.

However I can't tell much more K-Jet hacks like the previous, because the Coupe is still waiting for a paintjob and we haven't dig into the depths of K-Jet, and probably we rarely will, because meanwhile my brother bought a 5cyl 7A 20v ECU controlled engine for it. :-D
 
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but don't start with turning the mixture screw... :)

:-D

Yep, gonna keep that 3mm in the toolbox until I really need it.

I hope to get back on it early this week. I want to shoot timing, then start going through the K-Jet troubleshooting info in the greenbook (and any other resources I have).
 
No progress since the weekend - it's been rainy here, and the car is now parked on the street in front of impolvo's house.
I plan to shoot/set timing tomorrow in hopes of being able to drive it home and park it at my new place - I will finally have my own space to wrench after a couple of years without any form of work space.
We close (hopefully) on Tuesday - fingers crossed that all of the paperwork gets finalized today.
 
Don't touch that mixture screw.

mmm mmm..... nope.
Not planning to do that unless all other efforts fail....

I am hoping that it is primarily a timing issue..
When I was lining things up for the timing belt install, I noticed that the dizzy was lining up - BARELY - with the mark on the housing, but at the trailing edge of the dizzy conductor. This leads me to believe that it is probably running a bit on the "too much advance" side of things. The slotted distributor mount is maxed out to the farthest "delay/retard" possible, so there is no space to delay the spark.

If this is the case(too much advance), and correct me if I'm wrong (because I often am), I am guessing that the distributor itself is off by a few teeth, so the mark on the accessory gear (timing belt wheel for the dizzy) might not be correct.
If all this is true, my inclination would be to turn the distributor gear 2-3 teeth counterclockwise from the indexing mark on the belt, and center the distributor in the slot range, and re-check timing. (or, alternatively, re-install the distributor)

This is all predicated on the spark being too far advanced.
If the opposite is true, I have the whole range of the mounting slot to advance the spark

Did any of that make any sense? :-D
 
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Couple things need to happen. The aux shaft gear needs to be aligned with the timing mark on the cover.

timingmarks.JPG


The distrubutor rotor needs to point at the mark on the distributor housing

distributor_marking.jpg


THEN you can set the timing by rotating the distributor.
 
Couple things need to happen. The aux shaft gear needs to be aligned with the timing mark on the cover.

timingmarks.JPG


The distrubutor rotor needs to point at the mark on the distributor housing

distributor_marking.jpg


THEN you can set the timing by rotating the distributor.

Yup,
When I lined everything up (all gears lined up with their indexing marks), all marks on the belt lined up with the right marks on the gears, the distributor was turned farther clockwise from what you show in your photo. Instead of being centered, it was barely at the trailing edge (turned more clockwise).

this is why I suspect it may (for whatever reason) may be off.
 
Yup,
When I lined everything up (all gears lined up with their indexing marks), all marks on the belt lined up with the right marks on the gears, the distributor was turned farther clockwise from what you show in your photo. Instead of being centered, it was barely at the trailing edge (turned more clockwise).

this is why I suspect it may (for whatever reason) may be off.

Eh, you're probably fine if you never took the distributor out of the block. They don't always line up pointing right at that mark.

One tooth one way or the other on the distributor gear is a big jump.
 
THEN you can set the timing by rotating the distributor.

In my case, I can ONLY set more advance, since the distributor is maxed out in the direction of retarding the spark.
This is why I was waxing philisophical about "pre-retarding" things at the timing belt (spinning the dist. gear counterclockwise) .

Again, just seeing if there is a possibility that the distributor gears (inside the block) got turned 1-2 teeth when installed (if it was removed at some point in the past), throwing things off a bit
 
when you pull the distributor out, set the adjusting slot 80/20 so you can go 80% of the slot advance and 20% retard with the rotor still pointed at 0... does that make sense? I'm thinking at some point someone re-phased the distributor to allow for more advance.
 
I like it.
I'll shoot timing this evening, and if it is too far advanced, I'll re-mount the distributor. I'd far prefer this to doing some temporary change on the belt indexing.

Thanks for the input guys!
 
Good news.
Timing was +3*(retard), so I was able to advance it to the spec 10* advance without having to re-install the distributor. It actually seemed to run better when I overshot initially to 14* but I set it back to 10 for now.

It is driving MUCH better - I'd say it was at a 2/10 before and is at a conservative 6/10 now, just by setting the timing to spec.
it loses juice with load and throttle input, but is much better than before. I drove it home just fine.

Now I can focus on the finer tuning, starting with verifying the vacuum advance function, then on to K-jet.

I'll also try to empty everything out of the car and give her a MUCH needed deep cleaning in and out for some photos. I'll be sure to snap some "before" shots, even though the rims have already been painted.
If weather permits, I might try to compound and wax the paint to break up the peeling clearcoat and take down the oxidized areas.
 
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