Some of you may remember my describing these problems a year or so ago regarding the failure to start of my 1952 Cranbrook. As you can see I am still struggling with this and real could use some insight form those of you who have more experience than I. Here is the story:
When I bought my Cranbrook in 2002 it was a running car. Missed and stumbled a little but always started and ran. In 2003 in the fall I decided to tune the car up before winter. I did as I always have with point distributors and removed it from the car after noting where the rotor was pointed. I replaced the points, condenser, cap and rotor and re installed the distributor. The car would not start. I doubled checked everything and discovered that the lead wire from the coil was shorted to the distributor body. Re insulated that and tried again. Still no start. Found out that the No 1 position on the distributor at TDC was not in the correct location, Pulled out oil pump and repositioned the distributor shaft to the 7:00 position TDC on No 1 cylinder. Tried again. Still no start. As it was now December I gave up till spring. Spring 2004. Started over. Checked Firing order, Discovered that the spark to the plugs was weak. Installed new solid core wires. Still not start and weak spark. Tried a total of three different rotors and caps (all new) Spark was better but still not real good. Also at this time (and through today) the spark from the coil is hot and regular. Worked on the starting problems intermittingly all summer. No success. Discovered in late summer that the carburetor was flooding the engine. Without touching the throttle the carb would pour about 1-2 ounces of fuel into the intake manifold while cranking. After trying to adjust the carb I decided to send it to be rebuild. Last year it went to Then and Now Automotive. By midsummer it was back. Same problem. Called Then and Now, carb went back. Mike discovered that he had forgotten to install a small ball bearing in the accelerator pump and fixed that. Sent it back to me. Installed it, same problem. Sent it back to him. He took it to a friend of his who had a 37 Dodge. They put it on the Dodge, it ran perfectly.
Returned it to me. I was working on rust proofing and other items and did not get back to trying to start it until about 3 weeks ago. Same problems occurred, flooding and weak spark. I discovered how to static time the engine in my repair manual and did so using No.6 cylinder. Checked out number one and it was at 7:00 position. One thing I did notice is that the timing scale on the Harmonic balancer is not in the right place when the distributor is in the no.one position. This puzzles me as I reset the distributor shaft with the oil pan off and made sure that number one was in the top position and both valves were off cam. I decided to try another carburetor to see if the problem in the flooding was caused by a crack in the carb or anything like that. I ordered a rebuilt from Napa. That came in last week. I put it on and the same problem of flooding continued. As with the first rebuild I took the top of the carb off to see if the needle and seat was leaking or if the float were bad. Everything works exactly as it should. I tried a new fuel pump that I had bought for a spare to see if the one on the car was pumping too much pressure into the carb. No change. Still flooding and still a weak spark at the coil. Note turning the Distributor shaft 180 degree will give a heck of a backfire. That where I am at, if you have read this far, thanks and I would appreciate any input you might have. Or if anyone knows of a shop in Ne IL. Or SE Wisc. I am about ready to pay some one to fix this if they can be found. Thanks.
10-10-2005, 06:18 PM
