BIB5566

[KS]

Great progress! And I love the colour - one of the very best...

[Darren65]

Great work with the injectors and good to see funds going to a good cause

[Lightweight_911]

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More excellent progress - you're going to end up with a fabulous car ...

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[911hillclimber]

Even more great DIY, I applaud you.

On my 2.4E mech inj engine way way back, the insides of 2 delivery tubes were corroded, not blocked, but loose rust when wire poked.

Maybe check the tubes out too?

[deano]

Next up I followed IanM's advice and got me a injector cleaner rig, thanks Ian!

This injector clean and test setup is excellent! Presumably it doesnt take too much time to run that process once you have this all setup and know what to do?

It seems a pity that members have to buy there own kit to do this one-off job, or send them off and pay rather a lot of money to someone else and not have the pleasure of DIY.

Great job!

[knapmann]

Next up I followed IanM's advice and got me a injector cleaner rig, thanks Ian!

This injector clean and test setup is excellent! Presumably it doesnt take too much time to run that process once you have this all setup and know what to do?

It seems a pity that members have to buy there own kit to do this one-off job, or send them off and pay rather a lot of money to someone else and not have the pleasure of DIY.

Great job!

Well I have to thank Ian for the link. I did try this earlier using a home radiator pressure tester, it kind of worked but it wouldnt reach the pressure easily, a million pumps to get the injector to blow off so I gave up. The issue with this set up is that its designed for much higher pressure injectors, ours blow off before the gauge even registers so i cannot test the release pressure. They all felt like they released around the same pressure, thats all I know. You could probably change the pressure gauge for a lower range one to fix this issue.

As Ian said, the kit costs less than to send away your injectors for testing externally, and you can use it forever then. all you have to do is bolt it to something heavy or put it in a vice to hold it and you can rattle through 6 injectors in 15 mins.

[knapmann]

Saturday

So I set about installing my new throttle bodies and clean injectors, took most of saturday. After putting it all back together I had loads of fuel leaks from the injector/hardline unions. I never had leaks before (I have undone them numerous times now) . Cleaning them seems to have done something to make them leak more easily. I had to really torque down the fuels lines very hard to get them to stop leaking when running.

It was very hard to start from cold. I dont think my cold start circuit is working. The fuel line from the fuel filter to air box is always bone dry at any rate. Im not really sure what activates the cold start system, ill have to look into it. Plus after having emptied the hard lines of fuel I assume loads of engine cranking is needed to get petrol to the injectors

I let the engine get hot and tried correlating everything. All went well. Gave my engine a fresh lot of Valvoline VR1 and a Purolator oil filter as the oil in it must be 15 years old.

Whilst i was in there I fitted one of my other new toys, a Classic Retrofit CDI box. On the 69 the CDI box is mounted right at the back corner of the engine bay and getting at it with the stacks installed is a pain in the arse to say the least so I took advantage of their removal to install this. I'm running an overlay map ignition as due to complicated reasons it doesn't like running a full programmable map. Unfortunately this means I will still need to get my distributor rebuilt at some point as it still does the bulk of the ignition adjustment. I do benefit from the fantastic double spark and reliability of a brand new unit though and it looks the part too.

I worked desperately all Saturday to try and get a run out in the car at before the light went. I got there at dusk and backed it out of the garage. First time this has moved under its own power in maybe 30 years. Pulled off the drive. First thing I notice is a lot of clunking at full lock..? Dis-regarding this, all excited I set off down the road. I got about 20 yards before there was a horrible grinding sound from the rear right wheel, not the best first drive out I hoped for. Straight back to the garage. Not before realising that my dash board indicator bulbs are the wrong way around (indicate left flasher points right)

Jacked the car up, spun the wheel, nothing wrong... took the wheel off.. cant see anything, took the disc off.. still nothing.... there was a bit of play in the hub, so I took the split pin out and re-torqued it down. Job done. Car back down, back outside, light nearly gone, headlights on, drove 20 yards, sound is still there FFS! Back to garage, check everything again, cannot discern any issue at all with the wheel in the air. Walked to other side of the car to find the oil catch pan of 7 litres of used oil i drained earlier, I had somehow knocked over when pulling into my cramped garage, 7 liters of oil on the floor is not a good sight. Got pis sed off, and gave up for the night.

Sunday

Thought I would ease into it and change the flasher bulbs around. As usual nothing is that simple. without the luxury of push in gauges accessing the back of the tacho in order to change the bulbs around involves arm crippling contortion and trying to do things by feel alone. It was simply impossible. I had to take the tacho out all together which wasn't so bad until my torch battery ran out, and I dropped one of the tacho securing brackets into the behind-dash abyss when trying to refit it. Much magnet fishing later I managed to retrieve it.

Then I mopped up 7 liters of oil.

Looked at the rear wheel again, still cant see, hear, feel any issues, tried lots of swearing at it but nothing became apparent. Maybe something is just bedding in? Try to drive again, after 100 yrds whatever is bedding in is getting worse. Back to garage again, tried swearing at it again.... Took the disc off again, thinking it must be something in the handbrake assembly and boom there it was, the back face of the disc has been rubbing on a mounting bolt for the dust cover, but seemingly only when under load. It wasn't immediately apparent the first time I took off the disc after going only 20yrds. What a bas tard. At least its the back of the disc and cannot be seen...

With all of these issues fixed, I set off in hope of getting out of my housing estate.... Success! No horrendous blood curdling grinding sounds! That is other than me trying to find first gear. I assume these cars had a synchro on first, it must be a distant memory in my gearbox, as it crunches into 1st even when stopped, don't even think about trying to go into first when rolling. Fortunately 2nd through to 5th shift spot on, I don't know if this is a common issue? Normally I expect 2nd/3rd to have bad synchros first as they are used the most... The action leaves a bit to be desired which I expected, the throw is very big, not helped by being tall so my bent left leg is right next to the shifter in 4th/5th. Also the shift gate for Rev/1st is far too weak. As the shifter doesn't self center you rely on using the gate to find 2nd/3rd but as the gate is weak you can easily find yourself grinding rev/1st instead. I'm sure part of this is just me needing to get used to it but I'm also sure part of it is simply they way they came. An uprated Rennshift shifter is high on my priority list. I think they self-center to 2nd/3rd with an adjustable rev/1st gate which would be a big help, as well as reducing the throw. I think I will have to live with a crunchy 1st gear for a while, its only 1st after all.

So I get out of my estate and onto a loop of local back roads, not venturing far from home for now. But Wow! get this little 2.0 above 4k and it is rapid. It would give my 3.2l BMW 2002 a run for its money. I can see why back in the day it would have been a serious performance machine. Its so rev happy, I was taking it to 7k and shifting and booting it in the next gear, and it just pulled and pulled. I have to say Im seriously impressed what they squeezed out of a 2.0. Makes me wonder what a 2.7 MFI engine can do! I found it doesn't really get throaty until around 5k, 4k in this sounds like 2.5k in a normal car for some reason. I read a lot of threads about people getting E cams or Mod-S cams etc to move the power band down, at first I though that a reasonable idea, now it seems ridiculous, why would I want to lower the revs in this? Its perfect as it is! If anything it needs to rev to 8k!

So I get back home after a few laps of the loop. I assume my engine is at full temp, its a cold day but its only showing 170 on the gauge, what is the normal operating temp? my engine never seems to get all that hot. I can idle it in the garage for an hour and it will not read on the gauge, drive it around pretty hard for 40 mins, still only 170... The issue is that I get back to my garage and the engine is doing what I call the MFI microswitch surge cycle. Im assuming its because I correlated in the garage when not at full temp and now the MFI pump has got hotter its fueling more? its difficult to correlate an MFI engine when you don't know if the MFI pump is up to temp. I re-correlated the engine on my return so hopefully it will be OK , but I expect that maybe on a hotter day my engine may reach 180 or 200 and will need correlating again. I guess what my question is, is what temp do you correlate an MFI engine at?

[neilbardsley]

Well done. Any chance your 1st gear selection issues if a clutch adjustment problem?

[Gary71]

Wonderful! It lives!

That oil story made me laugh (sorry), we’ve all been there. I kicked a pot of mixed black epoxy over recently and just cried inside as I watched it spread over the floor under various items creating carnage as it went.

I’d agree about 1st gear, clutch adjustment is first on the list.

[210bhp]

Nothing like your first run in an early 911......
What must it have felt like in the late 60’s? I was tootling round north east Lancs in a Hillman Imp.
You have done a great job to get to this stage. Congrats.
First and reverse gears always the weakest on a dogleg box. Check clutch and linkage adjustment first and your coupler bushings under the rear access cover.

Regards
Mike

[rhd racer]

Fantastic result, well done.

You can fit heavier duty springs to the standard shifter. It’s a bit of a job, like squeezing a bar of soap they just want to fly off in all directions, but I did it on my 901 shifter in my 914. Truthfully I found this shifted better than my Rennshift, though you are right they do adjust in every direction.

The rear hub mistake is very easy to make, don’t beat yourself up. Ask me how I know

[911hillclimber]

Cramped one car garage...
Remember those well doing my 911 way back, always something would happen.

Good first run out, and those snags are/were easy.
If it helps, my 2.2, 2.4 3.2 engines I've put in my 73T have all run at an indicated 180F but I have a front mount cooler too.

doubt all gauges are the same, so there will be a discrepancy to another.

Lovely job, we have all enjoyed your adventure!

[jwhillracer]

Brilliant, well done Neil!
I'll second what the others have said about first gear on a 901 gearbox. Spend a bit of time with it, it's worth checking right through and getting right before you head off buying new shifters etc. The difference between having the linkage and gear lever nearly right, and absolutely right is massive, and the standard gearchange is a pleasure to use when it's spot on.

11/10 for sticking at it, the real fun starts now!!

JW

[deano]

Really pleased for you!! Must feel great!

Is there another project in your future?

[knapmann]

Can't wait to get my car back out for a proper drive after fixing the grinding sound. In the mean time I have been sorting a few other things this week.

After taking everyone's advice I looked into my cold start issues. The solenoids on the MFI pump and the fuel filter tested fine so there is obviously an issue somewhere else, maybe the time switch or a temp sensor. I have taken Richards advice and wired a manual override switch for the MFI pump solenoid that is specific to 69 cars. I jumped a wire from the rear heated screen relay to the relay that controls the solenoid so now I can turn it on and off with the heated screen switch. The heated screen itself isn't wired up, my assumption is that if anything like most cars of the era they have all long since stopped functioning. Even if it works its not something I would realistically ever use so its no big loss.

Picture below is just my test wire I didn't leave it like this duh!


After this I took my seats back out. A while ago I sat in the passenger seat and almost went through the seat base. Unfortunately even though my seats have been recovered at some point in recent years the webbing in the bases was not replaced. These have now perished to the point of collapse. The second issue with my seats is that they should have headrests and for some reason have lost them in the past and been recovered without the fittings in the top. Another of my recent buys with my proceeds have been a set of D headrests to correct this.

You can see how the webbing has collapsed and gone slack etc over time. I was thinking this would be a difficult task to replace but it was actually quite simple. All of the vinyl is held in place by these metal rings. Its simply a case of using pliers to pull the rings apart, taking them out, pulling back the vinyl, swapping out the webbing then putting the rings back in and using the pliers to close them back up. Took me about 1.5hrs each.












Next up was the headrests I had to pull all the staples out of the base of the center section to release it. Fit the inner plastic guide fittings, staple the section back in place, then cut the holes in the cloth and press in the outer plastic fittings. Headrests slotted nicely into place











2x seats with new webbing and headrests installed, will take a look at putting my door interiors together tomorrow.