I thought I would start a thread to track the progress of work on the new old girl. I've attached some photos taken on Saturday afternoon, the day it officially made it home.
I thought I would take some time to slowly get to know it before doing any major works. I have a few cosmetic updates in mind first, but I may need to rethink that tact. Mechanically it was as rough as can be when I first got her. I had the break lines flushed (x2), new points, plugs, timing tweaked, oil and filter. It has made a big improvement and it now moves along more respectably with traffic.
The good:
- A few of the typical problem areas with rust, but other wise a very straight body.
- Interior is very tidy. Back seat is faded in comparison to the front seats (fronts had covers) but overall looks like a 20 year old interior. Back seat looks rarely used and the front is fantastic.
- Exhaust system and brakes are sound.
- Intermittent wiper dial (didn't know that they had this).
- AC system (no belt hooked up and surely not charged)
The not so good:
- Auto transmission.. that is all.
- Single strongberg carb.
- Idles at about 900 in drive or neutral but will idle at about 2000 in park? I've played with the idle a bit but compensating for the park idle will cause it to stall in drive.
- Unfortunately, a compression test was done and it revealed the the 4th cylinder is running at about 50%.
- Assuming related to the above; it now seams to be burning off oil which is evident at the tail pipe. In fact, when I started it this evening there was a good splatter of oil over the driveway at the exhaust tip!
The car has 317,000 km on it,has been sitting un-driven for the last 5 years and no service history was available. So what to tackle first? In spite of the 4th cylinder issue I was prepared to limp around for a while, but tonights oil blowing out the back makes me think I need to whip the head off pretty quickly. If I head down that road though, I know I am going to be tempted to do a full rebuild (with money I don't have :( )
Meaning of the name... I had a little helper join me on my inspection of my 144 last month. My 6 year old daughter Lucy was immediately taken with this "gorgeous fashion car". When I asked her what she meant by fashion car, she said that it was the sort of car movie stars would drive :) So I asked her to give my car a name... she paused for a few seconds and said "Bubbles!" Actually fitting I think.
