Larry (my 73 144)

Major Ledfoot

Why / how did this car get christened Larry?

Ah.

Yeah, his former Victorian rego, having the initials of a very reputable firm, owned by an racer who once lived in Cowangie.

But Larry now has NSW rego.

I got the same combination reissued that were once on the much-missed Grumpy, many years ago - here is the late Grumpy, circa 1984, who now unfortunately rests in pieces :( and whose steel body went away to make 500 road gnats. :(

.
So at some point, Larry will have an "A" added, along the lines of this example. :D

(What the hell; I'm a geek!)

Inside, Larry is very tidy for a car of his age - 44 years old now! (Is it really that long...) Much of the restoration has been done by the previous owner. He's a factory four-speed M40, with a B20B engine. The PO changed the twin Strombergs over for twin SUs.

The PO also added GL / 164 trim to the rear of the car, and did a closed door respray in two-tone blue.

Since purchasing Larry, I've had a new windscreen installed, just to get him through registration without any dramas. A modern type of windscreen seal was fitted in place of the soil-collecting and rust-encouraging mouldings, rusty clips and mess of butyl. Despite what the ~~puerile~~ purists say, it looks great... and it won't rot the car.

Missus Wife and I discovered yesterday however that Larry appears to have an issue with fuel starvation. Not sure if it's the fuel pump, or something else. The car will lose power, then cough and carry on, and will come good again once's hes idled for a bit... This came to light on Bell's Line Of Road en route to and from Bilpin. Further investigation is required. He does seem a bit down on power, though, from what I remember of my days in Grumpy - but maybe after the S80 V8, so might everything.

I wasn't sure about the body-blue wheels, but they've begun to grow on me. However I might go to 15 x 6 BBS-RS-style gold wheels (or 15 x 7 Volvo Multi-X wheels, if I can find some...) or I might not; dunno yet.

Only one thing is certain: many more vehicular adventures await Larry.

egads (she/her)

Shirty fuel line routing can wreck stuff too and give some awesome starvation goodness.

Looks awesome though.

Vee_Que

What does the fuel filters look like?

Major Ledfoot

Thanks for the suggestion. I will have to check them / it out. This one doesn't appear to have a separate fuel filter near the carbies, so I will check the pump filter first, then go hunting for more.

carnut222

Sweet! Was the car originally the dark blue or light blue? Just curious - I have a dark blue 145 that might be similar colour. Mine also has blue interior, but I'd prefer swapping it out for a tan interior if I could find one.

Major Ledfoot

Larry's exterior originally appears to have been the dark blue used on Australian assembled cars. Initially I tried to buy Ben's former car which was Dulux Marina (light) blue, but the new seller wanted to lie a lot. Then this one came along, and IMHO Larrys a far nicer, cleaner unit.

I actually wanted the blue interior, as that's what my original 144 had. My 74 145 has a brown /tan interior, and I'm not a fan of tan. But Chloe's interior isn't quite pristine anyway.

I have to sort out the correct grille for Larry, since there's a perfect 72 model grille on there now. I have three spare 73 model grilles and very good parking lights here, but I'm not happy with the chrome moulding on the lower edge of any of the three later model grilles. Once I've knocked out the stone dents on the best of the mouldings and polished it, the best grille of the 3 will go on the car.

Major Ledfoot

Been trying to replace Larry's fuel pump. This is a 'Must Do Before Benalla' task.

As 140-ites know, the mechanical fuel pump sits on the port side of the engine. And in a RHD car, it's usually fairly easy to access.

You see - or rather you will see - this ended up being a bigger job than anticipated, thanks to the air conditioning and its monster bracket. I swear on a stack of Gothenburg bibles that there's more metal in that one bracket than you'll find in a whole fleet of Korean road gnats.

Work continues... and pix soon.

Vee_Que

It happens. This is why I like my electric fuel pump.

bigal

Whatchoo talkin bout willis? My bosch pump is external next to the fuel tank and looks easy to get at. But me guessins mine is quite different being kjet and 74.

egads (she/her)

Yup, waaaaay higher pressure on kjet.

bigal

Oh.. you said mechanical fuel pump. I see.

bigal

I hear in the porsche world they are fiddly and almost evil to tune properly.

Major Ledfoot

bigal;119530 wroteWhatchoo talkin bout willis? My bosch pump is external next to the fuel tank and looks easy to get at. But me guessins mine is quite different being kjet and 74.

Ayup; very different. The 1973s used D-Jet for their EFI, and the 73 model fuel tanks are also different. The D-Jet fuel pump is very easy to access, since it's mounted on a bracket, next to the tank, on the right hand side.

Funny thing is ... I have a 164E D-Jet fuel pump, but it's no use here, when the SUs only need 3 PSI, and the Bosch pump does about 60 PSI.

Major Ledfoot

After the Oz Volvo Nats, Larry has returned home after his long shakedown cruise.

And boy, there was a lot of shaking.

Larry has acquired a rather long To Do List, consisting of -

Immediate attention
* carb repair
* fuel tank diagnosis / repair
* Heater fan motor repair
* in-car sound system upgrade
* spring and shock replacement; fit better front bar, and add rear sway bar - and then
* wheel replacement for lower profile tyres
* boot strut replacement

Longer term attention
* engine rebuild / replacement
* Air conditioning compressor replace
* conversion of M40 to Tremec 5 speed
* fit / paint front spoiler
* engine bay paint and detail

Fixing the carbs is at the top of the list, because I have to give Torben his bits back. I've put some SU parts on order to get me by, however I was far from happy with Larry's motorway performance, or lack thereof. Larry's B20B seems to be the original engine, and feels like it's got 220,000 miles on it. Either that, or memory has over-romanticized my halcyon days of youth when a B20B felt like it went pretty hard. A pair of Strombergs came with the car, and it appears to me that they were the original factory items. Dilemma: do I re-kit and refit the Strombergs, or keep twiddling with the SUs in the short term? Dunno yet.

But there's also the issue of the Mysterious Fuel Starvation Problem, which has to be resolved before all else. Expect some fun photos from that one!

Now, while in Benalla, I may have mentioned,* to one or two people** how I do not have very much affection for carbs. In the long term, they must go. But replace them with ... what? Well, I do have that old B20E D-Jet manifold from the 1800, but do I really want to do a B20 with Megasquirt? Can I still get a B20 K cam? What about some decent timing gears.... Whatever. I don't want a cammy pig, which means it's gonna have about 140 BHP maximum as a B20. Or, alternatively, I could use one of the B230 L-blocks I have around, grab the spare 90+ and a reasonable snail, stick them on a spare 530 and bang it onto said L-block, and that should be good for about 200 or so. Food for thought.

Meanwhile, there's other things to consider. Springs, for instance.

* 'may have mentioned' - real meaning : said constantly
* 'one or two people' - real meaning : everybody within earshot

Major Ledfoot

Fun with Springs

Larry's springs and shocks need to be addressed. Seems somebody cut the standard springs....

Waste of time and very bad. Wanna know why?

Let's start with this link

http://www.pontiacracing.net/js_coil_spring_rate.htm

Now, let's grab all the spring figures that matter from the 1974 Green Book.

140 FRONT
wire dia = 15 mm / 0.59 in
outer dia = 126 /4.96
coils = 8.7
loading for compression of 10 mm /25/64 = 527-567 N / 115-125 lb
length fully compressed = 125 mm / 4.9
load = 5400-5700 N / 1188-1254 lb
@ length = 195.5 mm / 7.7

140 sedan / 164 REAR
wire dia = 12 mm / 0.472 in
outer dia = 128 /5.04
coils = 8
compression of 10 mm /25/64 in = 164 N / 37 lb
length fully compressed = 112 mm / 4.41
load = 2070-2207 N / 464-495 lb
@ length = 287 mm / 11.3

When we bang those figures into our spring rate calculator, we get roughly:

FRONT = 236.29 lb /in
REAR = 91.5 lb / in

Let's take one coil off of each, and look at what the new rates are.

FRONT = 266.98
REAR = 104.67

Whoop-de-doo! You've picked up 30 lb at the front, and 15 lb at the rear... and lost more than an inch of travel.

No wonder Larry looked so saggy in the rear after things were put in the trunk...

Cutting off coils is BS and the utterly wrong way to do things. One needs to increase the spring rate while also bearing in mind the required length of the spring at load if you're gonna do things properly.

AFAIK, aftermarket spring makers say their 'sports' front springs are either 30% uprated (making them 307 lb/ in) or 40% upgraded (which is 327.5 lb / in) for the 140 fronts.

What about the 164?

Well, it has standard front springs rated at 360 lb / in with a loaded height of 7.8 in, according to calculations done with the book's numbers.

Maybe some standard 164 springs would be the go as a starting point for Larry. But I would like something around 150 lb/ in for the rear, with a loaded height of about 11 inches. Might be time to see what @AshDVS has in his Spring Exchange...

Major Ledfoot

Carby Time!

Out with the old.

In with the new.

Float installed, new metering needle and seat installed.

And no more leaks.

Now to tackle the fuel surge issues.

Vee_Que

Go the su's. Yes you can get cams ground to suit as per my ramblings in my 122s thread. Clive cams offers stuff. If the head is off, go for higher compression, at least 10:1, assuming the rings and bores are in good shape.

Major Ledfoot

Engine tweaking is a loooong way off. Still have fuel surge / tank issues, and the other things on the immediate list to deal with first. Cost and hassle of doing a B20 with adequate power is also against going that way.

Vee_Que

120whp with a kg17 with decent compression and su's.

Major Ledfoot

Vee_Que;123589 wrote120whp with a kg17 with decent compression and su's.

Yes... Still less power than a B230FT, and for a lot more money.

Meanwhile, I have had to do the heater fan. So, dashboard out time.

The previous owner got creative, and used a bit of wire to hold the LH side floor vent in place. I waan't going to leave it like that.

Fortunately, I'd ordered a whole lot of these for the multiple projects. So the wire got replaced with the little plugs.

Since the dash top had already been taken off, I [put one of the re-covered ones from Dashboard Recovery Services in place of the one that was there, and decided to add new plastic demister vent things too.

And then Larry went north and got pink slipped.

However, about 1km from Port Melbourne at the Todd Rd service station exit, Larry developed a nasty rattle in the engine bay. :( The car still ran on three pots - enough to get me onto the Spirit of Tas and off again, and even home.... but I discovered upon return that the plug gap in #1 was... well, non-existent.

I changed the plug with an old spare and Larry ran a lot better, however the rattle was there, just not as loud, and now the charging light stays on while the engine is running.

At some point, I'll have to do a compression test, and find out why the charge light is on. There's an unused alternator on the P1800 which I could use, but I also have a spare 164E alternator up in the shed.... in the mountains. Hell, maybe I'll just B230FT it and let the old alt be damned.

So Larry is parked for the moment. Well, at least until I get back from my next northward journey, with a whole lot of engines and bits.