<VV> Autumn leaves

[Hugo Miller]

Ok, I had a poke about in there - pulling the plug leads revealed a lot 
of dead leaves on top of the cylinders, as expected. What surprised me 
was that none had got through to the bottom of the cylinders. I thought 
there would be leaves laying in the bottom shrouds. Anyway, I put an air 
line through each plug hole in the top shroud & blew the leaves back 
where they had come from - into the fan - from where I hoovered them up. 
We shall see if that's enough, or whether I will need to take the top 
cover off to do a more thorough job.
There are some deflectors below the base of the cylinders behind the 
pushrod tubes - I had not noticed them before.
Another thing I had never noticed before is that the fan blades are 
unequally spaced - presumably to prevent noise at certain speeds.
Next job take that carburettor off & sort out the blocked jet.
Back to the wheel balance - it is difficult to precisely identify where 
the imbalance lies; it feels like both rears, but due to the speed of 
the phasing, it might be one front & one rear. If it were both rears I 
would expect a slower phase, but fronts & rears are obviously going to 
be a different rolling diameter which would give a quicker phase.
First step is deal with the obvious & get all the wheels balanced - 
then we'll see.


On 2020-03-02 21:25, Doug Mackintosh wrote:
> Hello, Hugo!
> The baffles are (supposed to be) on the bottom side of the cylinder
> barrels.
>
> As to the wheel shimmy, try moving some of the tires to different
> positions to see if it moves where the vibration comes from. If it is
> a front wheel, swap from front to rear to see if it moves. May not be
> the most likely cause (although the speed you mention is typical for
> an out of balance tire, and my experience with the Maxxis tires is
> they often have this problem) it is easy to check.
>
> I would also check your timing. Again, may not be the cause of your
> overheating, but it is easy to do to eliminate that. Even if you 
> don't
> put a light on it, you can do a static setting to get it in the
> ballpark. Just take the distributor cap off, use a wrench to rotate
> the engine till the rotor points to #1 and the mark is aligned with
> the correct timing mark, pull the coil lead out of the cap and hold 
> it
> close to ground, turn the ignition on, then rotate the distributor
> clockwise past where the points close, then rotate back
> counterclockwise just until the points open and your coil wire sparks
> to ground; lock down the distributor.
>
> Hugo wrote:
>
> <<It's a 64 convertible. I said that. And it's in Florida. I said
> that
>
> too! I am from the UK and sort of commute between here & there, and I
> do
>
> have a Corvan in the UK, but that's another story.
>
> Yes it detonates when it gets hot. But it also detonates before it
> has
>
> even warmed up. That is the bit I find puzzling. I haven't even taken
>
> the plugs out yet, as I have more pressing things right now - such as
>
> the fact that the idle jet on the left carburettor is blocked so it
>
> won't idle.
>
> I thought the baffles were above the cylinders? Although I've never
>
> looked in there before. I have a couple of these cars & I've just
> been
>
> running them while I decide what to do. Now I'm getting stuck in.
>
> Funnily enough, my other '64 convertible has also started
> overheating,
>
> which it never used to do before. I haven't looked at it yet though.
>
> When the wind blows here in Florida, the entire top of the engine can
>
> get buried in leaves to a depth of six inches, so I wouldn't be
>
> surprised if some have taken up residence in the fins. I'm just
>
> surprised that I didn't find any (yet) on the one I looked at.>>
>
> -- Doug Mackintosh Corsa member since 1996 Corsa/NC member since
> 1996, Virtual Vairs member Corvair owner 1969-1971 and 1996-on