Against my better judgement, I'm actually buying the $1000 one in Attica NY for a parts unit. It was sunk into the ground, resting on the frame.
Luckily the top layer is gravel driveway, so it must have taken a few to several years to get through that and then it was sitting frame on gravel for probably 10-12 years. Last registered in 2005, last oil change recorded was 2004 along with a toll booth ticket and a receipt for a new alternator.
The squirrels have done a number on the interior, and mice. Lots of mice. It's toast. What a shame, it appears to have been used and enjoyed until just 15 years ago when it was abandoned. They go downhill in a hurry.
I can't park this at my home unless I want to be a bachelor again. We live in the burbs, so it wouldn't be a good fit. Our Eleganza in the driveway really isn't a great fit already LOL, we can't have two. But my father lives in the country about 3 hours drive from here, he said 'sure, park it out behind the shed in the hedgerow', so my parts runs will be coordinated with visits back home
It's about 200 miles drive. If I were smart I'd figure out a way to trailer it there, but I hate spending money if I can avoid it and do it myself. So here's my plan. I'm going to try to drive it 200 miles to park it for parts. No registration, no tags, just insurance. Hopefully it will run down the road at 30mph or so and maybe I can get the lights and brakes working. That's the goal.
The good news, sometime in the last couple years someone had it running but it was buried so bad they just spun one front tire. The bad news; sometime in the last couple years some idiot tried to drive it and just spun the tire. Duh. I'm sure they didn't check any of the fluids or anything. Hopefully no damage done, fingers crossed.
Looking it over, there was still antifreeze in the radiator, thank god the idiot didn't seize the block. I left the cap loose b/c I'd rather boil the antifreeze on its 200 mile final journey than to blow out the really rusty looking radiator. There is good smelling fluid in the tranny. The oil looks good.
The first day I took off the one good T skirt, dug down to get blocks and a jack under the Ragusa jack hook and went back and forth between the two sides to get them up in the air gradually. The bags looked pretty good so I installed valves and an air chuck fitting and put in 60 psi. No explosion! The cones are black plastic, are those the exploding ones?
One rear wheel wouldn't spin so I removed the tire, dust caps, bearing nut and was able to get the drum off. Adjusted the shoes inward, cleaned and packed the bearing since I dropped it in the dirt, put it back together.
Filled in the holes under the tires, aired up the dry rotted tires and set it down in the holes to compact the soil. Lifted it up again, put in more soil and compacted it again. By the end of the day it was on its own air bags, on its own tires at ground level front and back.
Everywhere I jacked or blocked it up on the frame seemed solid. Everywhere I rapped it with a hammer seemed solid. And after getting it up on its wheels it didn't break in half LOL So I think the frame is ok.
The rear reservoir of the master cylinder looked good, the front was all gooey with water contamination so I scooped that out with rags, scraped as much out with my fingernails as possible and filled it with fresh fluid. The brake pedal feels firm and the brake light turned off so who knows, maybe they will work.
I removed the air cleaner and found the entire top of the engine COVERED with nuts and seeds and mouse droppings. Vacuumed that up and took the carb home for an exam and rebuild. Good news, the intake does not have an obvious crack between the secondaries. I didn't look really hard, but I can see the one on my Eleganza from 5 feet away, and I didn't see one on this intake. So that's a win! The carb was pretty rusty and cruddy on the outside, not terrible on the inside, but as I like to say 'someone has been here.....' Found some parts of the carb had been assembled incorrectly. There was no fuel filter, it was awol. Someone had the thermal choke spiral installed backward. As it heated it would close the choke! And the little vacuum can was tweaked such that, even if the spiral were installed correctly, the choke would never be able to release enough to allow the secondaries to open. The little weights would come down and hit the vacuum can. I wonder how it ran with the choke closed and no secondaries? Probably not great!
I pulled all the spark plugs and funneled some oil in each one and let it set a bit. Then cranked it over to expel the oil and see what the oil pressure gauge would do. Victory! Oil pressure rose to about 3/4 of the range just by cranking the engine.
The engine won't crank unless the indicator is in R. Where is the Neutral Safety Switch, on the tranny? I assume that is the problem, maybe it needs to be adjusted?
When I pulled the plugs, the right side felt normal. A little torque, then they would spin out easily by hand. On the left side, they were gummy, like maybe the wrong thread? I had to wrench them all the way out. I didn't like it. On #7, the plug came out with some sort of thread repair bushing on it? Instead of 14mm, it's almost 16mm. After measuring with calipers I think it's 16x1.50 thread. Any advice? It wouldn't go back in b/c the last threads were buggered. Anyone know what this is? I'm going to clean up the threads b/c they are boogered at the tip, and they extend into the head farther than the plug. Maybe I'll try running the thread into a known M16x1.5 nut to verify it's right, then chase the threads with a tap in the head. To be continued. Dropped one plug in the leaves and lost it.
All the plug gaps were huge! Like around 0.100"!
I removed the gas tubing under the driver side end of the radiator and attached some fuel line, into a 5 gallon gas can (93 octane) in order to bypass the fuel tanks but still use the engine fuel pump. I cranked the engine and pumped fresh fuel into a coffee can. We have a working fuel pump (and clean lines)! Victory!
Also stuck a spark plug into a wire and set it on the block and saw spark when I cranked the engine, more victory!
Even though I was missing 2 plugs, I couldn't help it. I had to hear it fire. I gapped them to about 0.040 and put in the 6 I could, cranked and pumped and it actually fired up an ran, although missing 2 plugs it quite loud lol.
As far as lights, the running lights worked, and the Turn / four ways in the front worked. No Brake/Turn/4 way lights in the rear worked though. Fingers crossed, maybe it's just the bulbs. Will check.
I left a 'walk the plank' mouse trap in it. These dump the mice into a bucket of water to drown and then reset themselves, so I'm interested to see how many I catch! Had to bait it with cheese unfortunately I forgot the peanut butter.
I've picked up a new plug and cleaned up the threads of the odd plug, if I can get those rear brake/turn lights working we might be good enough to limp 200 miles to park it. Who knows?
