A few more, moderately small tasks knocked out this past weekend as I get the car ready to go back to the local tuner for some hopeful improvements with cold idle fueling strategies (my made-up term - not his). Wednesday, I'll roll the car back on the trailer and deliver it with a cold engine so he can fiddle with it and experience what I'm seeing here at home. It needs a big improvement there.
In preparation for the tuner visit, I double checked the whole intake system for anything loose in order to eliminate any possible vacuum leaks. Not sure it will make a difference, but I tightened up the clamp on a rubber cap that probably is a pressed-in 3/8" or so steel nipple for power brakes or similar. (I have no power brakes on this 1976 coupe to worry with.) I also installed a phenolic flat gasket between throttle body and intake manifold to replace a tiny o-ring that may not have protruded far enough out of the machined groove to give a great seal. This flat gasket covers the entire face of the 4-bolt flange so I'll go with that for now.
As PeteKz correctly questioned, my oil pressure sender (the one that came with the car and the new one i purchased last winter) was 0-5 bar. My 1976 gauge is 0-10 bar. Pelican and Uro to the rescue with a new 0-10 bar sensor. Removed the squarish aluminum block and swapped sensors on the bench vise with a 1" crows foot that is more narrow than any adj plier or open-end wrench. You don't have a lot of room to work on the integrated hex-head portion of the sensor, I'll tell ya. I removed the alum crush washers and used new copper ones at all locations here. The good news is that i now saw about 4 bar (58 psi cold) at whatever engine rpm it was running so I like that more than 120!!
Then with the assistance of dear old friend Tad240, here on the Pelican, we were able to properly diagnose and address the clutch cable concerns. With me in the car up on the lift, he was able to quickly identify that the Omega spring was swinging too far back. The steel post that the Omega spring is secured to would move just under the fixed, short steel "stop" that is supposed to catch it. My pedal would rise too high as well with that additional cable travel happening under the car. We removed that bracket circled in orange and spaced it downward with the thickness of 2 thin fender washers.
Now the post on the long lever arm (with omega spring) now catches and stops properly. That allowed us to take the next step and slightly lengthen the cable at the pedal box a few turns and then verify all proper measurements at the transmission. I've only managed to drive it once up the street this weekend, but the clutch friction point seems to be the best it ever has in 6+ years.
That's a wrap for now. Just keeping fingers crossed for a decent idle/ cold-start tune and then put some miles on this eager engine!
