Well after the last few weekends of "testing out" and travelling solo in the Chev and venturing a little further each time, I arranged with Ray to come up and come out for a few breezy drives on this crisp winters morning but first on the cards was a lesson in "brake adjustment" as ole Monty had started to develop a bloody loud squeak in the rear wheels when you applied the brakes and only after they had warmed up and also the brake pedal itself was getting less and less so I gathered after 220miles the new brake bands had "bedded in" by now, so time to adjust them up, but how does one do this?
With the brakes all adjusted up nicely and me now knowing what to and how to adjust the bands,we both jumped in the Chev all rugged up and headed off down the Prince Hwy to Yarragon which is quickly becoming a favour little coffee haunt....
Now this is where Rays 30 plus years of vintage Chev experience kicked in because as soon as we started to head out of town while traveling up a slight incline, ole Monty gave a few quick stumbles at 45mph, I had noticed this before over the past weeks at this speed but just thought nothing of it, "its old car habits" as this is the only vintage car I have very been in... We discussed it and listened a little more as we headed to Yarragon and to my knowledge it was starting to stumble more than it had on other occasions but today I was driving it a little quicker than normal.....
We downed our coffee's and headed back to the resto shed to sort it out, where we quickly had the rocker cover off, the spark plugs and leads out and the distributor cap off..
We adjusted the valves and timing, cleaned and set the points, cleaned the spark plugs and distributor cap etc and had it all going again in no time..
Off we went out the onto the Hwy again and Ole Monty pulled away up the slight rise very well this time and reached 45mph quickly and felt very smooth, no stumbles and it was smiles alround from us both..... But no, how wrong were we?, the stumbles started again and it began to lose power and drop back to 40mph, "It had to be the bloody fuel" Ray said, "its not electrical, turn around and head back home"....
Again in the driveway we came and we slowly roll into the resto shed, Ray grabs for the service manual and reads up some specs to check some figures and I unscrew the bottom of the carby bowl off ... "Theres your problem, the float is adjusted wrong and is sitting at the wrong level, it's slowly starving of fuel at top speed", the correct level was set, the bowl goes back on and out the gate we go again...... BEAUTIFUL and now oh so much power comes from within this 21hp engine;
Up Thorpy hill we headed to the top and it did not miss a beat, although a little slow as it is a long hard climb and the engine did not stumble once, we turned around at the summit which overlooks Trafalgar and I pointed the radiator cap for home and at one stage 55mph showed up on the speedo and on Rays GPS which we had stuck to the windscreen it read 85kph..... F%$K ME!!... Monty was flying!!.
This fuel starvation was not an issue or noticeable on start up, idle or while driving around town because naturally the revs are not high and the carby bowl/fuel flow could keep up with the usage, and even out on the roads travelling at 40-45mph it was right on the limit with only the slightest of stumbles which I noticed and thought it might be the fuel vac tank reloading but thought it was nothing to worry about as the engine was running very smoothly, and it would cruise along fine 95% of the time and me being the novice I am, put the stumbles down to Monty being just an old vintage car with a few quirky habits, live and learn I guess, but now all is good and it is running better than it has in quite some time.....Total now travelled is 260miles...
Thanks Ray for spotting this problem and sorting it out today.......
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