This is depressing. Not entirely surprising, but still depressing

[Gary Lewis]

I guess so.  Don't remember what the spec's are.  But you've been reading them, right?

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'd think you wouldn't want any connection between primary and secondary windings.

How do you induce a field in the other, if there is a connection?

You have low voltage primary input and the tach/ground terminals that both attach to the horseshoe.
Then you have the secondary winding that is between the HT output and case ground, right?

[Gary Lewis]

It should be wired like this, which shows the secondary connected to the high side of the primary.

[ctubutis]

OK, it runs, but no real change.

I'm gonna go do Yoga, back to this (or maybe the SHO) in a while...

Part 1: https://youtu.be/aaz3ujVm76s

Part 2: https://youtu.be/4jG9Vm2UVKg

[ArdWrknTrk]

I get it that the HT side of the coil needs power, and that it has to connect somewhere.
I guess testing sould show A, or B, or A+B.

Anyway, it's promising to find something.  

[Gary Lewis]

Wow.  That is amazing!  That you can floor it and it takes that long to react.  

I don't think either fuel or spark would do that.  The only thing that might is timing.  And the fact that you can't find your timing marks seems to say that the timing chain has jumped.

I would pull the passenger-side valve cover, find TDC on #1, and see if both valves are closed.  I'm guessing that they won't be.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Timing chain slipped with under 10K miles?

I would definitely make sure the damper timing marks match with TDC #1 as shown by a piston stop or a straw.
If the spark is set to a slipped damper who knows what the actual ignition timing is?

But if the ignition timing is that far out, it might not be the cam chain, it might be the distributor gear.
That sort of slop should show up if Chris tried rocking the crank with a breaker bar

[Gary Lewis]

Good point.  Perhaps the timing was set up using a slipped balancer.  And now it has slipped more?  But that wouldn't explain why it ran well initially and has now deteriorated.

I like the distributor gear theory.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I've got no theory. Just grasping at straws.  🤷

Those two "dead" cylinders with decent plugs make me want to do a leak down.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, I think a leak-down test and verifying that the timing "system" is in tact would be in order.  And by timing "system" I mean that the cam is properly timed, that the distributor gear is in tact, and that the ignition timing is correct.

[85lebaront2]

I know someone on here who has a DS-II tester I sent him....

[Gary Lewis]

Yep, and I'm happy to test Chris' units - if he brings them.  Maybe to the show in Sept?  

[ctubutis]

We'll see what the money situation is like in September, I can't make any promises. I *did* get the Altima back from the body shop last night, though!!!!!!

~~

OK, here's my lunchtime update for today, same as what's on FTE,

Yeah, I haven't replied to either here nor Gary's, I'm kind of in a quandary about what to do... LOTS of good ideas coming my way, and I have lots of mental responses to a lot of people.

My Camaro/Corvette friend Tom says he'll stop by sometime (hopefully tonight), he was in the mountains on vacation all last week with his brother & his wife. I REALLY need HIM to SEE this (not just look at videos) since he is the one I assembled the thing with. He's a former machinist who hurt his back really badly and now does IT network security work.

So, I'm back to the SHO project, 1 of 2 I have here at home. AC compressor, alternator, radiator fluid recovery bottle are installed, I'm down to the lower radiator hose and battery cables. That frickin' broken motor mount is staring me right in the face, but I have no money for that right now. I really don't remember all the specifics on these engines, all I remember for certain is Yamaha.  It's a hi-RPM/low-torque thing, entirely new to me in a car.

Anyhow, lunchtime pictures:









It's only 75° in the garage right now, beautiful temperature (not so much for the light, tho) for this. :)






EDIT: couldn't resist (mostly for Matthew on FTE). :)

[ctubutis]

It only got to 78°F in the garage today, it's clouding up and looks like it's probably going to rain again.






The Taurus is delayed for another week, I broke down and ordered the proper molded lower radiator hose (it's starting to rain as I type this) from Rock Auto, it'll be here one week from today. Could have bought it locally but at almost 2X the price, so back into the garage the Taurus goes.

I have these braided hoses me & my brother picked up from a guy in Naperville, IL several years ago; the bottom one SEEMS LIKE it should bend & fit (the other guy did it), but the angles & muscles required conflict with yesterday's Yoga session, so I abandoned those efforts and wimped out.





The original lower hose, all nice & soft & mushy:



The top one, I replaced with a proper rubber one after deciding the braided one was too much work to make fit.



So, I guess I'm back to the truck, we'll see what the weather does for the rest of the day......

[Gary Lewis]

I think it would be very hard to get that braided hose to fit.  Wise move to go with rubber.  

Good luck on the truck.

[ctubutis]

My friend Tom came over last night  and I showed him everything... we pretty quickly went to ignition timing and, long story short, we're back to normal.  The distributor hold-down bolt had loosed up and the distributor itself had turned out of adjustment, simple as that.

https://youtu.be/EADohqOHjN4



There was also a small vacuum leak where a rubber cap had disappeared from the vacuum tree at the back of the engine, and I fine-tuned the timing & idle speed this morning,  but I never really test-drove it.

For whatever reason, all the electrical is working just fine (right now), too! We'll see for how long *that* lasts. But the brakes were LOTS BETTER when there's actual vacuum to that booster thing.

I figure I'll go to my brother's house today, haven't been there in ~2 weeks and I'm sure the yard needs mowing by now with all the water we've been getting. Possibly install the battery cables on the Taurus later this afternoon, that can be done with or without the lower radiator hose in place.

Still have no explanation for that #5 arcing....

[Gary Lewis]

Congrat's!  One layer of the onion peeled.  

But, your vacuum at idle showing on the dash gauge is a bit low.  Don't know what cam you have, but I'd expect the vacuum to be at least 16" if not closer to 20".  And that can easily be an issue with the idle air/fuel mix.  If you get that optimized you may be able to close the throttle a bit with the idle speed screw and that will bring the vacuum up.

Or, it might be that your gauge isn't reflecting true manifold vacuum?

By the way, how 'bout laying your phone sideways, meaning landscape, when taking videos?  That works better.

[grumpin]

That is great!

[ctubutis]

Yeah, OK, I'm using ffmpeg to rotate videos now; kinda time-consuming in that it requires a virtual Linux box, but doable; thanks for pointing that out, Gary. :)

~~

With the exception of the A/C needing charging, I'm considering the Taurus project finished. :)

https://youtu.be/DDB5OZRKyBg


https://youtu.be/li9BaNyE1GA


~~

I'm also doing everything on a virtual Ubuntu installation on a laptop computer I brought into the garage; this Ubuntu/vmplayer combo is working quite well....

[grumpin]

Nice! SHO is looking good!