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Senior Member
Well the plot thickens, or thins depending on how you look at it. I pulled all the plugs and the serpentine belt again. I also disconnected the fuel at the carp and didn't have a nut so wrapped some plastic over then and tightened it down with a hose clamp. Gave it a spin and it turned over easily. Without any lurches or hiccups either. I also spun the water pump, alternator and power steering pump by hand and they were all smooth. So I think this eliminates internal issues. I did notice a strong smell of gas on the plugs as I pulled them and they were all a little wet as well. I also pulled the dipstick and it had a slight smell of gas to it. So I'm figuring comments were correct in that is was flooded and I've had gas caused hydrolock. I also noticed as my son was spinning the engine over that the plastic on the end of the fuel line was barely moving. Hmmm? I've never dealt with this before so I'm not sure of how much pressure would be generated but I thought it would show gas or push on the plastic a little more. So I pulled off the plastic and told my son to spin it while I held the end of the gas line pointing into a small cup. Nothing coming out of the line. Not a single drop. Ok, maybe I'm a total numbskull and ran out of gas. Checked the tank and there is plenty of gas. I remember putting 5 gallons after putting the gas line back on. I pulled the fuel line off at the outlet of the pump thinking maybe a fuel filter clog. Still no gas coming when being cranked. I pull the pump off and give it a few pumps by hand. Nothing still. I pull the fuel line entirely and check the pump. Nothing obvious. I take apart the pump and all seals and gaskets are looking good. I then attempt to suck fuel out of the line from the tank just to make sure I do have gas and it comes out easily. So that eliminates any issues from the pump to the tank. So I'm thinking I might have a compounded issue here. Maybe caused vapor lock when cranking to fill the line. And somehow hurt the pump doing this. This also explains my constant fiddling with the front fuel float. Sometimes it would fill and sometimes it wouldn't. I'm going to get a new fuel pump and put it back together and see if I can get fuel flow. In the meantime, I'm leaving everything open to evaporate any gas left. Also pulled off the carburetor just to aid in the evaporation. Also leaving garage doors open while doing this so I don't blow up the house. Again, asking the experts out there am I missing something here? This has been a real learning experience all the way around.
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Seasoned Citizen
Forget hydrolock – never happened. If you need to be convinced of this, let me know. For now, let that go or you’re going to take another detour.
If you are now convinced your engine is not seizing then getting it to run is very straight forward. From your video it is clear that the ignition is too advanced. Since you have also convinced yourself the firing order is correct that leaves only the base timing being too advanced as the prime suspect.
In addition, it appears you have a bad fuel pump. If you have a fuel pressure gauge on the line to the carb that makes troubleshooting much easier. They are inexpensive so while you’re getting a replacement pump do yourself a favor and add a fuel pressure gauge close to the carb. Necessary with an OEM mechanical pump? No, but it's easier than pulling off a fuel hose to see if the pump is working. And even if it is pumping, at what pressure?
Once you have an operating fuel pump, set the float levels and leave them alone. Float level can be influenced by fuel pressure but generally don’t change by themselves once set. Install clean plugs and back off the base timing 6-8 degrees and try starting again. Once you have the engine idling, pull the vacuum advance hose and plug the vacuum opening to the carb. Set your base timing back to whatever spec your engine builder gave you. THAT IS SIMPLY A RECOMMENDATION. Unless you bought a complete engine including the carb, ignition, and exhaust from the engine builder that timing recommendation is a starting point. If the engine is hard to start, kicks back, or backfires out the carb again you will have to experiment with less base lead. Or, if you have an MSD ignition box you can add on a start retard but that's usually only necessary on higher compression engines.
Once it runs and idles correctly, change your oil and filter. Then, happy motoring.
After a few highway miles pull the plugs (you did use new or at least cleaned plugs -- right?) and check for signs of a rich mixture. Adjust as required.
Last edited by NAZ; 10-18-2019 at 05:50 AM.
Dart Little M 406" SBC 800 HP N/A & 1,100 HP on nitrous, 2-spd Powerglide with trans brake, 6,000 RPM stall converter, narrowed Moser 88 3.90:1 spool with 35-spline gun-drilled axles & Torino bearings, custom parallel four-link, custom tube chassis & roll cage NHRA certified for 8.5-sec (only two FFR Hot Rods have this cert).
33 Hot Rod Super Pro Drag Racer Build:
33 HR NHRA Cert Roll Cage Build
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Senior Member
Gas is not a good lube so I'd change the oil now and drain the filter. Grab the least expensive oil Walmart has in whatever weight you run.
FFR MkII, 408W, Tremec TKO 500, 2015 IRS, DA QA1s, Forte front bar, APE hardtop.
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Senior Member
Originally Posted by
CraigS
Gas is not a good lube so I'd change the oil now and drain the filter. Grab the least expensive oil Walmart has in whatever weight you run.
I'll second that thought..
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Senior Member
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Hard to tell what that is. Can you fish it out with a magnet?
Mike
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Senior Member
That looks to me like the top ring land of your piston! If it were me, I would pull that head for a closer look! Even if you get those pieces out, running the engine with a broken ring land will cause even more damage!
FFR MK4 #8317, 393 Cleveland, Lunati VooDoo solid roller, CHI 3V heads and intake, TKO 600, Std roadster seats, 8.8 3.55 diff, 17" Halibrand replica wheels, Ford "Magnetic Metallic", silver ghost stripe. (Sold 10/16/21)
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Seasoned Citizen
Robert, I see nothing disturbing in your photos. Can't see much of the cylinder walls but what is showing looks good. I don't see metal fragments and I see no damage to the piston. I do see some minor scratches on the top of the piston that appears to have scraped some of the carbon from the surface. Not unusual when using a borescope as fishing it into the hole may contact the piston if you're not careful but I see no damage.
If you broke a ring you would expect to see scoring on the cylinder walls. A broken top ring can sometimes take a chunk out of the edge of the piston. A broken ring will also show on a compression check or leak down test.
Have you resolved the fuel pump issue? That and your base timing seem to be the things holding you back from starting the engine.
Dart Little M 406" SBC 800 HP N/A & 1,100 HP on nitrous, 2-spd Powerglide with trans brake, 6,000 RPM stall converter, narrowed Moser 88 3.90:1 spool with 35-spline gun-drilled axles & Torino bearings, custom parallel four-link, custom tube chassis & roll cage NHRA certified for 8.5-sec (only two FFR Hot Rods have this cert).
33 Hot Rod Super Pro Drag Racer Build:
33 HR NHRA Cert Roll Cage Build
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Senior Member
After looking closely (for a good 5 min!!) I finally figured out what I was seeing. What I thought were pieces of the top ring land are in fact the valve reliefs in the piston. Sorry for the confusion! I will back off now!
Last edited by frankb; 10-22-2019 at 09:33 AM.
FFR MK4 #8317, 393 Cleveland, Lunati VooDoo solid roller, CHI 3V heads and intake, TKO 600, Std roadster seats, 8.8 3.55 diff, 17" Halibrand replica wheels, Ford "Magnetic Metallic", silver ghost stripe. (Sold 10/16/21)
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Senior Member
Originally Posted by
frankb
After looking closely (for a good 5 min!!) I finally figured out what I was seeing. What I thought were pieces of the top ring land are in fact the valve reliefs in the piston. Sorry for the confusion! I will back off now!
No problem. I squinted at those pics for about an hour trying to sort things out. I think I finally convinced myself there is nothing in there other than a few scratches.
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Senior Member
Originally Posted by
NAZ
Robert, I see nothing disturbing in your photos. Can't see much of the cylinder walls but what is showing looks good. I don't see metal fragments and I see no damage to the piston. I do see some minor scratches on the top of the piston that appears to have scraped some of the carbon from the surface. Not unusual when using a borescope as fishing it into the hole may contact the piston if you're not careful but I see no damage.
If you broke a ring you would expect to see scoring on the cylinder walls. A broken top ring can sometimes take a chunk out of the edge of the piston. A broken ring will also show on a compression check or leak down test.
Have you resolved the fuel pump issue? That and your base timing seem to be the things holding you back from starting the engine.
Naz. First, thanks for keeping me on point in this. I think it all boils down to a faulty fuel pump. I did purchase a pump and will be installing tonight. I can tell just by pushing manually on the pump that the old pump wasn't working. I'll then do a compression check just to be sure and put it all back together, reset base timing and see how it goes. I've gone done enough rabbit holes and just need to focus on the original issue. Getting fuel to the engine.
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Seasoned Citizen
I've got experience with borescopes down spark plug holes and it's sometimes hard to interpret what you're seeing so easy to either miss something or end up pulling a head only to find nothing wrong. Good tool but must be used with other info. And I know you're outside your comfort zone and trying your best to make sure everything is correct. With experience comes less anxiety about missing something and easier to stay on point. I'm anal about checking all the boxes when troubleshooting so I get it; but it's easy to fall into analysis paralysis so it can also be good to have another set of eyes take a look and offer an opinion.
I believe you're going to see some positive results shortly.
Dart Little M 406" SBC 800 HP N/A & 1,100 HP on nitrous, 2-spd Powerglide with trans brake, 6,000 RPM stall converter, narrowed Moser 88 3.90:1 spool with 35-spline gun-drilled axles & Torino bearings, custom parallel four-link, custom tube chassis & roll cage NHRA certified for 8.5-sec (only two FFR Hot Rods have this cert).
33 Hot Rod Super Pro Drag Racer Build:
33 HR NHRA Cert Roll Cage Build
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Senior Member
I'm baffled as to what is shown in these pictures. The first picture is to blurred, to understand what's what. The 2nd picture may be showing some cylinder wall but are we actually looking up at the bottom of a valve?
I would expect to see a somewhat shiny cylinder wall, with perhaps some visible cross-hatching, which I don't.
Can you take a picture looking downward at the top of a piston at the bottom of it's stroke, that shows the cylinder walls?
Here's a good example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8WAZU00_n4
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Senior Member
I agree with NAZ. The first picture isn't much help but the other two look good. The second picture clearly shows the cylinder wall on the right hand side. Nice cross hatch pattern with no vertical scratches. The piston and valve reliefs look good with no valve contact visible. The scratches on the piston top look like carbon removed by inserting the borescope too far. The third picture looks the same as the second with the piston valve relief now at the top and the cylinder wall on the left. Again good cross hatch visible on the cylinder with no vertical scratches. Piston shows the same area with the carbon scraped off and no signs of valve impact. Should be good to go.
Good Luck
Norm
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Seasoned Citizen
Borescope pictures almost always suffer from inadequate lighting, contrast, color and many times are blurry. This makes it difficult to understand what your seeing -- it's not nearly as good as if the head was off the block. The second photo is probably the best but still doesn't show a lot of the interior. However, it is looking at the top of the piston and you can see some of the cylinder wall and the crosshatch on the wall surface. Enough to see that this engine has not got a lot of hours of use and very little carbon buildup. If you look close you can clearly see the valve reliefs cut into the piston and that should help with spacial orientation.
Now that video inspection on YouTube was high quality stuff. And the camera can easily be rotated to inspect the valves as well as the top of the piston. My camera cannot, especially inserting it into the plug hole of a typical V-8 which pretty much determines that the camera will be facing down bore. Then again, that industrial quality borescope probably cost 10-times what $150 one did. And remember, when you watching the video it's easier to get spatially oriented than looking at photos. Do this enough it starts to get a little easier but I've learned it's got to be used as part of several other bits of info to be relied on. If you're not careful you'll see things in the shadows that will scare you into pulling the head only to find nothing to worry about. I've seen scratches that looked so bad I thought for sure the cylinder walls were hosed and a leak down test confirmed there was nothing to worry about.
It's kinda like NDT inspections looking for cracks. The lighting angle is key. You can miss a crack if the lighting angle is wrong or you can see an indication where nothing exists. Funny thing is, I started getting better at finding cracks when I went through the Sheriff's tracking course. Learning to track suspects in the AZ outback made me a better NDT inspector -- it's all in the lighting angles. Direct overhead light will mask cracks and defects same as too little lighting will. Found the same thing when flying SAR -- lighting angle makes or brakes your ability to find a subject on the ground.
Dart Little M 406" SBC 800 HP N/A & 1,100 HP on nitrous, 2-spd Powerglide with trans brake, 6,000 RPM stall converter, narrowed Moser 88 3.90:1 spool with 35-spline gun-drilled axles & Torino bearings, custom parallel four-link, custom tube chassis & roll cage NHRA certified for 8.5-sec (only two FFR Hot Rods have this cert).
33 Hot Rod Super Pro Drag Racer Build:
33 HR NHRA Cert Roll Cage Build
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Senior Member
I finished everything up tonight. Installed the new fuel pump put in new spark plugs new oil set the floats and reset the timing. Sure enough. It took a few cranks but it started up. Ran a little rough. So I set the timing back to 14 degrees and it was running great. I must have got oil on the headers so they started smoking so cleaned that up. I can test a little easier now. Lesson learned is to focus on the obvious problem and not get distracted by other items. Thanks to everyone for the help and more thanks to Naz for the calming help.
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NAZ liked this post
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Really glad to see you got it running. It's so easy to make a mountain out of an mole hill. Then again, we are building a car from a pile of parts, and many of us haven't had experience doing that to this degree. These forums are a great resource for finding the answers and help we all need at some point.
MKIV Complete Kit: 3-link, vintage gauges, glove-box dash, chrome roll bars, 17" wheels, B/T leather seats, Gas-N side pipes and headers; Drive train: Levy 408w w/carb, TKO600, Moser 8.8 with 3.55s and GT rear brakes; Paint: Jeff Miller Ford Magnetic Grey Metallic with BMW Titan Silver stripes
Ordered: 4/5/16, Order completion: 5/14/16, Delivered: 5/24/16, First start: 6/22/19, Registered and legal: 10/28/19
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Senior Member
What a wild interesting ride this has been. I'm happy things turned out for the best, but I'm gonna miss the suspense. What a good read.
Bradley
Build thread - Mk4, Coyote, IRS, Wilwood brakes, old-style soft top and accessories.
The distance between "finished" and finished is literally infinite.
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Originally Posted by
robertjamesellis
Lesson learned is to focus on the obvious problem and not get distracted by other items.
THIS! It only comes from challenges. The lessons we learn from these moments are not easily forgotten, which is the payout from the struggle. Thanks for sharing, and congrats on sticking with it! Also, many thanks to NAZ and others. I think we all learned something in this thread. I know I did.
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Glad u got if figured out. I been following with fingers crossed.
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That's a great video, Bill.