2018 was a very busy and productive year.
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I really got started at the beginning of May. Since I had not run the engine for over a year and a half I started by doing a pressure check on the cylinders and found two below 100 pounds so I put Marvel Mystery Oil in all the cylinders and let it set for a couple of days. This worked well and even though three of the cylinders were not were they should have been but they were good enough to get things started. Almost.
The carbs are totally gummed up again so I pulled the fuel tank and used the POR-15 tank cleaner and sealer. This worked well and I have not had problems since.
Rebuilt the carbs again with new rubber parts. Rebuilding these carbs is getting to be habit forming. Moss Motors assures me that the new parts can handle ethanol fuel.
Engine is running well but now the valve covers are leaking and the oil pressure is low. I ordered new valve cover gaskets and a new oil pressure sensor.
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Adjusted the carbs better and tested the compression again. Now all the numbers are about where they should be at 190 lbs.
The Jag has always overheated after about 15 minutes of driving so I bought an aluminum radiator and a bypass fan. The radiator arrived but the fan was on backorder. I used a regular floor fan to run air through the new radiator and the car ran for 25 minutes without overheating.
After installing the radiator and cleaning up the engine area the engine will not start. No spark because the electronic ignition is out. I installed the original points and the engine starts with no problem.
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I setup the original fan and fan shroud and it works well.
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All along I have been keeping the battery on the charger, but now that the engine will run for longer periods of time and with the fan using power I've found that the battery is not charging. I tested the generator and it is OK. I bought another voltage regulator from the generator repair shop that tested the generator but it did not work so I took it back and exchanged it for the only other one they had and it did not work. I returned the second voltage regulator and ordered one from Moss Motors - it worked.
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All of these problems are showing up because I'm actually running the engine and driving the car.
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The original fan seems to work well but I finally received the backordered fan from Moss Motors and installed it. It really works well and the temperature stays steady at 75 degrees centigrade, but this created a new problem because the generator does not put out enough power to keep the battery charged.
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Another problem popped up with the new fan because the original otter switch that starts and stops the fan does not work consistently. Once I get it started it works as long as the engine is running.
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The next time I tried to start the engine the battery was completely dead and had to be replaced.
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I'm still having issues with the oil pressure being less than 10 pounds when the engine is idling at operating temperature. I started removing the spin on oil filter that I installed when rebuilding the engine so that I could replace the overflow valve spring and screwed up the threads on the unit - very disappointing.
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I bought a used 4.2 oil filter block (it fits perfectly) and works well.
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This is what my progress looked like at the end of 2018.