Last week the haad was back on and the manifolds fitted.Well there was still some awkward buggers of nuts to fit on the inlet manifold baulked by the manifold itself so I had to loosen the studs and nuts I had struggled with last week before I could get access to finish fitting all of them. What joy.
Next was fitting all the hoses again and filling up with water.
Connecting up the fuel line. Easy enough as I have now done this several times. Erm, no! I can't describe how much of a sod this was to work out where the brackets went, not to mention then trying to fit the alternator back on and finding that combinations of the fuel pipe, alternator bracket and fan belt all caught up on each other in one combination or another!
Oh well, patience won through and all of that was put back together OK.
By now I was on the ignition side of the engine bay. Now where do these wires go? And what's the firing order again? Which one of the 2 dizzy cap and plug lead combinations is the right one? Got it right in the end though and fitted the freshly charged battery.
Remembered to leave the king lead off though when I spun the engine over hoping to get oil pressure. Crikey it took a long time again but eventually the oil light went out around the time the battery was starting to slow down.
All of a sudden I was in a position to try and start the old git. Well it was reluctant again and then coughed a couple of times when I more or less poured Easy Start down it's throat.
I know when to call it quits though so I decided to pack things away and come back next week but first I checked the dipstick and it did seem like it was oil rather than mayonnaisse on it. OK I thought, why not take the rocker cover off and see what it's like under there.
No immediate horrors so I decided to turn the engine over to make sure it wasn't throwing water all over the rocker covers again! You know what? It very nearly started.
OK, more Easy Start and let's see what happens.
I tell you what happened - it only went and started and kept running. I kept it running for about 3 minutes and then switched off to check things over.
All appeared OK so I started it again and this time it ran by itself even without choke or throttle - here's the proof
I am not counting any chickens though. There does appear to be some "milky oil" but then that's quite possible as I couldn't clear all the water out from before.
Also there is some water loss down the front offside of the block which I dread to think is a head gasket issue - it's more likely to be a leak at the water pump or thermostat housing so I'll be checking that out next.
Good news is that the oil on the dipstick looks like oil (which is another reason to think the water leak isn't a head gasket problem).
I think I'll retorque the head, check the tappets and investigate that water leak next.
If all is OK then I'll change the flushing oil and the oil filter when it's been run for about an hour in total.
Defintiely not counting any chickens though - did I say that already?
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