The time has finally arrived, after so long I finally got to the point where I was able to crank up and start the Dodge. I wanted to get the driveshaft made so I can put the yoke in the transmission and be able to fill the unit with transmission oil so it won't be spinning dry when the engine does start up. When I got the driveshaft back and went to secure the back end to the differential, I ended up finding out that one of the straps that holds the U joint cap to the differential yoke was missing. I was only able to secure one U joint cap to the rear end. While this meant that I couldn't attempt to put the car in gear, it still meant that I could start the engine at least, since I was able to put oil in the transmission without it leaking out of the tail.
Since I didn't have much fuel to use I ended up taking the fuel can and situating it under the frame where the electric fuel pump is and attached a short length of hose to the pump and inserted it into the fuel can. The first attempt to start the car had some mishaps, sputters, backfires. I had to check the firing order of the spark plugs again since the way the thing was running had the signs of a couple of wires being crisscrossed. Which turned out to be the case. Also the carb that I had on the engine was a shitty unit. I ended up swapping out carbs with a fresh one. The old one was overflowing when the pump was on, and it was missing the lever for the accelerator pump. Once I put one of the other carbs I had in the storage trailer onto the car and cranked it, the thing fired up pretty good, running pretty smooth. For the time I was able to get the thing to run for short bursts but every now and then the thing would shut off like it lost power. I put the timing light on the engine and when the engine shut off the timing light stopped flashing just before the engine died. If the engine was sputtering out for another reason, the timing light would've still flashed a couple of times as the engine ramped down to zero RPM. I put my meter on the wire feeding the distributor and got a low voltage of 9.6 volts. The battery still read 13 volts. I metered the fuse box and got the same 9 volts at the power feed into the fuse box. This meant that either the connections at the ammeter gauge or at the ignition switch were shitty. When I attempted to meter both I ended up looking right at a multi wire plug that separates the steering column switches from the rest of the wire harness due to the idea that when I touched the plug the fuel pump and cooling fans started flaking out. Further inspection showed that one wire looked like it had heat damage, not necessarily burning but had some kind of crust on the conductor going into the plug. Also the plug itself was melting some at that particular conductor, I couldn't pull the plug apart because of that. So, I ended up just cutting the wires on either side of the plug and just soldered the two together and covered the solder joint with heat shrink tubing. Once I did that, everything came on just fine and voltage readings at the fuse box were closer to what was coming right out of the battery. With these little issues corrected, I went back to cranking the engine over and starting up once again. Once the engine was running I discovered a few little issues that will need addressing. First thing was the idea that there's a small hole in the timing cover right where the timing marks are at. This hole is allowing crankcase vapors to spit out while the engine is running. As of yet no oil came spitting out but I will still have to plug this hole so that will not become a problem. I will more than likely use some JB Weld to plug the small hole. The next problem was the idea that I seen a little more smoke than usual coming from the left exhaust pipe, whiter than usual. Not good. Along side that, looking at the rocker arm through the valve cover cap showed some lighter colored oil sitting on the rocker arm. The sign of water mixing with the oil. The other problem is the idea that the exhaust manifold gasket right at cylinder #1 was poofing smoke out under the exhaust manifold. While this would've been relatively insignificant, the idea that the poof of vapor was also depositing that light colored oil in a mist onto the top of the power steering gearbox. Another sign showing that the head gasket on the left side is compromised. While the engine was running I did make note of the oil pressure and the temperature. Both gauges appeared to be working. The oil pressure was actually pretty good given this engine is well worn. During the whole time the engine was running and warmed up the temp gauge went up somewhat but leveled of somewhere around 160 or so. Even with a shitty radiator cap on the radiator didn't overpressure and blow through the spout at the top of the radiator. Another good sign at least that the engine wasn't overheating. At this point I'll probably be trying some head gasket in a can to see if I can prolong the inevitable and put off having to pull the engine apart to replace the head gasket. With that being all I can do as far as running the engine and waiting for the replacement U joint straps to come in the mail, I went on to some other side jobs on the car so I can at least say I got more done. The first thing I moved on to is getting the rest of the headlights situated. I only had two bulbs in and one headlight ring installed. I dug out the other three headlight rings plus managed to scrounge up a couple more old bulbs that were laying around. I had to straighten out the tabs on one of the rings plus had to add some long screws to the extra tabs on the rings to further secure them to the headlight buckets. After getting the headlight bulbs installed an securing the rings like I wanted I turned them on and cycle through the low and high beams, successfully powering the lights. Things are certainly coming back together. Hopefully the driveshaft parts will get here more sooner than later so I can at least try to see if the car actually drives. I did do some light tuning of the carb and distributor to try and get things to the point where the engine idles at a reasonable speed. Despite that, the engine still put a little more smoke than it should, along with the milky oil at the rocker arm and the lighter than usual oil on the dipstick and the milky oil mist on the steering gearbox so yeah, head gasket. But hopefully between some head gasket in a can and just running the engine and changing the oil in the process of breaking the engine back in, hopefully I'll be able to put off having to pull the engine apart till sometime after actually finishing the assembly of the car and actually being able to drive the damn thing.
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