Travels of the Fury

Well the travels of the Fury have been few and far between this summer.

 

We have been chasing an electrical issue. The car has not been charging properly, so it has left us stranded a few times. It has spent much of it's time with the hood up.

 

The doggies were always eager to go for a ride. But as usual, the hood was up.

 

We had been testing and tinkering with things, one at a time, but everything we tried yielded the same results. So I finally decided to take it to a mechanic acquaintance of mine.

I was going to drive it, but when Nathaniel went to move it into the driveway to hook it up to the battery charger it went "whir, whir, ca-CHUNK"

I called my mechanic friend and he surmised that the bendix went out on the starter and said he would check it out. So we loaded it onto a trailer and brought it out to his place.





Here we are, supremely confident that within a few days Nathaniel will be cruising again.

 

Sadly, the "ca-CHUNK" Nathaniel heard was the starter self-destructing because it couldn't turn the engine over. It turns out that unbeknownst to us the head gasket has slowly been going out and it finally allowed enough coolant into one of the cylinders to hydro lock the whole kit and kaboodle.

 

We haven't torn into it yet, so it is still speculation as to what the culprit is, but all signs point towards a blown head gasket.

We drained all of the coolant out of the radiator and pulled the plugs and cranked it over to push the coolant out. I lubed all of the cylinders and then put the plugs back in. It actually starts and runs great, so I suspect everything else about it is just fine. We shall see.

Thank you. I hope so too.

 

The gasket kit showed up yesterday afternoon.

 

We are heading up to the cabin for the Labor Day weekend, so we will hold off on tearing into this until after we get back.
Our neighbor builds engines for drag racing in his garage. Nathaniel mows his lawn, so he started talking to him about the Fury and it's issue. He offered to help us out, which I greatly appreciate. I am pretty amazing at taking stuff apart, but knowing what I'm looking at and reassembling things...
I'll just be glad to have someone who knows their stuff there to guide the process.

 

Are you going to take the heads to a machine shop? Thats always been the big hurdle where I’m from because the few that I know of are always backed up a couple weeks at least.

 

As long as the engine will be stripped down to the block, it would be wise insurance to replace the timing chain and gears at the same time.....it's always good maintenance if it hasn't been done previously and is a relatively simple task at this stage.

 

Yes we will take the heads to a machine shop. This has to be budget friendly, since Nathaniel is paying for it. We know two guys in town who do this for a living, so we should be able to get done what needs to be done, and as affordably as possible.

 

Man that’s so cool that your son is paying for it. Making way for the next generation. Gotta love it

 

Wow, but considering the age of the poly I was wondering if the head gaskets had been done before.
Concerning the charging issue, have you or Nathaniel checked the amp gauge and connections yet. It carries the full load of the charging system and could have dirty contacts or be going bad. On the plus side the gauge is easy to bypass if it is going bad, just connect the two wires at the gauge together on the same terminal, you won't have an amp gauge but the charging system will work.

 

Too bad you and Nathaniel are having this trouble, but it will be back on the road soon, I'm sure.