The Shakedown - Part Two

I discussed the shakedown cruise in the last post.  Originally for the first steam engine powered boats, which led to vibration no one had heard of before.  Therefore, they took a cruise with mechanics on-board who could tighten bolts as they went along.  I have the same need on BB but it's tough to find mechanics to ride under a car with 4" ground clearance!

So, I was super proud to have fixed the oil pan leak.  The next issue was the cooling fan blowing a fuse regularly.  At first I thought I had pinched a wire under the radiator.  Rerouting the wire seemed to fix the issue so I decided to try the drive to work...a mere 27 miles.  On the way, the newly installed temp gauge went high (but not engine rebuild high).  At my gas stop, the fuse was blown.  Damn.  I rerouted the wire, installed a new fuse and it ran well.  But, was blown when I got to work.

At this point, I decided to involve experts.  This experience reminded me of my daughter teaching me to slice an onion.  I can now slice an onion with reasonable speed, which speed is roughly 20% of her culinary trained speed.  Similarly, I knew there was a knocking sound.  This should not be possible in a rotary engine, since there are no valves or connecting rods to knock.  I peered and prodded and listened for a half hour and generated no theory.  Larry looked, felt, and said, "there's a valve in this intake manifold that's rattling".  I was about another hour of troubleshooting away from that.  On one hand, I was disappointed in myself, on the other, how amazing are we humans that we develop these skills!  How awesome!

I likely will never chop an onion as fast as my kid or find an a knocking sound as fast as Larry.  But, I possess magic!  Since I know Kara and Larry (and they both tolerate me!) I can stumble along until I need help.  And, when I need help, I just stand back and wonder!  This is the magic of the human race.  We can share knowledge (which makes each of us smarter at no cost) and we can inspire each other (also no cost). And so, we accomplish things way beyond our individual abilities!

In this case, we found the fan needed a larger fuse for the in-rush.  We also found that my idea of a flexible motor mount for the Metering Oil Pump was a sad idea.  Before our eyes, it unscrewed itself as if it were a mechanism designed for that purpose!  Work to do there.  I've read that an engine swap needs 1000 miles of shakedown before it's reliable.  I found ways to require more miles!  I'm old, but I'm learning!  Maybe this will represent my last tow!

In any case, keep on having #funwithcars!