I'm ecstatic!
Some may know my story, some may not. Here's a quick summary.
15 months ago, i purchased an AE86 that had a blown head gasket and the head was pretty much torn down. The first owner bought it for the price of roughly $17,000 back in the mid 80's and kept it for many years. He had already swapped out the engine once but when the second one blew, he sold it. The second owner had plans for transforming it into a kit car but when he found a second one in worse condition body wise, he decided to spare the life of this car and I took it into my care. The body is not bad considering it's age. But having been out of comission for a while no one knew whether she would breathe again.
I had planned for it to be on the road by december last year so I could store away my precious civic but as luck would have it, this car took refuge in the garage while my civic endured the cold, hard, salty winter.
As time passed, my collection of parts grew as did the total cost of the project. Head rebuild kit. Timing belt. Water pump. Battery. Shocks. Springs. Shop manual. The car became a storage unit for all the piece acquire to repair her. My new goal was to get her running sometime in the summer to maybe get out to a track with her instead of the civic.
Everything came together late summer and the car was put back together properly, breaking and replacing a few parts along the way. The trouble shooting was hell. For the last couple of months, having the car together meant nothing. She wouldn't start. Problem after problem. And finally by last month, we had spark and fuel (only to the rail it seemed) but no start. Posting everywhere and asking everyone, people were helpful but nothing worked.
I had been laughed at by family, friends and the girl. "Get your junk outta the garage." "Don't park it on the driveway on thursday or the garbage men will take it away." "Sure it runs ... on gravity!" I heard it all. But at this point I was ready to give up and drop her off at a shop to fix. And then tonight ...
After trying almost everything in the book, I was stumped. Until someone else posted some issues about their 4AGE woes on club4AG. Well, I don't think he had the same problem, but then someone suggested that the distributor from the red top is different from the blue top. I broke off an ear from the blue top dissy in the summer and replaced it with the parts car one (which was an early TVIS redtop). I check the part number on the distributor and it was different. Thought to myself, that can't possibly be the porblem. But since I tried EVERYTHING, well, I decided to swap it. And it was very promising. She was trying to start, trying hard but just couldn't do it. Then I went out and got some more gas, dropped in a little stablizer, cranked her a few times and she roar with rage and anger! It was beautiful. Gonna grab a cigar tomorrow and listen to her purrr for a while. I shut her down as soon as I saw some smoke from around the dizzy. I'm guessing that since there was only one ear on it, maybe it's dripping a little oil from the weak side and it's dripping on the exhaust manifold and cooking ... oh man I'm pumped. I feel like I've been mothering this AE86 in my garage of a womb and finally tonight gave birth to a whole new world of fun.
Anyway, it's been a great learning experience. I had very little hands-on knowledge with motors before. I read about them. I looked at them. I touched them. But I never worked on them before. This is proof that I'm not stupid or incompetent! Thanks to all who gave advice and encouragement along the way. John, Andrew, Randy, Cyril, Nick, thanks for all the help. Now, onto the brakes. :P
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