running again

Ok, so it's halftime during the college football national championship game, so this will be brief. My friend Justin stopped over on Sunday afternoon, and we got the engine running again. For the second time, we needed to fake the clutch pedal switch. The jumper we did before either fell out or I knocked it out. Regardless, once we jumpered that switch, the starter would engage again.

Fuel System Alteration
we removed the one-way valve from the fuel feed line, believing it was restricting the fuel flow. I'm still concerned that we won't get sufficient prime after sitting overnight, but I'll be able to test that theory tomorrow night. In its place, we put a Mercedes secondary (clear) filter. We should be able to see if there is prime in the fuel line just by looking at that.

Battery suck-eth
The battery I nabbed from the old Mercedes was pretty much drained by the time we got to being able to test-fire, it wasn't able to turn the engine. We tried the Harbor Freight battery charger/jumper, but that didn't have the juice. Then, we charged the battery a bit, tried again... no avail. Finally, charging through jumpers running off of Justin's Golf was the winner. Regardless, the engine is running again, and the battery is sitting on the slow-charge. I'll fire that engine up again to drive to the muffler shop hopefully this week.

Justin's Discoveries
In looking at and poking at the engine, Justin noticed a few things. Some items, we were able to fix on the spot, like a loose fuel pressure sensor on the IP, but others may need future attention. The VNT actuator was not responding very well. We think that may self-correct just from use - remember the engine has only run a handful of times in the past 3 years. While we were banging away, Justin re-checked my accelerator switch, and it runs from 0% to 77% now. I need to extend the throw of the pedal somehow, but that can wait. Also, he verified the IP timing, and the flow of the injectors - all good. We're ready for test flights.

That's it for tonight. The game is coming back on. If we don't get snow, I'll be taking a test flight tomorrow night. I hope to get into the Meineke shop around the corner between Wednesday and Friday so I'm road-able. Then, it is just a matter of increased length test fights, minor tweaks and cosmetics. Unbelievable. As an Oregonian, I say "Go DUCKS".