The slow and arduous process of removing the Lean Burn system on my '78 Monaco has begun. Luckily for me I know some fabulous people, one of them shipped me a non-Lean Burn carb for rebuild. Yesterday saw me start to pull the carb apart, but I had my sensibility kick-in almost immediately, and I STOPPED. I cannot rebuild a carburetor, it is not a strength I possess, and I do not want to be one of those guys, swinging his manhood around pretending I know what I'm doing, so I looked for help, and another fabulous friend stepped up and is rebuilding it for me. I like to work to my strengths, and understanding the complexities of a carburetor is not one of them. Eric, on the other hand LOVES rebuilding old carbs, so I figure it was the right move. Once he's happy with the carb, I'll buy the kit from Mancini and I can get stuck in doing the switch. Progress is slow, but it's moving.
I'm sure I'll be emasculated for deciding to have someone rebuild my carburetor for me, but I do stand firm in my thinking - I bought a $40 rebuild kit, and I Paypal'd my buddy $50 for the carb (even though he insisted I just cover shipping), and I had absolutely no idea where to start, so getting deeper into a rebuild would surely create more havoc, and eventually a situation where I forget what bit goes where....yeah that's me. Sorry to the people who slam me for this.
Other situations have arisen recently. The girlfriend moved house (basically the last few weeks have been so busy I've had no time for little projects on the car) and also, here in Utah, winter has been sticking it's cold hands on the back of my neck. This weekend saw the first major snowfall, and as my Monaco isn't cosied-up inside a shop or garage, that brings progress down to a slow crawl also. I'm not making excuses, life is happening.
During all this, I've had a few chances to drive the car, and to me that's the most important thing. What use is a car that just sits. It has to be said, once she's warmed up, she drives fantastic. Straight and true, everything except the horn works perfectly, and she really is a joy to cruise around in. Here are some random pics from those little cruises, for your perusal...
As you can see, my police hubcaps are on and looking good. (Don't look at the rust!! I'm very excited to get on with cutting that out and welding in fresh steel)
Not sure what happened to the picture here, maybe I selected a filter on my iphone by mistake ^^^
During these little drives, the car runs fantastic, but coming down to idle, it's a little rough. She also doesn't like cold starting but what old car does?
I changed out the valve cover gaskets finally
and did a cap/rotor arm/plug wires, and plus change. The plugs needed to be replaced
Once I had done the basic maintenance, the car was a different beast. No longer did it hesitate on pull-away, it seemed to have more spring in its step, and it sounded and felt smoother....for about 5 miles, and then it went back to exactly how it was before. Stumbling, and rough idle, but smooth as silk up over 10mph.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds like the Lean Burn computer playing silly-buggers, and is exactly why I'm removing it from the mix. Once the carb comes back rebuilt, and the Mancini Electronic Ignition Kit arrives, I hope the conversion makes the car drive like that first 5 miles all the time.
Cheers for now.
