The purpose of this Blog

This blog is to detail my 50 years (1973 - 2023) with a 1928 Chevrolet tourer, affectionately called "The Red Chev".

The acquisition, restoration, improvements and my experiences over the years are covered in as much detail as I can remember.

Some of the later postings include car club outings and other vintage car items that I hope will be of interest to people.

If you have the time, scroll back to where it all began in 1973 and follow the journey so far.

Thanks for dropping by.

Regards Ray Dean


See my new section "The Red Chev - Repairs, Improvements, Maintenance and Technical Details" located on the left hand side of the screen.




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Friday, December 30, 2011

Engine Tune Up

The Red Chev seemed a bit harder to cold start the last few days, so I thought its probably about time for a tune up. I calculated that its probably been about 500 miles or more since the last one and there has been a lot of 45 to 50 mph driving since then.

So the thought process was to check out the points, plugs, rotor button, distributor cap and see what difference if any that makes. If starting is still an issue after this I would reset the air / fuel mixture on the carby.

The process included the following

1. Pulled off the distributor cap. Contact surfaces were a bit dirty. Cleaned and lightly polished to get a full contact face.



2. Rotor Button was heavily tarnished, probably OK but to make sure polished contact point on top and contact point to distributor cap.



3. Distributor points. Contact surfaces were slightly burned and dirty. Cleaned both surfaces. Checked point gap, should be 025" was under a few thou, so reset.




4. Cleaned inside of distributor, applied a very small amount of grease to the main shaft that contacts the points rubbing block.

5. Removed plugs, cleaned and reset to 030"

Everything back together, could not gauge starting as engine was already warm but definitely seemed to idle and run a bit better. Throttle response seemed better.

Will make final verdict next day or so and may still need to re tune carby.

These old bangers do require a lot of love and attention, but the good point is you are able to notice as soon as the engine goes off song.

Update later the same day: Cold start is fine, hopefully problem is now fixed.

4 comments:

  1. Wow! It's quite admirable to see such a well-maintained classic car. I can see that you really have the knack to keep it in its best which is a good thing, considering the age of this car. I can just imagine the look on people's faces when you drive around with it. If you need parts that are seemingly hard to find, never hesitate to check the web for help. Good day! :)

    Auto Park Niagara

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! This is a pretty detailed and visual recount of your Chevy's tune-up! This would definitely prove helpful, especially to other Classic Chevy owners out there who are also thinking of a tune-up, but don't exactly have the means to hire a mechanic. The amount of attention and care that you devote to your Chevy is definitely admirable. No wonder it looks like it's been newly bought.

    Nannette Henriquez

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  3. Looks like you’ve done quite a job on that car.  We really need to tune up our car's engine from time to time in order to ensure that it is working in its full capacity at all times. This will definitely help us avoid incidents, wherein the car would run aground at the most unexpected situations. 
    David "Woody" Woodall

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is nice to see old skills still being used.
    Nowdays its all modules and PCB which infuriates us old school mechy's

    ReplyDelete