Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 07:56:27 -0700 (PDT)
Just completed my 3rd shakedown with almost excellent results. .She started right up and overall performed really well. After the gas tank cleanout it was nice to see clear gas in the glass filter rather than the murky brown pudding stuff. Oh, and my original sending unit worked just fine so I didn't need to spend money on a new one!
I'll need to double check the timing as over the hour and half her performance denigrated a little bit. Also, when pulling back on the throttle she had a tendency to stall and towards the end we had to resort to priming the carb with a shot of gas. If I had to hazard a guess as to why that would develop, it could possibly be that the distributor shifted slightly causing retarded ignition. I had a problem getting to the hold down bolt and in hindsight worry that I might not have gotten it tight enough.
I'm also pulling the alternator today and taking it down to the shop to have it check out and rebuilt if necessary. The volt gauge continued to reflect only about 11-11.5v and at the end of the run she didn't have enough juice to crank her over. We were going to jump her about 30mins later to get her over to the ramp but for grins I crank the key and found she recharged herself enough to get it started without jumpers. I know some of you guys said I could rebuild the alternator myself but the summer is ticking away.
Question..... when doing a fast cruise but not WOT, whereabouts are your RPMs? My Explorer will plane out at about 3000 but feels happier at higher RPM. I got her as high as 3500 but could sense a very vague performance issue. It's likely a re-tune or better yet a Pertronix electronic ignition will fix that but didn't want to push it past that point just yet. What can I expect a comfortable WOT to be thereabouts?
And finally....and I think i might know the answer to this already but nothing ventured, nothing gained.....is there a resource for new RED rub rail? I'd really like to replace the one there with red as opposed to black but will do black if I have to.
Thanks.
-Bill
