Having lived in both of the Californias (north & south), I am surprised CHP AND CalTrans provided assistance......
Well you are having a very bad day. I have had similar experiences with my 72. First off take that Holley and throw it as hard as you can. Install an AVS. Second if your oil pump failed(probably the relief valve) you may have damaged a lifter or just filled it with air. You also could have done a few other things but verify the location of the noise. Drive it for a few hundred miles and see if it does not quieten down. A collapsed hydraulic lifter is not going to hurt your engine. But it is noisy. Use a stethoscope to verify the location of the noise.Also very good idea to install an aftermarket oil pressure gauge as the stock one is next to useless. Same with water temp.Third( and most importantly) I would pull the bulkhead connectors and take a very good look at them. Personally I would hard wire the ammeter leads and the ignition switch power lead around the bulkhead connector. This is a big troublespot with old Mopars and I know from experience if
I am having electrical problems that make no sense and the car has not been modified this is the first place to look. The Allpar site talks about this in detail.
Robin Giesbrecht
1972 Imperial
>From: Kenyon Wills <
imperialist1960@xxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To:
mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >To:
mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >Subject: IML: my '72 nightmare (days of agony)
>Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 22:59:21 -0700 (PDT)
>
>I spent about 2 hours trying to figure out why I was
>not getting the car to fire. Answer is at the bottom.
>
>Pauline Yetter and I co-own a 1972 Imperial LeBaron.
>It's a nice, well preserved car. She sold it to a
>guy, and he drove it until it wouldn't run. Then he
>abandoned
it. He never registered it, and the tow
>company that came to possess it contacted Pauline.
>She got it out of their possession for way too much,
>and all of this with the words "blown engine" written
>on the front glass.
>
>I agreed that my buy-in on the co-ownership would be
>to fix the car.
>
>With the help of Tim Hulse, I was able to find a donor
>car with a rebuilt engine. The guy was willing to
>drive the car up several hundred miles from
>Bakersfeild Ca to the SF Bay Area. I figured that if
>the car made it that far, that it was probably a good
>drive train.
>
>The car arrived and was even more hammered than had
>been described, and he had been talking about it
>getting "restored". Well, it was cosmetically a
>basket case, and all remorse and guilt that I'd been
>feeling about raping it fo
r the engine disappeared
>when I saw the cracked glass, blown interior, and
>paint applied with a roller.
>
>I had confirmed that the keeper-car's engine was
>seized by installing a battery and trying to start it.
> All I got was a click of the solenoid shooting the
>starter gear out, and a seized engine won't allow the
>starter to turn it at all, so there you go.
>
>So I got some buddies and had an engine-swap confab at
>my house. Swapped the engines, and I plopped the
>seized motor into the bad car, mixing and matching the
>best parts to keep.
>
>A few days later I had all the various hoses and
>connections made and excitedly plopped into the
>drivers seat. I turned the key and got the EXACT SAME
>RESULT as before. I had decided that the original
>starter was so clean-looking that it MUST be worth
>keeping.
>
>Wellll, turns out that the original engine was likely
>just fine. Bad starter. That's the last time that I
>put so much stock in what someone else concludes about
>a car's problems.
>
>======
>
>So I put a new starter in and the car still refused to
>start, although it was now turning over.
>
>I figured that I had something mis-wired or something,
>so I turned it over to my mechanic. They got the car
>to run by bypassing the hot-rod Mallory ignition that
>someone had installed previously, going back to a
>coil.
>
>I went down to pick the car up and agreed that it was
>running really nicely, and looked forward to returning
>it to Pauline's garage.
>
>I took the car on a test drive, and it ran very well.
>I nailed the gas going up a hill and the
carb stuck
>when it was wide open.
>
>What a ride. I had to slap the ignition off and brake
>manually once the vacuum ran out to power the booster.
>
>
>Limped it back.
>
>Went into my parts stash and got another holley carb.
>Put it on and the car drove home ok.
>
>Until The next day. I drove it, and when it came up
>to temperature, it started to pop and spit and miss.
>I drove it about 10 miles away, and it was running
>rough. Did some stuff and convinced my girlfriend to
>drive it home while I drove the truck. She pulled
>into the slow lane suddenly and I heard the car
>backfire a couple of times and I knew that she was
>having trouble. We got closer to home, and went
>through a major freeway interchange that required
>merging and the car died in traffic. Turns out that
&g
t;some lady in the next lane over got piggy and wouldn't
>let Liz get through to pull off.
>
>The car promptly restarted but was running really
>rough and had been getting progressively worse. It
>died for good on a surface street. I ran back to the
>house to get a tow chain. Passed a CHP on a bike who
>was going the other way. Knew that he was going to
>pay attention to Liz still sitting in the middle of
>the street with the hood up...
>
>Got back and they had pushed the car off to the side
>of the road. I was pissed at it. Liz was pissed at
>it. We left it overnight. Came back the next day and
>it started right up. I guess it was a heat-thing?
>
>So I told my parts guy about this, and he's a Mopar
>Muscle guy. He had a Holley carb and offered to
>rebuild it for me and give it to me. Now when your
>parts gu
y offers to rebuild and give you a carb that
>you're in sad shape. He works where they had redone
>the wiring and all, and had watched and heard about
>all the problems.
>
>I bring this carb (no. 3) home, and after waiting a
>few days for him to rebuild it. I took that time to
>remove and rehab the intake manifold and exhaust
>manifolds, which seemed leaky, so I resealed them and
>repainted them. Neat-O.
>
>Put the fresh carb on. It proceeded to leak like
>crazy and turn my intake manifold into a gasoline
>bird-bath. The engine paint on the manifold dissolves
>in gas, didja know that? Great.
>
>I tried again to reseal it, but it leaked somewhere
>else and I got pretty frustrated. So I got a Carter
>AVS carb off of an earlier Imp and put that on (carb
>no. 4). Worked fine. Finally.
>
>
Oh, and I forgot to mention that carb no. 2 was leaned
>out so bad that it cracked the exhaust manifolds.
>That's where the leaking sounds were. Had to get
>replacements. Great.
>
>Car drove now and I took it BACK to my parts guy for
>some advice on tweeking the carb.
>
>Didn't make it. Car died and refused to restart on
>the freeway near the SF Airport. Caltrans came by and
>gave me a free tow to my parts-guy. BONUS!
>
>Turns out the starter was bad. No explanation on why
>the car died, but He had a starter there, and we
>busted butt and installed it on the spot. It was
>Thursday, and I wanted to give Pauline the car back
>for the California Statewide Meet Saturday Morning.
>
>Car started with the new starter (no. 3, remember?).
>He richened the mixture a bit and the car IMMEDIATELY
>ran better
and smoother. Like it should.
>
>I took off with Pauline following me (I'd called her
>to pick me up when I got stranded before I knew I was
>getting the free tow).
>
>I let her drive the car and she was delighted. I was
>delighted too, since the car was running so nicely.
>
>I hopped on the freeway and on the flyway going over
>the 101 the car started to sputter. AGAIN!!! I
>noticed that the oil pressure was dropping rapidly. I
>nursed the car off the freeway. It was overheating.
>I got into a gas station and figured that maybe there
>was funk in the coolant or something, so I drained the
>water and replaced it. Car started and ran fine.
>Good oil pressure. Cool temp. Cool. Let's go.
>
>Took off and about 4 miles later the oil pressure
>dropped, the idiot light came on, and the car started
>to s
putter and died outright.
>
>On the San Mateo Bridge.
>
>Called the toll plaza, and they sent out the tow truck
>for tow number 2 of the day.
>
>Towed it to the end of the bridge and dumped it on a
>side street. I had called my parts guy on the cell.
>He said that if the car conked out that he'd come help
>me out. Somewhere on this project I transitioned from
>ding-bat customer (we've known each other for about 10
>years) to insider.
>
>He drove the shop van out and decided to try to get
>the car home. Went to start it, and guess what? The
>new starter that he'd supplied and helped install was
>DEAD.
>
>Went back to my place. Got another starter out of my
>parts stash that came in one of the cars that I bought
>and we went back and put it in (starter no. 4). This
>was at 1
0 at night on the street. Great.
>
>Car fired right up. Drove it home, but this time I
>knew that it had oil issues.
>
>Flew home and the idiot light came on just as I got to
>the corner and I shut it off and coasted into the
>house.
>
>Figured that the oil pump was bad. Seems like it was
>working and then fouling or something when the oil
>reached a certain temperature or something. Some sort
>of blockage or something? Dunno.
>
>I also replaced the oil-pressure sensors under the
>assumption that I didn't want a faulty oil sensor
>creating a problem. The electric fuel pump runs off
>of one of them, so maybe I was getting starved for gas
>as the sensor registered no pressure? Who knows? I
>just did it all.
>
>Put the new oil pump in. Had to force it into the
>block, so remo
ved the distributor in the (wrong)
>resumption that it was preventing the oil pump from
>going into the block. They run off the same shaft,
>but are not connected in Chryslers (now I know). Put
>the distributor in and verified 8 ways that it WAS in
>the correct way. I wrote in and asked here cause I
>just couldn't get it to fire. Very frustrating.
>
>After I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the spark was
>happening as it should, Two hours in, I took a last
>stab and poured gas down the carb just to see.
>
>Engine fired immediately. Wow.
>
>WOW.
>
>WOW!!!
>
>Pulled the fuel line. -Dry.
>
>the guys at the parts place (not my regular guy) sold
>me the wrong oil sensor. Put the old one back in, and
>the fuel pump worked immediately.
>
>Put it all together, s
tarted the car, put the timing
>light on it and got it all set.
>
>Great!! !
>
>I'm so excited about it that I'm not paying attention
>to the car. I suddenly become aware of a knocking
>sound.
>
>After all of this, the oil starvation apparently has
>damaged something in the valve train. Lifters? Cam?
>Something.
>
>So I guess that I get to rebuild that too. Hopefully
>not 4 times.
>
>What does the knock in the valve train mean? New cam
>and lifters?
>
>Bummer.
>
>Kenyon Wills
>
>
>
>
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>
> <
BR>>
>
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