More cleanup, tear down target date, and learning about carburetors

On Sunday Ike got another treatment with the degreaser and power washer. I focused some more on the engine block, but also finally got to the transfer case and transmission. There is an old saying about Jeeps and their transfer cases/transmissions: “If it stops leaking, it’s out of oil.” Looking at the amount of crud on the skid plate, that couldn’t be more true. I had thought that the skid plate was almost flush with the transfer case, until I started removing some of the built up oil/grease/dirt, to find that was not the case. I was also met with a giant hand-sized piece of crud that came off of the block (not sure where) that stayed solid even after being washed into the gutter. At first I was worried that some part had fallen off with the pressure imposed on it, until I cracked it in half to find it void of metal.

After much thought and deliberation, I’ve also settles on a more narrow date to start tear down. The registration on Ike is up in March of next year. Rather than re-registering it for another year and starting the tear down mid-registration, I will do a non-op registration. That means that sometime in March of 2011, it will no longer be legal to drive it around. A perfect excuse to start tearing it down, I think.

I’ve also started making a list of the initial tear down steps. My idea is to write it out now, visual the parts that will be coming off, and make sure I don’t miss anything. I need to catalog all of the assemblies, their methods of attachment, location and dependencies on other assemblies, and all of the hardware associated with it for it’s eventual rebuild. I’m hoping that I will be down to a rolling chassis by late April or early May. That should give me enough time to save up enough money to get the frame re-finished and hopefully get the axles rebuilt (if necessary) and get new suspension installed (the leaf springs are flat, the shocks are shot, and the I’m sure I’ll find much more when I get to it that needs attention).

All that rebuilding, while exciting, will take Ike away from me for some time. So I’m trying to get as much driving and “us time” in while I still can. One issue that has come up is that when driving down the road at speed and coming to a stop, the engine will idle down as expected, but it keeps idling down until it is no longer running. My theory on this has to do with back when I first adjusted the idle on the carb. The choke cable doesn’t seem to be connected to anything. The cable, admittedly aged, is a direct connection between a knob on the dash and the lever on the carb. This would mean that it’s ideal movement would be to move a lever forward and back, with fully forward fully open and fully back choked. However, the replacement Solex carburetor on Ike is not a direct re-manufacture of the original Carter W-O carburetor that has a choke parallel to the engine block.

After searching around and finding a very low quality exploded view of the Solex carburetor, I found out that the choke is actually a lever on the back (where I didn’t look) that moves down for fully open and up for choke. So it appears that the 60 year old metal in the cable, when put through the guide ring to make a nearly 90 degree angle to it’s normal operation, likely weakened and eventually broke. So the theory that I am running with is that the cable likely broke at some point when the choke was engaged, so when I adjusted the idle, it was adjusted with the mixture far richer than “normal” operation. Over time, the choke lever worked its way to the fully open position (gravity!) leaning out the mixture to the point that it now stalls when the throttle isn’t pulled out.

Up until last week, I knew as much about troubleshooting a carburetor as the mating habits of bananas (which I’m told is fairly interesting, though unfortunate for the fruit involved). Talking with other Willys owners online about similar issues has opened a whole can of worms in my head. I now know more about carburetors than ever before. I’m sure that will continue to happen as I work on mechanical parts that up until now I’ve never needed to worry myself with.

With all of this wrangling with the Solex carburetor, I’ve now decided that when it gets to the point of running the fuel system in the rebuild, I will be on the lookout for a rebuildable Carter W-o to replace the Solex. The Solex is great for what it is, but the various compromises and changes that I have to make take away from my nearly stock rebuild. Here’s hoping I can fix the idle issue tonight and give Ike another day of driving tomorrow.