Good morning, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek Into My Week”, a behind the scenes look into the (I hope) noteworthy events in my past week – December 20, 2021!
Here are some things that happened this past week:
News About Writing & Publishing:
I have two new covers to show you this time: one for my dad’s book “A Way Of Life” and the other, book 3 in Galaxii “Dead Beckoning“, both of which have had another new cover treatment to coincide with the release of the audiobook version!
I’m looking forward to these releases, to be sure! As soon as the audiobooks are out, I’ll let you know! Then, on 17 December, someone left a 5 star review of “Lifetime” audiobook on Audible:
I posted “Read Or Listen To “Lifetime” – Be Moved!” to promote the book.
News About Project Dolly:
Success! I finally got this thing done! Dolly starts, runs and drives… as the old folks used to say – “Sweet! Like a lemon!”
It wasn’t plain sailing though… it was hell to be completely honest. On Tuesday I got the fuel pump in and working. Trouble was, it needed higher amperage power than it was getting from the coil, so although it was working, it wasn’t actually doing anything useful… Plus I only figured that out on Thursday, and once I’d got it wired up to the right source, I discovered to my horror, that it had too much pressure and flooded the engine. With all that cleaned up, I removed the electric pump and reluctantly refitted the original mechanical unit. On Thursday I also struggled for several hours to figure out why the starter wasn’t working… in the end – on Friday.
Then on top of everything else, the car moved somehow while it was on a scissor jack – which collapsed and folded over sideways! To make things even worse, this made the car creep backwards a foot – enough to block the path of the automatic garage door – which got (once again) completely schmangled in the process of closing! After another hour of sorting out the state of the door to the point where it could open and close again passably, I was dog-tired and done for the day.
On Friday I figured out that it was two wires on the starter relay that were reversed in sequence. Once that was sorted, there was still the problem of no spark on the distributor or plugs… After a great deal of trouble-shooting, I discovered that the coil wasn’t earthing through the automatic choke wire, and remedied that problem. That still didn’t deliver spark to the plugs though, so as a last resort I yanked out the distributor and replaced the old original distributor Dolly originally came with, fitted with points and condenser. The car started right away! Switching it out with the newer one again revealed the problem – a blown electronic ignition unit!
So I reluctantly refitted the old unit – at least that worked.
After a little tweaking of the timing and carburetor settings, I decided to take her for a quick test-run around the block – well, four blocks in the area, actually. She went, but she didn’t go too well, so I stopped at the garage again on completion of the orbit, and did a little more tweaking. The next orbit was much better, but at about the halfway mark a very odd and unwelcome clattering noise assaulted my ears! Fortunately I took her home again at reduced speed. Once there, I discovered the source of the problem – the cooling fan nut had come off and the fan was loose! Curses! Anyway, to make a long story short, I had to strip off the alternator, fan housing and also the carburetor in order to get them out of the car! It was very fortunate that I’d made the modification to fan housing I’d mentioned in some previous editions of “Peek”, that allowed me to remove the alternator and fan housing without having to remove the bonnet and brackets first! I’m happy to report that this system worked perfectly and saved me not only time and effort, but loads of cursing as well, not to mention the small kindness of sparing innumerable years off my lifespan as well!
Within half an hour I had it all back in place again, with the fan duly tightened with a power bar! I doubt that will ever come loose again! After that, another quick flip around the neighborhood again, this time without any funny noises or overt flaws! After a quick tidy up, Kay and I quickly made a supply run to a Spar! What a nice feeling it was to be able to go somewhere on my own steam again!
Below a little video I made – enjoy!
There are a few little things I still need to attend to, chiefly the leaky rear wheel brake cylinder, but I decided to leave that until Tuesday or Thursday. I decided I’d worked hard enough for a while, and needed to rest and recover!
With that, I’m all out of news for this week! I wish you all a wonderful, restful day – and until next time, keep reading!
All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2021.