Abort abort!

As I set out from Tim Jayne's shop this afternoon with my newly running great 3DL170, I pondered when I'd next be updating the blog, and what I'd say. Now that I'm two days behind schedule, I didn't want to stop except to rest.

Well, my first stop was one hour into the trip when suddenly the car's performance began degrading quickly. I was on I76 (Pennsylvania Turnpike) with about 200 miles left on the turnpike before I was to exit, but the car was losing power quickly. I had to go to the next off-ramp to investigate, and in fact I was very close to Bob Shaffner's office so I thought that pulling into that parking lot might be a friendly place to do a little diagnosis. All I had to do was exit off the turnpike, go south on I83 three miles, and then I'd be in the parking lot.

I got to the tollbooth (barely), and when I went to pull away it stalled and wouldn't restart. The tollbooth guy got out and helped me get started pushing the 6000 pound beast up the slight incline, and once it was rolling he ran back to his booth leaving me to push it across four lanes of EZ Pass traffic zipping through the tollbooths. I didn't even look because I knew they'd have to stop and I couldn't have stopped and started back up again anyhow. No issues....everyone waited for me (and no one beeped).

At this point, even if it was an easy fix, I was resigned that the car is going home and the trip is off....at least with 3DL170. I'm in a flatbed on the way home now. Jennifer was gracious enough to suggest that we bring the minivan.....yes, the minivan.....across country starting tomorrow.

So for the technical details, if you're interested....

As posted earlier, the car has been running extremely rich. The specifications on float bowl level is that the float should be set such that the fuel level is 5/8" (.625") below the top of the float bowl. Even with the float set so the fuel level was .880" (a full quarter inch lower than spec), it was running too rich. We looked for vacuum leaks in the fuel drainoff system (there's a little ball held up by vacuum that sometimes gets stuck), that wasn't it. Looked for intake manifold leaks...none. The jets were bigger than we'd hoped, but Frawley couldn't get one of them out to put in the more reasonable .057" jets (as it turned out the carb had .062" jets). One last thing that Frawley wanted to do was to replace the checkvalve beneath the accelerator pump (the N6 valve for those in the know...). He did not have one, so we couldn't try that.

Today at Tim's shop, he was able to pull both jets out (but the tough one was so hard to get out that it affected the threads and had to be chased with a tap). Luckily Tim had an N6 valve. In fact, that valve on my car appears to have been the "smoking gun." Before you start the car up, you let the fuel pumps build pressure and fill the carb bowl. Once the carb bowl is full, the pumps stop clicking. If you look inside the carb bowl (the top would have to be off), everything holds until the car is running. With the N6 checkvalve I originally had under the accelerator pump, some fuel was leaking out of the float bowl. When we pulled the N6 valve out and compared it to another N6 checkvalve Tim had, the spring pressure on mine was MUCH less than on Tim's. After putting Tim's checkvalve in there was no leakage like with mine.

So now what we'd done is put in new smaller jets, put in a new (used) N6 valve, and readjusted the float up to .625" (factory spec). Now the car ran much better, but under load seemed to backfire (implying a lean mixture under load). Tim adjusted the length of the rod on the side of the carb which actuates the accerator pump and we went out for another test run up hill, from start, putting the car through its paces under load and it performed GREAT. This, even after NOT cleaning the fouled up plugs. Just driving it around had cleaned them up.

I've already written above what happened, and I did a little troubleshooting while waiting for the flatbed. I finally was able to get the car started again, but it didn't take long to realize that it was running only off intake plugs. I pulled the cap off the exhaust side distributor and those points were fully closed. That alone certainly shouldn't have shut down the car, and in fact at a higher idle I could tell the car was very uncomfortable. I didn't check the point gap on the intake plug side cap, but it looked too small. I'll check it next month when we get back. I'm probably prepared enough to have fixed it alongside the road, but I've lost enough confidence in the car that I just need to bring her home.

Perhaps I'll keep blogging the trip and change the title to "Toyota Sienna Cross Country" instead...