Yesterday I was tooling around in the rabbit, and since I made some good progress with the electricals, I wanted to try and figure out what kept the engine from completely starting.
Reading in the Bentley manual, I noticed that the starter motor is supposed to have a ground going from the – bolt to somewhere, either the chassis or the – battery post. I stopped by the local Advanced Auto Parts (recently opened, had to check it out), and bought a cheap grounding strap. Didn’t realize how short it was till I got back to the rabbit, so my idea of adding it to the battery post faded. I just bolted it to a hole on the chassis for now.
Tried starting up again, no real difference in the way it performed, still shut off after releasing the key. Then I started to think about air and gas, I finally got spark, and these are the other two major components to a happy engine (also compression?). Sooo, I started up the car and decided to rev it up a bunch to see if I could clear a blockage or get some much needed gas into the lines. Gave a good press on the gas while starting and all I got was a good stall.
This should probably give me a clue, and I haven’t had time to poke on the net yet, but I did start taking a look at the air hoses. It looks like some may be missing, but the main ones going towards the engine are intact. I believe a found the auxiliary air regulator, near the top of the engine, so I took it out to clean it up a bit, luckily I found and old allen of the perfect size lying in the front bumper of the rabbit (not mine, but oh so strangely convenient) that I used to take it out with.
You can’t see it in the pic below, but it’s right behind that hose in the top left, next to the cold start injector.
Oh yes, and as I was poking around, I peeked at the air filter, only to discover NO air filter, I’ll add that to my list of things to “get” for the rabbit.
I’ll take some pics before I put it back in, but I think it’s just fine. Now, I’m not sure if all the wires going to it are powered, we’ll see. I know this probably didn’t help get the car going, but’s nice to take a piece off, and put things back, I’m beginning to get more comfortable working with the rabbit, no need to be timid on a project car!
