metaruss

Well, on my way to Dave’s house for the SDAC-14 early bird BBQ, the car completely died about 3 miles from his place.  I managed to roll it into a gas station.  I thought it was the HEP, as I got fuel pressure when I turn the ignition on, but upon further inspection, I noticed that the distributer rotor had about 180 degrees of slop.

Luckily, JT had his truck and trailer up at Dave’s and was able to drive down and haul the beast back up to Dave’s garage.  A bit of disassembly confirmed that the intermediate shaft and oil pump gears were toast.  The teeth were simply worn away to oblivion.  I’m alittle unclear what causes this failure.  It looks like a lack of lubrication to me.

Dave and Kate, being the cool people that they are, put me up for night and then Dave took me to the parts store in the morning.  Dave had a selection of used intermediate shafts from various motors and I bought a new Melling oil pump from Autozone.  After getting it all back together, the car ran like a champ.  All the idle problems, pinging weirdness, and revving problems were gone.  She pulls hard to 6k.  Thanks guys!