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I adjusted the timing properly, disconnected the vacuum advance, and using a timing light to set it.
It was only off by about 1°, but after setting it to exactly 5° (as the Haynes manual recomends) the car is much easier to start. It still requires the throttle to be fully depressed, but now it catches and starts in about 5 seconds as opposed to 15-20 seconds before. It also got a noticeable boost in torque.
I didn’t expect the difference to be that noticeable, I’m used to tuning the ignition by ear and butt-dynoing/doing timed pulls in my Opel Kadett C, it requires far greater adjustments to be noticeable. I think it shows how far ignition control systems and engines in general evolved just in the one decade between the cars (the Opel is from 1979).
As to plasmide56’s suggestiin, checking the cam timing has been done, the timing belt hasn’t skipped.
And to clarify, I’m quite sure there isn’t a direct leak in the vacuum system, but rather that the routing is wrong. Some switched vacuum circuits lead to atmospheric pressure, so if the right valve opens at the wrong time, it would cause an intermittent vacuum leak.Yeah, I allready called yesterday, they said they would call me back once the guy in charge of the service and repair department is available.
Thanks for all the great tips!So I did the smoke test yesterday, couldn’t find any leaks.
I did however find out the fuel cutoff valve in the carb didn’t get any power. I should have checked that it got power as one of the first things, I checked the valve itself, but I didn’t think of it.
Anyways, the engine starts now, and it seems to run normally once it gets going, however it’s really hard to start now, I have to crank it for almost half a minute before it barely catches and reeeeealy slowly climbs to normal idle speed. I still think the vacuum system routing is off somehow.
At least the car is driveable now once it gets going.I’ve searched google quite thoroughly allready, and I couldn’t find the right diagram. This is what seems to be the closest based on the shape of the carb and the vacuum components, but I cant find the thing circled in green, and the thing in red only has two ports.
How does one smoke the system? Does one need special equipment? I might be able to get my hands on a smoke machine for stage use if that could be used.
The carb is a bit dirty on the outside, but the float bowl and the jet is squeaky clean, and the piston (or variable venturi as I discovered it’s proper name is) moves freely, and reacts well to change in throttle poisition and RPM the few seconds I can get the car to run. I doubt it is the problem, but I’ll try to find a rebuild kit.
Yeah, the trunk is waterproof now. The problem in my case was a combination of things, the first being the rubber grommet around the fuel filler. The grommet itself was fine, but it didn’t seal properly to the body. A bead of RTV gasket maker squirted in under the edge of the grommet fixed that, and made the water ingress significantly better.
The next thing I discovered was the tail light gaskets were in pretty bad shape, both the gaskets between the housing itself and the body, and the ones between the housing and the lens. One thing to be really careful with is to not over tighten the nuts holding the taillight assembly in, or it will crack the some 40 years old plastic right around the sealing surface to the body of the car, this can also cause major water ingress.
If the rear window gasket is leaking, it will also run down into the trunk.Good luck, I hope this helps.
If you can get the whole system in and out of the car without disconnecting the lines it could be the easier solution. Just be careful not to let the master suck in any air by tilting the reservoir.
In principle the hydraulic clutch system functions the same way as the brakes, it’s just pushing on the clutch arm instead of brake pads.As I said, I’ve checked that TDC lines up with the mark on the crank pulley by poking a screwdriver in the spark plug hole. The distributor points towards the spark plug wire going to cyl. #1
Maybe I didn’t make it clear, but I stated in my original post that we took the carb and intake manifold from the original B230A and stuck it on the B230F in place of the EFI intake.
The main differences between the A and F engine is a tiny bit higher compression on the F as well as the distributor being mounted on the back of the cylinder head instead of on the block, to accommodate EFI I think, but we converted it back to block mounted distributor.I’ve checked that TDC lines up with the mark on the crank/timing cover, and the cam is in time with the crank.
The original engine (B230A) was carbureted with an early “dumb” electronic distributor, and the new one (B230F) was fuel injected. We swapped over all the “dumb” systems to the new one. There’s basically nothing else than the distributor, cold start valve, oil pressure sensor and temp sensor when it comes to electronics.My brother-in-law, being an industrial mechanic / magician, managed to get the wheel off.
He tried most of the things I tried, and some creative new things first though. For example, he made a makeshift puller, by sticking the hooks of a set of spring compressors through the holes in the wheel on opposing sides, and placing a pry bar across the other hooks. He then used a brake caliper compressor tool between the pry bar and the hub. My guess is that we put a good few tonnes of pressure through the setup, we had to quit it when we noticed the pry bar started to bow.
Anyways, the thing that got the wheel off, was when we noticed that with the new bend in the pry bar, it could reach through the holes in the steel rim, and be hammered between the wheel and the hub flange. It surprisingly moved the wheel on the second hit.
I’m still puzzled by why the wheel got stuck in the first place. Of course I should have been paying attention when running down the lug nuts, probably not used the impact gun, not to mention that there was a bit of smudge on the hub. but still, these are Opel wheels, with the correct stud pattern, the wheels even came of an Astra, witch is technically a continuation of the Kadett line, and they still have what turns out to be less than half a millimeter to small center bore.
I tried the wheel back on by hand after removing absolutely all smudge and rust on the hub and the bore in the wheel, and it wasn’t any closer to fitting.
Does anyone have any idea of where the size difference of the hub comes from?It’s definitely the center hub it’s stuck on. I’ve thought about heat as well, but I don’t have access to a blowtorch. I might bite the bullet and buy one if my brother-in-law can’t magic something up tomorrow.
Yeah, I guess you never know. Thanks for the vids. It will likely be a week or so before I can get the diff out of the car, Ill post an update then.
Thanks for the heads up, but fortunately that is not the case in my car, the pump is easily accessible from the trunk.
Sorry for not replying, I was on vacation the last week and a half.
After further inspection, I noticed some rust right underneath both corners of the window, inside the trunk, so there’s definitely some water dribbling in there. I’ll try to get my hands on a new seal for the window.
I still have no idea how to approach the cabin vent, but after confirming the window seal is leaking I no longer think it’s where the leak is.
The filler neck grommet has not dry-rotted, so I think I can get away with squeezing some sealant under the edge of it, but I’m not quite sure.
That you said about not being able to remove the fuel tank got me thinking; the fuel tank is quite small, only about 40 liters, and is mounted between the cabin and the trunk right above the rear axle, I think it is just enough room to wiggle it out without removing the filler pipe, and I’m guessing that’s the only way of replacing the grommet.As for the Opel Fan Clubs, almost all of them are german, and the ones I could find in english or norwegian required a paid subscription to even access :dry: