Success!

As you can see from the video, the engine starts and runs fairly smooth. It took a long time to arrive. In addition to a few mechanical problems, there were family exigencies to attend to during the summer.

Actually the engine first started in late July, but noticing that there was no oil circulating through the rocker arms I immediately shut it off. I now know that it’s important to prime the oil system prior to initial start. To do that with the engine not running, one removes the distributor and operates the oil pump with a priming tool, which is just an extension of the pump shaft attached to an electric drill.

It still needs to be tuned up and to do that the car needs to be drivable. That requires further reassembly of the car. Much of that reassembly had been put off until I was confident the engine would not have to be removed to correct an as yet unforeseen problem.

So, moving forward the next near-term milestones will be:

• Complete painting of car interior
• Finish restoration of dashboard
• Install dashboard, instrumentation,
• Reassemble steering column and install
• Install driver’s seat
• Connect shift linkage
• Remove remaining surface rust from underbody, seal and undercoat.
• Re-plumb brake system, install and test brakes
• Mount tires and test drive train
• Fine tune engine