tangel2

This where my money is. Not necessarily a new ground path but the air cleaner pushes the distributor top shield down just enough to get intermittent arcs from the primary side of the coil. Take a look for evidence of arcing on the inside of the distributor shield. Can't remember the '62 shielding but have seen this on a midyear where the distributor top shield has a bracket that clips to the air cleaner.

Drummer Boy

And the winner is…………AZDoug!

First——ALL of you eagle eyes will immediately notice that while the top of the air cleaner is stock the bottom most definitely is NOT! THis is what came with the car and I knew no better ——at that time.

Also——this car was built to race——it must have been raced hard as evidenced by how badly 2nd,3rd and reverse gears were chewed up——

The car is miraculously unmolested and ashows absolutely NO sign of any collision, repair of body and frame damage——how this happened is truly miraculous. Somebodalong the way spent a LOT of oney on the engine to race it and someone also spent a lot of money to retore the car—lucky me——
All of the above is simply an aside——the car most certainly NEVER used any sort of air cleaner when it was racing and I assume a PO simply threw it on when he sold it.

Now—to the problem—
When Doug suggested to put on the top and bottom with no element it resulted in my looing at the unit from the underside——Notice tha small gap between the top of the dome on the bottom plate and the top plate of the cleaner—it is only about 1/4 in.

Yes Jim, it is far more than your .003——UNTIL you screw the wing nut down and VOILA——the gap completely disappears—cuts off ALL air resulting in engine shut down!

MOST of the time, if the nut is not TOO tight, the engine will in fact start and even run——a gap of greater than Jim’s .003 however as soon as yo utry to move forward it stalls and WILL NOT restart unless you really back off on the nut.






Bottom plate-definitely NOT stock---Note cone shape
STOCK top plate




Note small gap between top and bottom cone

1/4 in air gap closes completely when tightened---cutting off all air shutting down engine

The simplest solution is to buy the ORIGINAL CORRECT bottom plate and go my merry way BUT——in experimenting with this it has become very clear that this particular engine wnats—NEED ALL of the AIR it can get. Why this is I don’t know.

When I run it with the 1 1/2 in air cleaner—bolt on looley——it stars and runs BUT is really shaky and sluggish on acceleration. Remove it and off I go!

I am going to try a 2 in element with the new top element pictured above, this afternoon BUT—sadly—that top is conical and is presenting a serious clearance problem———

Jeggs offers a 14 in a set up that has a 2 in element and what appears to be a completely FLAT top that also passes air. Does anyone know more about this?

Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions.
Eddie
Available from Jeggs 2 in element FLAT? top for better clearance

SDVette

Glad you sorted it out. Thanks for posting the details.

Drummer Boy

Final Result
This is the way it came out. I have JUST enough clearance to close the hood. Perhaps a 1/4 in. If only that top was not shaped like a cone----I am going to order the Jeggs version today. It appears to be flat thus giving me more clearance and less radiant heat from the metal frame so close to the hood.
Again, Thanks to all.
On to NEW issues.
Eddie

SJW

So... How's she running now?

Looks to me as though a different manifold would go a long way to improve this car's COPD.

Live well,

SJW

Drummer Boy

The car is RUNNING really great! Smoooooth.
The only problem is that it still uses a quart of oil every 500 miles.
That is a brand new Edlebrock intake--a copy of the stock one.
It still seems as though I am either pulling oil through the bottom of the intake or I simply have to give it new rings.
But for the time being I am just going to drive it like I stole it and when things calm down decide whatrs next.
Eddie