Looks like a valve job!

[Air Randy]

The miracle of the old hoopty has occurred since the drip has cured itself without any intervention from me. It was definitely coming from the weep hole on the side of the drain cock before but now it has stopped. Maybe after it got good and hot a few times ot sealed itself up.

Any experienced 40 drivers willing to come down and take this thing for a test drive? I got the steering column in today and went around the block a few times. I still need to adjust the valves and tweak the timing some more.

The problem is, this is the first time I've really had this running and I have never driven an FJ40 before. I don't know if the power (or lack thereof) I'm seeing is normal and if the handling & such are what they should be.

 

[Rzeppa]

The miracle of the old hoopty has occurred since the drip has cured itself without any intervention from me. It was definitely coming from the weep hole on the side of the drain cock before but now it has stopped. Maybe after it got good and hot a few times ot sealed itself up.

Any experienced 40 drivers willing to come down and take this thing for a test drive? I got the steering column in today and went around the block a few times. I still need to adjust the valves and tweak the timing some more.

The problem is, this is the first time I've really had this running and I have never driven an FJ40 before. I don't know if the power (or lack thereof) I'm seeing is normal and if the handling & such are what they should be.

Old Hoopty is not only good stuff, but that's a cool expression, I like it. I was going to suggest taking the drain plug out and doing a little sandpaper/scotchbright on the sealing surface which is the flat end.

40s aren't sports cars, but even the old stock F has a good bit of pep when tuned properly. What's your static timing advance set at? Normally these motors need a little (or a lot) more than the stock 7° BTDC, depending on carb and vacuum setup. Hopefully you had Jim set up your jets for our elevation, as he has done with mine. This doesn't make much difference in power in my experience, but does help reduce carbon deposits from over rich running, and helps greatly with fuel economy. I normally get around 15-16 MPG from my 40 series.

 

[Air Randy]

Yes, JimC set it up for my 6700' elevation. I'm thinking it is a timing issue.

I have a DUI HEI distributor. For whatever reason it has a limited range of movement before it hits something. Currently, I have it turned as far as it will go counter clockwise (advanced) and that puts the white dot (I painted the 7 deg BTDC BB white) right on the pointer needle using the timing light with the vacuum line disconnected from the dizzy and plugged.

It acts like it needs more timing advance than that. I'm thinking I will just move all of the spark plug wires one position over counter clockwise in the cap. That will dial in a bunch of advance and I can back it off some since the dizzy will rotate back clockwise. Think that will work?