So there I am, having spent the last few days still under the feeling like I had to build an engine for Yellow to sell him as a fully functional car and yet he was being purchased as a rolling project!
I started going down the path of engine bearings and all kinds of other minor things, even going so far as to tear Żuczek’s AE engine down to rebuild as the 74’s basic core when I could have been focusing on more important things.
The new alternator and all will still be good for one of the cases, and perhaps I may even have the AH engine’s original Solex 34 Pict 3 totally restored by Volksbitz for it one day. I still think it will be important to have a basic easy to tune stock engine on hard at all times should problems ever arise with the new Stock Plus build or the future 2275cc Performance build.
So effective right now, my plans are to reset my garage and all the parts I’ve been pulling out for the AE engine, get the crank and cam covered in oil and wrapped up so they don’t rust, then spent this next week redoing the jetting on the new build to try and get those carbs running smoothly.
If I can get that engine running within the next 4-5 days at a state that I feel comfortable with it reliably staring while cold, I can get it installed in Żuczek and really break it in on some of the local hills. With it functional, I can then essentially move the garage around to pull Murbella in for the winter and drop her engine to start all of the photo documentation and clean-up, new seals and o-rings, new fuel array hoses, etc. With it out, I can get her new firewall material installed as well.
Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to run her FI engine outside of the car given the high-pressure fuel pump, the ECU, and the other pieces of her fuel system. She’s simply by modern standards, but complicated as hell by Type 1 mechanical fuel pump and carb standards.
But I think it is totally feasible to get Żuczek fully running on the new engine, get Murbella positioned for the winter, and then get her engine dropped to work on this Autumn and possibly into the Winter before it gets too cold to work out in the garage.
Then, when the weather starts to get nice in 2020, I’ll start building the wooden body frame that will need to hold Żuczek up while his chassis can roll under him. That’ll allow me to move the body out of the way, and start the work on the chassis restoration first.
So. That’s the plan!
The other engine cases can be build whenever, and I can buy parts when on sale and then sell those engines off to fold the revenue back into Żuczek.