A lesson learned

[ronm10]

Just thought I would relate an experience I just had, perhaps save someone else a little hair loss.

My 50 Windsor had been in storage for almost 10 years. Finally, I bought a place with shop and parking facilities to be able to play with her once again. She had ran fine when parked, having taken me on several 1000 mile plus trips. So after trailering her home I put in a new battery, took out each spark plug and put in a little Marvel's, drained the old gas and replaced, cleaned the sediment bowl and all the other little things to get her ready to spring back to life. After a little hand cranking to help lube the cylinder walls and such I primed the carb and turned her over. She would start and run for 5 to 10 seconds then act like she ran out of gas. I could see that the accelerator pump was pumping gas in so I should have been able to keep her coughing along just by that even if the float or something else in the carb where gummed up. And thanks to a sediment bowl (wonderful things) I could see that she was getting gas so the gas pump was indeed doing it's part. After a dozen such tries and stops at starting her some raw gas must have made the way to the exhaust as she popped. I tried one more time to start her and she kept going and purred right along.

When I looked underneath I found what had been the problem. There was mouse nest stuffing all under the car (the tail pipe is rusted off just back of the muffler) and a couple of holes in the rusty muffler where the exhaust is coming out. I had been getting enough back pressure after 5 seconds of running that she would quit. When I heard the pop it had blown out some stuffing and blown a couple of holes in the old rusty muffler. I watched for the next half hour to make sure I didn't get a fire started in the mouse material that was undoubtedly still in the pipe. The moral of the story is to think about a plugged exhaust when she won't run but you know you have spark and fuel.

Now I am off to remove a rusty exhaust system and undoubtedly a little skin from my knuckles.

Ron

[55PackardGuy]

Good lesson! Similarly, last week we got the '47 D24 going under its own power for the first time in who knows how many years. My friend said "what's that burning smell?" Other than all the smoke coming out the tailpipe, there was a distinctive odor of burning stuff. Clutch? What could it be? Turned out that the culprit was a mouse nest between the exhaust pipe and the heat shield near the firewall. It didn't start to burn until the car was moving. It probably was in the vent space for the fluid drive, and got blown onto the exhaust after driving a ways.

Unfortunately, you usually can't locate those things until you start her up, but as you so clearly state, they soon reveal themselves! Good rule of thumb is to always have a fire extinguisher handy when starting an old car that hasn't run for a while, and just in case I always carry one with me--new vehicles and old. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />