Almost Ready to Start

I haven't worked on Diane in a few days because I feel like I've been at a loss for what to do with the coil and engine not starting. Thankfully Rob came over on Sunday and was able to help me trouble shoot my problems. First off he explained that I should run a wire straight from the battery to the coil and bypass attaching it to the starter like it had originally been. He was saying that the starter was pulling a lot of the amperage from the battery and not letting it go to the coil. Then after looking inside the distributor cap he saw that I had incorrectly gaped my points....making it so they wouldn't close the circuit when I was trying to start the engine.

I disconnected the wire I had running from the starter to the coil and replaced it with a wire from the coil to a positive connection to the battery. I set it up so the end that connects to the battery is easily detachable. I did this by crimping a loop butt to the end, then sliding that onto a screw with a nut and lock washer. I tightened the nut and was able to slide it into the positive battery port. This way when I pull it out the coil won't be draining the battery and then when it's in the coil will have power.

Next we tackled the gap of the points. When I had originally gaped them I hadn't accounted for the peaks and flat spots so when I had gaped them at .022", it was at one of the flat spots which should be a closed circuit and then when the peak was reached the gap was much further. Rob and I fixed it after a few minutes and then tried the to start her. She wanted to but the timing was off. Rob suggested that I work on adjusting the distributor to fine tune the timing.

Since I like to be able to see some progress as I go, I have been working on removing some body parts that will eventually need to be removed anyways. I started by removing the driver side door handle as well as the window, and latch plate. After a lot of work, having to drill out several screws, and lots of WD-40 everything came out. I had to break the plate the glass would normally sit in so I could remove the window frame. Then I removed the chrome trim from around the outside of the window. I have also removed the trim around the headlights and the headlights from their locations in the fenders. Needless to say Diane is starting to look rather plain!