Re: Big smoke cloud and hood removal

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

The aliens commander decided Scott Machalk <smachalk@domain.elided> would
make a perfect specimen for dissection, and he yelled...

>I looked in my Chilton manual and the next thing to troubleshoot is to hook
>up a vaccuum gauge. I went and tried it. I've never been able to get this
>to work right. Where am I supposed to hook the gauge up. I hook it up to
>the manifold and I get zero at idle and it'll climb up to 15 or 18 if I rev
>it slowly. If I rev it fast it only goes to 10.

Generally you want to hook a vacuum gauge up as close to the base of the
carb as possible to get a balanced reading.  If you hook the gauge to a
port directly on one of the intake runners (close to an intake valve),
you'll get a distorted pulsing reading caused by the action of that valve.

If you're not sure about what you're doing, the best place to hook up a
test vacuum gauge on an IH engine is the same place the power brake vacuum
booster is connected.  This is usually a multi-port at the rear of the
intake manifold.  The reason I recommend this spot, is because the vacuum
originates from a passageway connected to the plenum area directly under
the carb.  In many cases there are likely better ports to use on the
carburetor itself, but you'd need to know exactly where and how these ports
are connected to make sure you're selecting the correct one.

In you case, it sounds to me like you hooked your vacuum gauge to the
*metered* port directly on the carburetor which is meant for the vacuum
advance on the distributor.  This is definitely *not* the place to hook a
test vacuum gauge.  Try again using the port the vacuum booster is hooked
to (feel free to disconnect the booster first) and see what you get.  The
readings will likely be more like 15" to 20" Hg at idle.

>But, I think I have a different problem than I thought. When I went to
>start it, it sounded like it hydro-locked on me for a second. Then as it
>ran for a minute I started getting water out of the exhaust.  I guess the
>smoke was whiter than it appeared. It seems like I have a blown head gasket
>(I hope). Time to pull the heads anyway.

Depending on the ambient air temp and humidity, water vapor coming from the
exhaust is actually normal until the engine is fully warmed up.  If your
engine and exhaust has reached full operating temp and you still have
continuous steam and / or water in the exhaust, then yes... you likely have
a problem.

Regards,

John L.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
jlandry AT halcyon DOT com      | 
Conservative Libertarian        |  "The road to  tyranny, we must never
Life Member of the NRA          |   forget, begins with the destruction
WA Arms Collectors              |   of the truth."
Commercial Helicopter - Inst.   |                     William J. Clinton
http://www.halcyon.com/jlandry/ |    10-15-95, speech at the Univ. of CT