Inside Out Part 3

Now, where were we? The trim and carpet had gone in, but the car didn’t make it to the mechanic on time, so it went the next week. After spending a day sourcing a new viscous fan clutch, it came out of the box to be heralded with one of the four threaded holes being unusable. Typical. This meant that the mechanic spent a while on the phone to the wreckers trying to source a second hand one, to at least trial in the car.
When I rang at 3 they were fitting it, when I rang at 4 they were test driving it.
When I arrived at 4:30 I was greeted with the news that it wasn’t any better, so they re-fitted the flex fan. The mechanic also spoke of the flat spot in acceleration at low revs, which he felt was due to the engine being under-carbed and that the carb might need an overhaul. It appears that my faithful 600 Holley can no longer keep up. The options were to re-kit the carb but add a metering block to screw the absolute best out of it, get a new carb like a 650 Holley Street Avenger, or find a good, used, larger Holley. Ker-ching!
I left with the mechanic undertaking to call me when a new viscous fan clutch arrived and he would look into the carb option. It seems the car’s destined for a high carb diet.
After two weeks of not hearing from the mechanic, I decided to call. I hate calling when they say that they’ll initiate the contact – I think it looks a bit needy, or something. What prompted me to initiate the contact was a mate from the Ford Club has a 750 vacuum secondary Holley for sale, with the metering blocks already fitted. It’s only done about 5 000k and sounds ideal for the job. Even better, it was upgraded by the same mechanic that I’ve been going to.
I called at about 2pm on a Friday and the person I spoke to told me to drop in that afternoon to have a new viscous fan clutch and fan fitted to see how that went. This I obviously did and also reminded them about a change of carb.
The mechanic stated that he’d looked into it and thought that a 750 vacuum secondary might be the best bet. I told him about the one that I’d been offered and who had it. The mechanic remembered the carb and said that it would be perfect. Excellent.
So, I booked it in for next Thursday to have the cooling system drained and cleaned, the carb fitted and a few other tidying up issues.
Good thing too, for when I drove it home I took it down the highway, the best current litmus test. I got hotter than I’d like, so I don’t think the cooling issue is sorted yet.