Mouse Motor Runs!

Today I got a much needed break in the weather, and went outside to start the Chevelle for the first time. All I needed to do was throw some gas in, the battery and cables, and fire it up. Ok, I'll skip the little part about me having the distributor in 180 degrees the wrong way, because I pretty much new that after it didn't fire right up. I used the hand siphon pump to pull the fuel up to the filter, and had Jimmy help me hit the key while I set the timing. It really was a mouse motor....complete with acorns, a nest and even a little mummified mouse that a came shooting out the pasenger side tailpipe like a shotgun blast when it first fired up!

As I was breaking in the cam, and had the motor purring along at 2500 rpm, all of a sudden it dropped down to almost 1000 rpm and run like crap. I shut it off, thinking maybe I accidentially bumped the distributor and knocked the timing out of wack. After checking everything from scratch again, I found out my brand new Jegs distributor vacuum advance was broken. I tried one from Jimmy, but his was broken too. So I pulled the unit off the 283, installed it and was back in business. I called Jegs, they better send a new one!

The electric fan kicked in when it should have, and although the carb float was a little stuck at first, it all seemed to work out just fine. Tomorrow I should be able to bleed the brakes and throw it in gear, see if I can move around the driveway a bit.