No change with the gears
ONE OF THE peculiarities of the Cord’s Lycoming V8 is that the exhaust exits through the top of the block, with the manifolds then curving through 90º over the top of the cylinder heads to join those oh-so-sexy chromed external exhausts, before diving into holes through the front wings. However, one has to pay the penalty for such stylishness when all these gubbins have to be removed to get at the heads.
When I last wrote, I was waiting for new head gaskets while Ben and Janos were busying themselves with refurbishing the brakes and exhaust. Since I happened to have the cylinder heads at home, I thought I’d attempt to clean them up a bit. An hour or so of probing with various instruments liberated a surprising amount of crud from their insides; I presume a mixture of aluminium oxide and calcium. But I’m not a chemist, so who knows?
My shiny new copper gaskets finally arrived from E Dobson & Co (Gaskets) Ltd but, not wanting to risk testing the prevailing travel restrictions, I had to resort to parcel post to get heads and gaskets to Lewes in East Sussex. Despite their weight and bulk, the cost was reasonable: about what I would have spent in fuel. A few days later, a video pinged into my mobile – and ‘Yeaahh!’ the Cord was running.
However, I’m rapidly becoming used to the fact that, where the Cord is concerned, the good news is always counterbalanced by the bad. And the bad news is that the water pump is very poorly, and the gearchange is still refusing to select a gear. Which is more-orless where the saga started and was the initial reason for sending it to the boys in Lewes.
The Cord gearbox is conventional, albeit situated in the prow ahead of the engine, but the unconventional bit is that the selector rod projecting from the ’box is moved in true ‘thighbone connected to the hipbone’ fashion by an arm joined to a large piston in a dynamo-sized vacuum cylinder above the gearbox. No engine running means no gearchanging – embarrassing, as I can confirm, if you stall in gear and can’t restart the engine!
The vacuum chamber provides fore and aft movement, while a secondary set of solenoids shoves from the side to move the selector rod across the gate, so to speak, – all set in motion by electricity and directed from the tiny gear selector on the steering column, which is in fact no more than a very pretty switch.
Janos, being a brave sort of chap, is diving undaunted into this forest of mechanical parts, switches, wires and vacuums. Hopefully he will find a way out.
From above
Cylinder heads are refitted to the Cord with new copper gaskets, after Delwyn had cleaned them out; shiny fabricated exhaust manifolds.