I had grand ambitions tonight, but ended up doing just a few things. I was glad to see the battery was still fine and that I didn’t have any mysterious drainage from anything. However, I realized the clock actually didn’t work. It ticks, but it doesn’t keep time. Not a priority in any case. As recommended by Jim Adney off the type 3 list, I checked the starter terminal connections to see if they were mixed up, as that could be causing the problem where I don’t hear the fuel pump relay clicking off after a second or two of the ignition being on and the car not starting. Wires were on the correct terminals but there was a lot of corrosion on the red/white terminal. Cleaned it off a bit and wondered why there wasn’t a plastic boot on it to protect it from the elements. I had been wanting to check the trigger points in the distributor, so I finally loosened the adjustment screw and got the distributor out. Pulled out the trigger points module and everything in there was very clean. I took whatever little gunk was off the plastic tabs that hit the distributor cam lobes, put just a dab of lube on the cam and put the points back in. Sometime during this operation, a couple plug wires came off the distributor cap. Damn. Decided to order a new set & just make sure everything is rewired properly when I put the new wire set on. Old ones were questionable anyway.
Also, in my first most embarrassing moment, I realized that the gas tank is most likely empty. The Muir book says to watch out for this, but did I pay attention to that? Nope. Turned the key and for the first time watched the gas gauge go… NOWHERE. Got out and pushed on the side of the car with the hood open to see if I could hear any sloshing. Nothing. I figure now would be a good time to change all my fuel lines. I’ll take care of that Saturday before putting any gasoline in the tank. It probably might not be a bad idea to check the status of the tank as well. Listened to a little bit of the Bruins game 4 on the Wolfsburg radio. Sweet.