As of late a combination of rainy weekends and other sorts of work have conspired to keep me from working on the car. Now that the engine is all back together I have had a chance to try and start the car. The bad news there is that while the engine will crank and catch it will almost immediately stall, something it didn’t do before. My cleaning probably dislodged some component or shorted some sensor. I was sort of expecting this to happen. It’s often times been said to me that on older cars it’s the accumulated grime and grease that actually hold things together. Maybe I just washed off some important bit of dirt.
Whatever it is, I need to check the three basics: compression, spark and fuel. I’ve already used the car’s primitive diagnostic computer to check the fuel injectors, and no fault code was returned. That makes me feel reasonable sure that the fuel part of that triad is ok. That leaves the spark plugs/timing and piston compression. I could easily see the spar plugs or distributor getting a little wet so perhaps opening them up will help sort this out. I might also take off the throttle assembly and clean it as I’m sure it’s quite dirty.