I'm thinking my battery charger has had it's day. It was only a cheapy my Mum gave me god knows how many years ago but it gave enough of a trickle charge to start turning it over, just not enough to keep going till the engine fired itself. I was hoping to check the fluid levels and top up with distilled water and de-sulfation addative (can't remember the name) to maintain the battery but it seems to be a sealed unit (it's a century brand, so at least it's a decent one)
Atleast I know it's got good compression as I now can't turn the flywheel around by hand. Hell even the air-ratchett and air-impact wrench wasn't enough to turn it (only an Aldi 2hp compressor mind you) I'm hoping that's actually a GOOD sign!
Sorted out the drive-belt. I had one of my infamous "well duh" moments and checked the manual I downloaded from this forum (thank you Bruce!!) again and realised it's called a notch bar simply because the leaf-spring sits in the notch and stops it from moving. Easy to loosen the leaf-spring and lever the tension-spring with a big screwby. Pulley moved up easily, cleaned out dust and debris, slipped the belt in place then reversed the process with a pair of vice-grips holding the spring up high on the screwby to leverage it back into place on the notch bar. Right, got THAT sorted.
Next trick will be hoiking the damn thing up on car-ramps to get under it to install the drive-pulley properly with the pulley-key in place. Yes I realise this also means removing the drive-belt again, but now I know the trick it's no worries.
Talk about learning curve... Did I mention I'm an ex-baker/business admin/child-care/mural artist? Thankyou youtube and outdoorking!
You know... now I've tackled this engine I probably COULD have gotten that 5hp self-propelled rover going again (the ute's roof-ornament)
