Re: Buying Advice

[jlandry@domain.elided (John A. Landry)]

As the little green aliens inserted a searing hot probe into the sternum of
David Nuenke <#dnuenke@domain.elided>, a blood curdling scream was heard...

>    As I had mentioned previously I went to look at the Spirit of 76
>that I have talked about this weekend. I now need some advice on wheter
>or not I should go through with things. The body was in good shape
>except for some rust on the lest rear corner of the travel top.

David, if it had a hard top form the factory, it's not a Spirit Scout but a
"Patriot" Scout.  If you really think it rolled off the assembly line as a
Spirit, then it should have the line setting ticket so marked.  Howard
Pletcher can provide more details on the specifics of this.

>Suprisingly the area that is questionably is the engine. It is a 345
>with about 210k on it, and was completely rebuild about 30-40k ago. To
>start things off it is leaking oil (I know, big suprise) at least from

If the engine isn't blowing oil smoke and is otherwise running without strange
noises, chances are there's nothing wrong that several weekends of tinkering
can't fix.  If you are mechanically inclined and will work on it yourself,
then the m,oney outlay to get it up to snuff should be moderate.  If you plan
on having a repair shop do the work, then it could get spendy as the shop
takes time troubleshooting and then replacing everything under the hood.

If it's gutless and the ignition timing is set properly (usually TDC), then
vacuum advance on the distributor is very likely shot.  This is quite typical
on high milage engines and is easily overlooked.  The mechanical advance in
the distributor probably could stand a good cleaning and lubrication too.

A good carb cleaning and rebuild might be a nice weekend project to help
things too.  There are likely several vacuum leaks, so replacing all the
vacuum hoses is also a good thing to do.

I'll bet the engine is fine and just needs some TLC.  These IH engines are
very hard to kill and poor performance is usually caused by the owner
neglecting routine preventive maintenance.

So if it's being offered at a good price, go for it!

Good luck,

John L.
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