Austin Smog Pump

The Austin, as purchased, still had the smog pump, manifold, gulp valve, etc.

Unfortunately, the smog pump was seized and in a box in the trunk. The manifold was still attached to the engine and plugged with a bolt and some hose clamps:

This made it difficult to get to the spark plugs and distributor, and it looked like hell in general.

God bless the British, though, that manifold attaches to the head using British Standard Pipe fittings. All manner of BSP stuff is available down at the local hardware store (this may not be true if you live in a metric country, though Porsche oil pressure sender units attach with BSP threads, too).

My hardware store didn't have plugs, but they did have unions and caps. I bought four of each and put them in. One of the caps, though, was of a different design than the other three, and I cracked it while tightening it down with my King-Kong grip. I tried using a mighty blob of solder to seal the thing, but as this is going to seal the exhaust system, I thought that might not be a good idea. JB Weld to the rescue!

You can see the JB-Welded cap on the #3 cylinder.

I took the union and cap back off the engine and shoved a whole bunch of JB Weld into there. I put it back onto the engine to cure, but I noticed that the JB Weld was drooping noticeably. I took it off again and spread the JB Weld evenly, and left the assembly sitting upright on the workbench overnight. The goo drooped downwards (now toward the other end of my improvised plug, toward where it screws into the head). It looks bad -- even worse than it would with just four brass plugs sticking out of the engine -- but it works fine.

This car is a masterwork of improvisation. Well, maybe that's going a bit far. This photo shows a couple of choice pieces of expedient engineering, though:

Note the heater hose leading from the crankcase breather to the underside of the car: this stops oil from being sprayed all over the engine compartment, and produces a snazzy James Bond-esque combination oil slick and smoke screen to foil those in pursuit. (That would make it an Aston America.)

The fuel pump -- which I don't think should be mounted there on the bulkhead in the first place -- is wired in using a bright yellow wire nut, of the sort you normally find in J-boxes in your house. This piece of improvisation I got with the car.

Note also the original braided-cloth-clad heater hoses. These would have failed long ago if it weren't for the braided cladding. They hiss when you move them. They're getting replaced before very long.

And in this other photo, you can see the massive rubber thimble used to plug the PCV valve port in the intake manifold:

This is where the other improvised heater hose should ultimately connect.