For about the third time now, always on a really hot day with the engine also hot from use and then parked for a little while, my El Camino doesn't want to turn over. I thought it might be the starter itself because the engine doesn't turn at all. The fix seems to be to wrap a towel around the radiator cap and very slowly turn it to ease off the pressure, then open it and then let the engine cool down for about ten minutes. After that I put the radiator cap back on and it starts totally normally.
I do know that the timing is a little too advanced and I hope to address that tonight or tomorrow morning. I recently tried advancing it just a bit to see if it would change how she runs and it did, but not for the better. I am getting some pinging again on hard acceleration. Could that be enough to make it not want to turn at all when hot? This is a 1958 block 283 w/ an Edelbrock Performer intake and Edelbrock 500cfm carb, an HEI distributor from a 83 Blazer, and a .442 lift cam (or so I've been told). The first time this happened, I thought I somehow seized the engine. I hate that feeling. It's still always a bad feeling though to be parked somewhere and your engine won't turn at all. Thanks for any ideas. John Nasta
