All Checker owners have one thing in common, we are constantly faced with the fact that are Checker’s are automotive orphans that are challenging to keep on the road. With this in mind we present Richard’s most recent update.
I figured I would give an update on mine. You can say there is one more Checker back on the road. It didn’t run very well when I got it and it was definitely not road worthy. There were 4 main issues that kept it off the road.
1st, it wouldn’t run after warm up, a new distributor cured that.
2nd, It had almost no oil pressure. Some 30 weight and lucas gives her 25lbs at idle. The old oil was clean but thin. 
3rd, it runs 230 plus degrees and wants to boil over. I flushed the radiator. That didn’t help. It had 2 electric fans on it, I ditched those in favor of a 19″ 6 blade mechanical fan and a 2 inch spacer. I still think a shroud is needed. None of the pulleys lined up so I had to fix all that and modify the accessory brackets just to mount the fan.
4th it still didn’t run well enough to trust. Multiple vacuum leaks were addressed, the timing was very retarded. I advanced the timing which also knocked 10 degrees off the operating temp and gave it some power. Ran a vacuum line to the distributor advance as it had none. New plugs, wires, cap and rotor button. I also rebuilt the carburator and changed the fuel filter. The air cleaned was soaked in oil and solid with dirt. A new filter let it breath.
After all this it runs really good. I put a good 100 miles on it today. I have 25 -35 lbs oil pressure, it runs 190 -200 degrees and has good power for being a 250 6cyl. It still needs a lot of work and I do plan to rebuild the engine but I wouldn’t be afraid to drive the car across the country at this time.
Great Job Richard!
