Sport Coupe is home.

I had the FIAT towed home by California Towing. George, the owner, has an immaculate flatbed tow truck and is very friendly and mindful of the vehicles he tows. Once home, George helped me push the car into the garage and informed me that it looked like it leaked some fuel while on the truck. After spending some time on the car I noticed a few things weren't quite right. Although the battery was 80% charged it cranked over very slowly. After reading some manuals and bouncing around online it became clear that perhaps the engine wasn't properly grounded. It wasn't. At the bottom left corner of the radiator there was a ground wire disconnected and at the fuel filler there was an old fashioned braided ground strap just sitting there. I connected it to a bumper mounting bolt and the water pump and my multimeter confirmed the engine was now grounded and cranked over a lot faster. I thought I better double check all the basics. The plugs were gapped wrong and were a mixture of Champions and Magneti Marellis. The distributor driveshaft has an awful lot of up and down freeplay. I haven't found anything online that covers what an acceptable play amount might be, if any, but it seems excessive. Points were also gapped wrong and at TDC the points were resting on a distributor cam flat, not opened on a lobe as it should be. After checking for spark at points and plugs I was ready to try and start it. A few blasts of starting fluid and it fired up! It wouldn't hold an idle and there was a lot of valve train noise. I decided it might be a good idea to adjust the valves. I have two manuals for this car, the factory one and some old Haynes manual. The factory one mentions adjustment when valves are "at balance", whatever the hell that means! The Haynes manual suggests rotating the crankshaft, (counter clockwise remember) and when one valve is fully open to adjust the valve that is completely closed. There is a correct sequence to this and if you need to know what it is you can contact me. Anyway, valves adjusted and I try to start it again. It started and ran so long as I kept spraying starting fluid into the carb. Fuel pump works and there is a fresh supply of fuel but it just refuses to idle and the valve train is still noisy. I figured that since the car was only running for a few seconds at a time, oil wasn't being pumped long enough to get to the rockers. Since I plan on using this car to get to Fiat America meetings, car shows, Napa, back roads touring etc. I have decided to rebuild the motor... the brakes, the fuel system etc. etc. etc...