Radarsonwheels Posted January 16, 2020 Author Report Posted January 16, 2020 I pulled the lockstrip half at a time and caulked the windshield gasket inside and out, then finished weatherstripping the doors and re-did the gaskets on the backs of the vent windows. Fingers crossed the next rain stays out of the truck! 1 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted January 17, 2020 Author Report Posted January 17, 2020 And more goodies in the mail! My upholstered luon door cards are much thicker than the stock vinyl covered cardboard so I had to re-drill the square shafts a little farther out from the stock holes for the retaining pins. The driver’s side was a tight fit tapping the pin home which is a good thing right up until the original pin mushroomed bent and got stuck. I ended up using a little piece of drill bit stock to hold the other side but now it is a little angled and will never come off without destroying the crank handle. So I ordered a new one. Soon the old one will get destroyed and I will do a ton of work to the door. I need to re-skin the bottom 1/2 of the door and bottom, make a rear lower window track to hold the (felt? Fabric?) channel that’s just hanging down right now, put in a new piece of glass (possibly an inch or two taller so it comes even with the sill at full down instead of dropping into the door). And of course the crank pivot will probably need to be removed so I can drive out the remnants of pin and re-drill a properly sized hole dead straight on the drillpress. I want to replace the crunchy area in the hinge pillar with new steel- it looks like the actual hinge slips inside the pillar and the four bolt holes have a little room for adjustment as the bolts locate the hinge by pinching the pillar between the hinge inside and bolts/washers outside. I’m also considering cutting out an access panel to make welding in the glass track a little easier. Somewhere that it can get welded back together and the seam hidden by the door card. I’m probably going to end up just pulling the door off the truck to repair it. This might be a good time to invest in one of those fancy automotive painter’s padded scissor folding sawhorse stands. I’d love to hear any helpful advice from you guys who have dove deep on door repair and replacement. Are new bushings and pins available like for 70s cars? 1 Quote
CO54 Posted January 17, 2020 Report Posted January 17, 2020 42 minutes ago, Radarsonwheels said: And more goodies in the mail! My upholstered luon door cards are much thicker than the stock vinyl covered cardboard so I had to re-drill the square shafts a little farther out from the stock holes for the retaining pins. The driver’s side was a tight fit tapping the pin home which is a good thing right up until the original pin mushroomed bent and got stuck. I ended up using a little piece of drill bit stock to hold the other side but now it is a little angled and will never come off without destroying the crank handle. So I ordered a new one. Soon the old one will get destroyed and I will do a ton of work to the door. I need to re-skin the bottom 1/2 of the door and bottom, make a rear lower window track to hold the (felt? Fabric?) channel that’s just hanging down right now, put in a new piece of glass (possibly an inch or two taller so it comes even with the sill at full down instead of dropping into the door). And of course the crank pivot will probably need to be removed so I can drive out the remnants of pin and re-drill a properly sized hole dead straight on the drillpress. I want to replace the crunchy area in the hinge pillar with new steel- it looks like the actual hinge slips inside the pillar and the four bolt holes have a little room for adjustment as the bolts locate the hinge by pinching the pillar between the hinge inside and bolts/washers outside. I’m also considering cutting out an access panel to make welding in the glass track a little easier. Somewhere that it can get welded back together and the seam hidden by the door card. I’m probably going to end up just pulling the door off the truck to repair it. This might be a good time to invest in one of those fancy automotive painter’s padded scissor folding sawhorse stands. I’d love to hear any helpful advice from you guys who have dove deep on door repair and replacement. Are new bushings and pins available like for 70s cars? You are correct with how the door hinges go into the A-pillar, pulled both doors off by removing the bolts, some love with a dead blow was required to get the hinge to pop free from the pillar on 3 hinges for me. Quote
Young Ed Posted January 17, 2020 Report Posted January 17, 2020 I would think your rolling down issue is a missing stop vs needing bigger glass 1 Quote
Los_Control Posted January 17, 2020 Report Posted January 17, 2020 1 hour ago, Radarsonwheels said: I want to replace the crunchy area in the hinge pillar with new steel- it looks like the actual hinge slips inside the pillar and the four bolt holes have a little room for adjustment as the bolts locate the hinge by pinching the pillar between the hinge inside and bolts/washers outside. DON"T pull a Los_Control! I pulled my doors by removing the bolts on the hinges, and slid them out. Pretty simple. When I went to put the doors back on, one of the movable plates with the threaded holes, drop down into the door pillar. Still not sure how to retrieve it back out of there. I bought a strong telescopic magnet to try and fish it out, no luck yet. I still need to pull the doors back off 1 more time so at that time will spend more effort to retrieve it. Next time, I think I will try some way to secure the plate while the doors are off, they need to move, is how you adjust the doors. I am considering some clear painters caulk, remove 1 bolt and use the caulk to glue the plate temporarily, and easy to remove when installing the doors again. Curious to hear what others have done to prevent the plates from dropping, how they get them back if they do drop. 1 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted January 17, 2020 Author Report Posted January 17, 2020 You need a strategically hooked piece of thick bailing wire and A lot of patience! Thanks for the warning though! I might have a window cut in the pillar at first but re-assembly could be tricky. I’ll be careful for sure Quote
ggdad1951 Posted January 17, 2020 Report Posted January 17, 2020 1 hour ago, Radarsonwheels said: You need a strategically hooked piece of thick bailing wire and A lot of patience! Thanks for the warning though! I might have a window cut in the pillar at first but re-assembly could be tricky. I’ll be careful for sure make an arcade game out of it at the local fair! Solve your problem AND make money! 2 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted February 4, 2020 Author Report Posted February 4, 2020 We had some torrential downpours lately which is great for me! The windshield is totally sealed up now which makes me very happy and I still haven’t gotten used to the new crystal clear wide and tall viewing area. It’s like driving in HD after a being used to 90s broadcast tv quality screen. The door weatherstrip is keeping H2o at bay nicely and the cowl including wiper pivots is successfully sealed as well. The passenger side is now dry as a bone. I squeezed some kneadable gray indoor outdoor window caulk inbetween the wires where my harness passes thru a rubber grommet in the firewall and that stopped letting water in that gets in the engine bay thru the louvers. The underhood wiring is all weatherpack connectors so no problems there. The driver’s side of the cab is still leaking. Somewhere around the top hinge bolts or the area where the skin wraps around the A pillar is letting in some water that sits on the shelf above the kick panel area and the nook inside the A pillar. Gonna keep after it with seam sealer until it stops and do some repairs when I dig into making the pillar and hinges more solid later (structural metal work). In the meantime it is warm enough in there to cruise whenever I want. I’m driving her once or twice a week lately. I need to get after resto-modding the heater and hooking up the defrost vent hoses so that I won’t need a windshield fog wiping towel in cold weather. No big deal though. Here’s a video of my drive to work in the rain this morning. Play it thru a tablet or computer speakers for full effect of the big block! 5 Quote
bkahler Posted February 4, 2020 Report Posted February 4, 2020 Kids and their toys..... Love the sound! 1 Quote
dogedood Posted February 8, 2020 Report Posted February 8, 2020 Thats's awesome, what kind off cam do you have? 1 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted February 8, 2020 Author Report Posted February 8, 2020 Hi Dogedood It’s a comp hydraulic flat tappet xtreme energy .507”/.510” lift, 240°/246° @.050 I have 3.21 sure grip so I’m looking for torque not revving for HP. The 512 motor soaks up a bunch of duration making the cam seem milder, also I’m running ‘stealth’ heads unported so with my inches I would need max wedge ports to be able to make high rpm power. I bought cheap secondhand mufflers. They are rediculous but for $75 I’m good. Might put some quieter ones on at some point but you can have a conversation in the truck now and it’s a hotrod with no radio... Actually these are all excuses because my mufflers are silly. I have small tube block hugger headers that are probably barely better than manifolds (but fit!). They have 3” collector flanges. From there I have 3” downpipes that neck up to 3.5” pipe then into dual 3.5” flowmaster 40 mufflers. No crossover. The mufflers have scooped angled 3.5” tips that aim the exhaust at the tires in case I want to do a billowing burnout, which I’m definitely not in a hurry to do since I bought expensive dot drag radials! 2 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted March 24, 2020 Author Report Posted March 24, 2020 (edited) Howdy folks! It’s been a little while- I got busy building a 1952 harley panhead chopper and doing maintenance on a low mile (16k!) 1986 softail I got in a trade so I’d have a 2 seater for date nites. Anyway I’ve been enjoying the truck, driving it a couple times a week and doing truck things moving bass guitar equipment and the occasional couch or dump run. A couple (few?!) weeks ago it started hesitating bad off idle with a lean spike and I was super happy just to get home through medium heavy traffic in time to switch to a car so I could pick my kid up from school. The EFI can be a little complex with sensors and computers but I installed a pressure gauge on the fuel line- always check the dumb stuff first! After limping home I opened the hood and checked it- it’s supposed to be a solid 59.5ish psi with a high pressure pump feeding the throttle body & injectors and an internal bypass regulator bleeding off any extra volume and pressure. It always ran at 72 which is high but seemed to work just fine. Well it was swinging from 40-80psi. I suspected the pump was going bad but then it would be low pressure not wildly fluctuating pressure. The sniper throttle body has three possible fuel inputs and one regulated return output so for boosted applications you can plug the stock return and run a full pressure return to a boost referenced external fuel pressure regulator from an alternate input bung. So that’s what I did except no need to boost reference it on a NA application. I plumbed in an aeromotive 30-70psi adjustable external regulator and set it to 60 psi with the return thru a hose into a gas jug. The motor ran great and there was a LOT of gas steadily coming out of the return at idle. Healthy pump. I always suspected my high operating pressure was from a restricted return line- I have two 3/8” return lines teed into the 1/2” return bung in my fuel cell and one is for circulating fuel through my .4 gallon surge tank which is fed by a 6psi high volume carter lift pump. Makes sure the inline high pressure pump never sees air when fuel hets low and sloshes around. Well when I plugged the EFI return into my hardline on the firewall that goes to the tee the pressure was still a rock solid 62psi. So either the aeromotive FPR tolerated a restriction better than the holley FPR or the holley reg was not right out of the box. It did give a good six months of service before really malfunctioning though. In a super hot engine bay before I did the louvers too. Sorry for my tale of EFI troubleshooting and drag racing parts on the ‘ol iron forum but that’s all that’s goin on with the bigblock C series these days. Hoping to get in some more cruises soon, unfortunately with a pack of nitrile gloves for touching gas pumps and grocery carts... I know we skew a little older around here I hope everybody is being safe, enjoying their families, and not in financial ruin. There’s no corona virus in your trucks- grab some rubber gloves or hand sanitizer for gas stops and go make people smile and wave!! Edited March 24, 2020 by Radarsonwheels 2 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted March 28, 2020 Author Report Posted March 28, 2020 Finally got to test out the new FPR with a trip to the grocery store. It started well then once it warmed up it started hesitating off idle and running really lean in general. I could hear the fuel pump dying from the driver’s seat and after I drove back home behind the world’s slowest idiot I barely got in the driveway it was running so bad. OK so looks like the fuel pump was going bad too. No problem I bought one of those! It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and all weekend so when I found myself up way way past my bedtime and restless I figured the smart thing to do was go roll around in my driveway while it’s still dry. I got the new pump installed and cycled it a few times to hopefully bleed out any air. She’s way too loud to fire up at two AM so maybe in the next couple days I’ll get to find out if that fixed it. 1 Quote
bkahler Posted March 28, 2020 Report Posted March 28, 2020 When I was retrofitting my old 74 Argosy motorhome with a new 454 and TBI I had a brand new out of the box distributor that had issues. I had my new engine on a test stand and was doing some testing and the engine would run pretty good up to about 2000 and then there would be a distinctive hesitation and then it would run ok again above about 2400. I had my laptop connected to the PCM and had real time graphs on the screen. The 2000 to 2400 lines were pretty bad. After thinking about it I swapped out the ignition module inside the distributor and that solved the problem. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't discount the thought that it could be an electrical issue. I originally had thought it might be a fuel problem as well. Good luck! Brad 2 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted March 28, 2020 Author Report Posted March 28, 2020 Thanks Brad I gotta solve the fuel pressure issue first which is purely mechanical. Hopefully then it’ll be ok. Drove great yesterday before the pump started failing again. The pumps are on a relay controlled by the ECU but it is not pulse width modulated just on/off. It has a prime cycle when you switch it on, then constant on once the motor is running. If the pump swap doesn’t cure it I will go back over the harness for sure. 2 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted March 30, 2020 Author Report Posted March 30, 2020 Well the truck seems to like the new high volume/pressure fuel pump. I re-flashed the last solid tune to the ECU and it probably has some learning to do before I can lock down the learn table and limit closed loop fuel adjustment based on the O2 sensor. It was also another crappy rainy day so that affects traction and visibility. Hopefully more joyrides soon. But things are looking up. 4 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted April 7, 2020 Author Report Posted April 7, 2020 Got bored yesterday and decided to see what the ipe bed would look like if I did another round of penofin without power washing the gray off it first. The ironwood/ipe apparently is so resinous it doesn’t really absorb much finish to speak of and grayed out after a year or less outside. Apparently if you like the gray/silver you can do nothing and it will be pretty stable outside for 50+ years so there’s no pressing need to nourish or protect it. Also any coating like polyurethane will just peel off in sheets after some sun damage so that’s out. I liked the way it looked wet after a rain the other day so I left it black/silver and soaked in a coat of the penofin I used when I built it. This is a fresh pic. It mellowed some after a few days and now shows the grain a little more. I dig it. 4 Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted April 11, 2020 Author Report Posted April 11, 2020 5 days later- very nice Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted April 17, 2020 Author Report Posted April 17, 2020 I’ve been shy to drive too much with this stay home order in PA. Didn’t want to break down farther from home than I’d want to walk. My neighborhood had a rolling parade/carshow on easter organized on facebook. Really cool and made the news. I did the first half of it. Right around when the cab started getting toasty the fuel pressure started dropping and the pumps started sounding bad. It turns out the fuel pump relay had un-tucked itself and was hanging down about 3” above the exhaust pipe in the trans tunnel. I swapped it out for a genuine bosch relay- Holley uses a chinese unit- and opened up the old one to see what it looked like. looks fine right? 1 Quote
Plymouthy Adams Posted April 17, 2020 Report Posted April 17, 2020 what would you look like if you were that close to the pipes for a x time......it got you home....be ye thankful..... 1 Quote
kencombs Posted April 17, 2020 Report Posted April 17, 2020 Plastic cover? If so the heat had little to do with the failure. That looks like corrosion caused by a poorly fit cover. Would have probably been fine if the cover was well sealed. Maybe I can remember to add a little silicone to mine when I get to that point. Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted April 17, 2020 Author Report Posted April 17, 2020 39 minutes ago, kencombs said: Plastic cover? If so the heat had little to do with the failure. That looks like corrosion caused by a poorly fit cover. Would have probably been fine if the cover was well sealed. Maybe I can remember to add a little silicone to mine when I get to that point. Hi Ken Yeah the Bosch relay definitely looks to be sealed up tighter than the Omron that came with the kit. Are you doing a sniper TBI setup too I forget if you already posted about it. Or just using mini relays in general? The sniper doesn’t do pulse width modulation on the fuel pumps- it’s on/off but the ecu triggers the relay with a ground switch. It has a short priming cycle then stays on as long as the motor is spinning, so it’s kind of a safety item so that the pumps will shut down if the motor stops. Otherwise I would have just bypassed it and done a switch in the cab by the key like a racecar. Quote
Radarsonwheels Posted April 17, 2020 Author Report Posted April 17, 2020 (edited) While I was under there yesterday I swapped out the 33 tooth speedometer gear in the 727 transmission for a 31 tooth gear. The 33 was perfect for my nitto summer tires or at least real close but my speedo read way low on the highway with my new 28” dot drag radials. It’s a simple thing to swap- one bolt and the housing pulls out and the speedo gear swaps out no tools. Except it sucks to do on your back in tight quarters and it’s right above the trans crossmember. After much cramping and cursing I got the bolt started and put it all back together and of course when I road tested the new fuel pump relay there was zero action on the speedo. The housing is on an eccentric to allow different size plastic gears to mesh with the mainshaft and I must have been reading it upside down? Whatever. After four tries spinning it, having my wife spin a rear tire while I watched the trans speedo drive spin or not, having her watch the dash while I spun the speedo cable with a cordless drill, and several coffee breaks, it is finally working- put her in gear on jackstands and the speedo climbs. Just your normal average ten minute job that took all afternoon! Now I’m gonna tidy some stuff under there, wipe down the drips and mess from a recent valve cover oil leak and continued power steering leak (have a new setup just gotta install it...) and I can hopefully get back to cruising and fun Edited April 17, 2020 by Radarsonwheels Quote
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