Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

Originally Posted by crakarjax

Just a thought, but adding a faster blower might be detrimental in some circumstances -- air has only so much capacity to transfer heat in a given time, and so moving the air faster might result in only minimal additional heat transfer. If that's the case, then blowing air harder might be nice in the summer but could result in a colder feeling air coming out of the ducts in the winter!

It doesn't seem to be an issue. It's been in the low 40's this week and it takes about 3.5 minutes to get warm air from the vents. That doesn't seem to be noticeably longer than before. Thats with driving about 3/4 mile at 20 mph before hitting the freeway at 55.

Two noticeable plusses are that at the end of my 14 minute commute now I notice it is getting hot in the cab and that never happened before. Like Doc said "Let there be heat!!!"

And the other plus I noticed was yesterday morning. The dew point was high enough that the front windows fogged up immediately after I got in the truck. A minute later 50% of the windshield was clear and most the rest was gone by the 3 minute mark. Markedly improved over the old worn out blower motor.
Now if I could just get the drivers side to clear up first.

[kev2809]

little off topic but how has that little larrys box been holding up? thinking about going that route when putting my air ride back together

[HO455]

Originally Posted by kev2809

little off topic but how has that little larrys box been holding up? thinking about going that route when putting my air ride back together

As all the topics here revolve around trucks (With occasional drifting off into Pontiacs ) you are most certainly on topic!
The Little Larry's valve set operation (outside of the o-ring failure early on) has been flawless. That o-ring may have been defective from the factory.
Whatever the reason for the failure Larry sent me new set of o-rings immediately after we talked about the problem and I had them in a couple of days.
Problem solved.

[HO455]

I had some M&R that I needed to get knocked out this week and fortunately there was one dry day and incredibly I had it off!
First up was fixing the tail lights. Two nights before I was 2 blocks from the house when the dash lights went out. A couple of quick checks revealed I had no taillights or emergency flashers. The fuse looked good so I knew it wasn't going to be a simple fix so I parked the WMB for a couple days.

When I started troubleshooting the problem I assumed the issue was going to be with the light switch. Lately when I turned on the high beams the headlights would go out. If I pushed and pulled the head light switch the high beams would come on. So I pulled the switch out and tested it with an ohmmeter and found poor conductivity through the dash light circuit of the switch. I thought I was on the the problem. However...

I disassembled the switch and cleaned all the contacts and reassembled the switch. Now I had good conductivity through the switch but, when I plugged it in and tested it, the lights still refused to light. After another 30 minutes of troubleshooting I decided to pull the fuse and check it and bingo! The fuse was bad. Visibly it looked good but, no conductivity. Grrrrrrr! I installed a new fuse and everything was good again. There is no indication of why the fuse failed.

This time there was an upside to making a bad assumption. And it was, now the high beams work every time and the dash lights seem a bit brighter.

Next up was fixing the leak in the power steering pump. Ever since I installed the CS130 alternator I have had very little adjustment range in the alternator drive belt. This comes from the alternator hitting the aftermarket valve covers. So a couple weeks ago I decided to do some slight modifications to the alternator mounts to gain some more adjustment range. By now I imagine you're asking what does the alternator belt have to do with a leaking power steering pump?

During the imagineering part I managed to drop the alternator and it hit the pump and deformed the edge of the fluid tank. At the time I was only bummed since my new pump now looked quite used but, the reality was that the tank now leaked. It was a pretty bad leak that left a 6 or 7 inch oil spot every time I parked the truck. The fix required that I pull the pump out and remove the pump housing from the tank. Once that was accomplished I carefully tapped the dent out of the tank and reassembled the pump with some sealant on the O-rings to be sure of getting a good seal. That seems to cured the leak. (Knock on wood)

Last on the work list was to replace the driver's door hinge pins. Since getting the WMB on the road I've had to re-adjust the upper hinge 3 times. Over time I would start feeling the door dragging on the latch, so I would move the upper hinge to get things back in line.

Thanks to all the folks who posted the how to replace the pins this task was pretty straightforward. Fortunately the pins in my hinges were not fused in place. So the actual time to replace the pins was about 10 minutes per hinge.

The time consuming part of the job was removing the hinges from the truck. It took a combination of 4 different wrenches to remove them. (Photo #1) The bolts on the cowl side ended being a real pain as they had a fair bit of rust on the ends. Lots of pentrating oil and patience were required. Only an 1/8th of turn at a time on some of them. I supported the door with a cool door support, my buddy Bob turned me on to, while I removed the hinges one at a time. (Photo #2) That really made realigning the door fairly simple once the pins had been replaced.

The hinge pads for the swing control (? I'm not sure that is the right name) weren't worn very much so I just turned them 180 degrees and reassembled the hinge.

[Dave]

Where did you get the padded support cradle for the door? That technique seems immensely easier than using wood 2x4s

[kev2809]

Originally Posted by Dave

Where did you get the padded support cradle for the door? That technique seems immensely easier than using wood 2x4s

found this one on Amazon

Steck Manufacturing 21870 E-Z Rest Door Hanger https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GBLZCU...PJDX75SW8Z5KY0

looks a lot easier than using 2x4s for sure

[CG]

Weird they call it a plastic welder. When I was in the copier/printer business we had these sort of cracking issues with different types of plastics. I kept a few old broken pieces in my tool kit and used a normal soldering iron, just like whats pictured but it had a pointy tip. Melt out a deep a grove as possible, melt a chunk of my broken piece (same material) into the grove, and smooth it out with the tip. If need be use a razor blade to smooth it down even more.

All this time I was a welder haha!

[HO455]

I've had an old wood burning set when I was a kid that ended up being mostly used for plastic melting over the years. When it died I used soldering irons but, getting good solder joints after melting plastic usually meant filing the tip back to bare metal and retinning, so when I saw the Harbor Freight sets for $10.00 I picked one up.
The stainless mess it came with has been very handy for door panel repairs on late model cars. As is typical with Harbor Freight tools the metal in the tip is low quality so so the tip bends quite easily.

[CG]

So much work on your carb to get it working the way you want. I have no idea on fine tuning a carb like that. I would have to find someone to trust to do it for me. Becoming a lost art these days.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by CG

So much work on your carb to get it working the way you want. I have no idea on fine tuning a carb like that. I would have to find someone to trust to do it for me. Becoming a lost art these days.

Having the correct carburetor for your vehicle does help avoid a lot of this. My friend Karl has been doing this for a living most of his life and I've been hanging around him since the 1980's. We both used to race GTO's and we've learned a lot the hard way. Maybe by sharing some of this someone will be inspired to pick up the mantle and become a carburetor craftsman.

[HO455]

Also on this weeks work list was installing a 2nd speed sender in my speedometer cable. I have been waiting for what seems like forever for 1/2 of a two piece adapter to allow me to have 2 senders in the cable. See arrows in photo below.

I got the wiring run from the sender but, my better half decided we needed another raised bed planter in the front yard so I didn't get the rest of the modification installed. Member PJmoreland has been waiting most patiently for me to get this one done for a while now.

[pjmoreland]

Haha. No pressure whatsoever. It might be possible to mount the second speed sensor to the speedometer up under the dash. I looked at doing it that way, but it was going to require me to shorten the square drive rod, so I chickened out.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by pjmoreland

Haha. No pressure whatsoever. It might be possible to mount the second speed sensor to the speedometer up under the dash. I looked at doing it that way, but it was going to require me to shorten the square drive rod, so I chickened out.

Man, Big Brother is watching me! I swear I just barely posted that.

I looked at putting it under the dash thinking it would be slick and easy but, there just wasn't room without moving the whole cable towards the transmission. I decided that was going to be more work than running the wire to the transmission.

Then the whole adapter saga started with only half of it showing up and the other half back ordered.

It's so hard to feel like one is making progress these days.

[pjmoreland]

Originally Posted by HO455

Man, Big Brother is watching me! I swear I just barely posted that.

I looked at putting it under the dash thinking it would be slick and easy but, there just wasn't room without moving the whole cable towards the transmission. I decided that was going to be more work than running the wire to the transmission.

Then the whole adapter saga started with only half of it showing up and the other half back ordered.

It's so hard to feel like one is making progress these days.

I wanted to let you know that I found a bug in my TCC controller Arduino code that was messing up the speed reading. This is most likely why it wasn't working for you. I will send you a PM with a link for downloading the corrected version of code. Sorry about that!!

[LockDoc]

-
You have been doing some pretty technical stuff here. I had trouble following what you were doing on both of them, let alone trying it myself....

LockDoc
.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

-
You have been doing some pretty technical stuff here. I had trouble following what you were doing on both of them, let alone trying it myself....

LockDoc
.

Thanks Doc. But as someone who understands the magical inter-workings of locks you shouldn't sell yourself short.

[pjmoreland]

Yep, that makes sense.

[HO455]

Thank you.

[TNANG]

Which speed sensor are you using and what is the purpose of the second speed sensor?
Thank you, TNANG

[HO455]

Originally Posted by TNANG

Which speed sensor are you using and what is the purpose of the second speed sensor?
Thank you, TNANG

The second speed sensor is a Dakota Digital and it is for a transmission lockup controller that PJmoreland developed and graciously has loaned to me to test. The link is to his thread.

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...d.php?t=822382

[Average Joe]

Could your Burb be any more dialed in? Great work and write up on the carb.

So
What is the purpose of the speed sensor and even a second one? Are you adding cruise control?

[pontiacvince]

EXCELLENT!!! Can't wait to start getting my Q-Jet dialed in. It starts pretty easily after sitting all night, and just the short little trips I've taken it seems OK. We'll see soon.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by pontiacvince

EXCELLENT!!! Can't wait to start getting my Q-Jet dialed in. It starts pretty easily after sitting all night, and just the short little trips I've taken it seems OK. We'll see soon.

Thank you. Best of luck dialing yours in. It sounds like you're off to a good start already.

[pontiacvince]

After getting mine back on the road, I pulled the 71 jets out of my Q-Jet, and replaced them with 70 jets. My lil 307 is much happier for the change.

[HO455]

I MADE FLAT RATE TODAY!

Yesterday I noticed something shiny hanging off the front of the WMB. Closer inspection revealed I had lost a bolt from the sway bar mounting strap. I started to reshape the strap when it dawned on me I might have a spare strap. After a bit of scrounging around the shop I located a similar replacement strap.(Photo #2)

The replacement strap doesn't have any provision for greasing the bushing. So I cut the little nub off the bushing (Circled in photo #3) and drilled a hole in the strap on the front side so I can use a U-joint grease gun adapter. (Arrow in photo #3)

The original mounts had zerks in the lowest part and I kept tearing them off on parking curbs. This should work better.

I believe the reason the bolt fell out was the cheesy washers the mounts came with. Going back together I used heavy duty washers and nylock nuts. That should cure any future problems. I will do the same to the other side after a trip to the hardware store to get some more 1" bolts.

Anyway it was under an hour to get the repair done.