Working Man's Burbon

[Accelo]

Thanks for a great write up.
I agree, American Classics in Vancouver, is overpriced on almost everything.

Some of my wife's relatives were Columbia River Pilots.
We have the certificates here. Both are dated 1884 certificates number 2 and 3.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by Accelo

Thanks for a great write up.
I agree, American Classics in Vancouver, is overpriced on almost everything.

Some of my wife's relatives were Columbia River Pilots.
We have the certificates here. Both are dated 1884 certificates number 2 and 3.

You're welcome. That's cool about your wife's relatives. Back in the days of steam and sail, no radios or other electronics, no dams keeping the river under control, no dredging to maintain the channel, a different breed of pilot for sure.

Have you ever been to the COLRIP office? It's pretty cool with lots of old photos and I'm pretty sure they have a photo of every river pilot since #1. I don't think they actually do tours but with your wife's family history it's likely they would if you wanted to. I work with them almost everyday at work, if you're interested I could ask about a visit.

[HO455]

I've been so busy reconstructing one of my garages and it's carport before the rains start I haven’t looked back here. Now I see I forgot to pass on some some information.

First off is a poor product rant. I used the reproduction gasket set made by Repops. (Photo #1 & 2) I only used the the heat core and blower to cowl seal (Photo #2 the two gaskets on the left side of photo. I believe the rest are for inside the cab.)

All of the gaskets I used were too small and had to be stretched to fit or I had to use silicone to seal the areas the gasket didn't seal as I mentioned above.

The blower to cowl seal ring was about 3/16" too small to fit fit on the blower flange. I tried to glue it with contact cement but it wouldn't stay put. Fortunately the seal is sandwiched tight enough by the heater box that it seems to be staying in place.

The heater core gasket was also too small. It had to be stretched and then glued in place. It was easily a quarter of a inch undersized. Photo #4 shows the gasket taped in place and the arrows show where the gasket should lay. I was pretty sure I would break the gasket trying to glue it in place but I got lucky. I started by putting contact cement on two of the opposite corners and then set them in place. After they were dry I did then glued the remaining corners. Once they dried I glued the remainder down. It worked okay but one corner of the first corners came loose while I was stretching the second set of corners in place and didn't go back exactly where it should have been. (Upper left in Photo #4) but it should work. It's better than no gasket at all which is what I had before. Unfortunately I won't know if it fails. Maybe out of sight and out of mind is okay for this.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

I've been so busy reconstructing one of my garages and it's carport before the rains start I haven’t looked back here. Now I see I forgot to pass on some some information.

First off is a poor product rant. I used the reproduction gasket set made by Repops. (Photo #1 & 2) I only used the the heat core and blower to cowl seal (Photo #2 the two gaskets on the left side of photo. I believe the rest are for inside the cab.)

All of the gaskets I used were too small and had to be stretched to fit or I had to use silicone to seal the areas the gasket didn't seal as I mentioned above.

The blower to cowl seal ring was about 3/16" too small to fit fit on the blower flange. I tried to glue it with contact cement but it wouldn't stay put. Fortunately the seal is sandwiched tight enough by the heater box that it seems to be staying in place.

The heater core gasket was also too small. It had to be stretched and then glued in place. It was easily a quarter of a inch undersized. Photo #4 shows the gasket taped in place and the arrows show where the gasket should lay. I was pretty sure I would break the gasket trying to glue it in place but I got lucky. I started by putting contact cement on two of the opposite corners and then set them in place. After they were dry I did then glued the remaining corners. Once they dried I glued the remainder down. It worked okay but one corner of the first corners came loose while I was stretching the second set of corners in place and didn't go back exactly where it should have been. (Upper left in Photo #4) but it should work. It's better than no gasket at all which is what I had before. Unfortunately I won't know if it fails. Maybe out of sight and out of mind is okay for this.

Did you coat both surfaces with contact cement and let them dry to the touch before sticking them together? I installed a lot of formica counter tops in my day and that was always the recommended way to use contact cement. I still use that method on everything I glue with it.

I have also installed a lot of rubber running board covers on antique vehicles and you do those the same way.

Like you said, once you get them bolted up the gaskets can't go anywhere.

LockDoc

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

Did you coat both surfaces with contact cement and let them dry to the touch before sticking them together? I installed a lot of formica counter tops in my day and that was always the recommended way to use contact cement. I still use that method on everything I glue with it.

I have also installed a lot of rubber running board covers on antique vehicles and you do those the same way.

Like you said, once you get them bolted up the gaskets can't go anywhere.

LockDoc

I did coat both sides but, to be honest I think my contact cement was bad or was going bad. It had turned a dark gray color. It didn't want to stick to the gaskets very well. Or maybe I needed to clean the gaskets with a solvent before attempting to glue them.

[HO455]

Part two of rant. I didn't use the big gasket in the set but I will point a problem I noticed to others. This gasket is larger than the box it is shipped in so the manufacturer folds it up. As a result the foam is crushed and it doesn't recover its original shape when unfolded. (See photos 1&2.)

I forgot to include that I used window seal cord from a box store to seal the fiberglass heater box to the metal parts of the box and the firewall. (Photo #3) Others here had posted they have used it without issue. I would have liked it better if it had been slightly larger in diameter. It just seemed to be some what undersized even though I did see one spot where it excess pushed out I'm not confident it sealed completely. I used the window seal it as it was only $7 as compared to the correct 3M sealant which was $46
at NAPA.

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/MMM08578

This seal cord goes in the groove around the flange on the fiberglass heater box. In the 4th photo you can see the ends of it sticking out (Green arrows.) from under the gray plate over the blower fan. The yellow arrows point to the groove around the rest of the heater box where the seal cord needs to be installed. I believe this is to prevent air leaks between the engine compartment and inside the heater box. The red line in the last photo is a rough approximation of the areas the seal cord goes.

[HO455]

And lastly I started to really fight getting the flapper door cable hooked up while trying to get the heater box lined up with the through bolts from inside the cab. It was looking like there was going to be a whole lot of blue language involved before I realized there was a convenient plug under the dash that once removed allowed me to easily hook the cable up after the box was installed. What a great coincidence there being a hole right where I needed one!

[3757chevy]

Very cool.

[LockDoc]

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You're getting there. That's one of those jobs that it seems like you are never going to get done....

LockDoc

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

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You're getting there. That's one of those jobs that it seems like you are never going to get done....

LockDoc

And speaking of that...
On the way home from work Friday the WMB tried to die a couple of times before it actually did. I was only 4 blocks from home at the time when it actually quit. After some quick searching around it appeared that I didn't have fuel. The fuel pressure guage was at zero when the pump was energized. I tapped the regulator and the fuel pump with a wrench and when I tested it again I had about 4 PSI on the guage. It was enough to start the truck and get me the rest of the way home. Once home I continued troubleshooting by jumpering past the fuel pump controller and found that the pump would only run for short periods after tapping on it. My new pump had failed! How annoying!

Since I was in the work bubble I parked the WMB and drove the Stink10 until my first day off which was Thanksgiving. The weather was nice and I was able swap the pump out with the old one (Which I had rebuilt some time ago) before the family all got together. The old pump is running good and we're back on the road again.

It seems like I just replaced the pump and I was kinda of annoyed by the seemingly short life span of the new pump. But after looking back in this thread and comparing the date with my gas record I found out the pump was new on 3/13/2020 and it has been 29,000 miles. So maybe I shouldn't be so annoyed.

After tearing down the new pump I observed that the brushes are worn down (Photo #1 See the brush the green arrow pointing to compared to the brush the yellow arrow points to) preventing positive contact with the commutator. I am also not very thrilled about the amount of wear on the commutator. It appears the copper is soft, as are the brushes.

On the up side the rebuild kit I used for the old pump came with 2 different styles of brushes and the ones I didn't use are the right ones for this pump. Now I just need to clean up the commutator on the lathe and reassemble the pump. I am interested in what the pump side looks like so I will inspect that before reassembling the pump.

It appears if I'm going to keep using these Mallory fuel pumps I will have to plan on rebuilding/replacing them every 25k or so. On thing is for sure I'm going to reconfigure the pump and the fuel lines to make swapping the pumps much easier. Currently the pump is though bolted to the frame and the nuts on the back side are almost unreachable. Thus making what should be a 15 minute job into an aggravating 2-3 hour affair that requires the passenger side rear wheel to be removed and the truck jacked up 18 inches.

And as a side note here is a picture of the debris that was in the pump pre-filter. All collected in the last 29k miles.

[LockDoc]

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The armature looks pretty cruddy too. How well is the pump sealed?

Good thing you weren't a long ways from home when this happened.

I guess it is pretty good luck that the spare set of brushes will work in this pump though.

LockDoc

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

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The armature looks pretty cruddy too. How well is the pump sealed?

Good thing you weren't a long ways from home when this happened.

I guess it is pretty good luck that the spare set of brushes will work in this pump though.

LockDoc

I agree the armature has a bunch of surface rust and I am going to be looking at using some sealant when I put it back together.

Not much sign of corrosion in other places inside at first glance but once I get it cleaned up I will do a real inspection. For all I know the armature came pre-rusted

The old pump didn't have a corrosion problem but there are some differences between the 140 and the 110 pumps. I think I will look into OE pump options before I dive into re-plumbing the system. Maybe there's a perfect brushless pump out there.

['68OrangeSunshine]

I ran a Holley Red pump on my '67 K/10 Sub, ''White Fang.''
Nowdays I still use it as a fuel transfer pump.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by '68OrangeSunshine

I ran a Holley Red pump on my '67 K/10 Sub, ''White Fang.''
Nowdays I still use it as a fuel transfer pump.

The Mallory 140 pump was on the truck when I got it and the PO told me it was on his race car before he installed it on the truck. I'm not married to the Mallory pumps it just was easiest to replace the 140 with a 110 when the 140 quit pumping. That ended up being the lower bearing on the armature had locked up. So two failures with 2 different causes.

I went with the 110 for a replacement as the engine doesn't need a pump as big as the 140 especially with no return line from the regulator.

Did you use the Holley pump on a daily driver and if so how many miles?

['68OrangeSunshine]

Originally Posted by HO455

Did you use the Holley pump on a daily driver and if so how many miles?

Yes.
I used the Holley Red pump on my Suburban as a daily driver.
When I bought that truck, it had a garden variety auto parts store electric fuel pump. PO merely bypassed the manual pump on the BBC 454. One night when I was about to give a union sister a ride home, the cheap pump quit on me. She got another ride, but while crawling underneath, I saw that the Mech fuel pump was still on the block, but closed off with dead end hoses. So I connected it and she started up. I got home OK.
A couple years later, I was having fuel feed issues with a belly tank and a stock mechanical pump. Someone suggested the Holley pump. So I went for it the next payday.
I had a kill switch under the dash for a security trick. But I ignored the advised Fuel Pressure Safety switch.
[Power is routed to the pump thru an oil pressure sensor. No oil pressure -- no voltage to fuel pump. Keeps the pump from still running if the engine stops.] Since I wasn't Racing, and insufficient fuel flow on starting was my issue, I didn't think I needed this switch.
Then one day, I accidently poured 5 gallons of diesel into my main tank. The engine backfired. The oil-soaked K&N air cleaner caught fire, a plastic see-thru fuel filter melted open, and my fuel pump whirred merrily along feeding the flames.
Luckily, a couple of guys from my motel ran out with fire extinguishers.
I decided to rent a UHaul F350 box truck, buy a bumper hitch, and tow White Fang back to Tucson from El Centro.
To cover expenses, I filed an accident claim with Farmers'. Really, the only real damage was a toasted air cleaner and scorched carburetor, and burned- thru plug wires. The insurance adjuster thought it was a ''piece of S@$%,'' and totalled it, and they gave me a salvage title. It's been sitting awaiting a rebuild ever since.

Anyway I think I ran the Red pump for a couple years and it worked fine.
After it had been sitting for years, I pulled it to use syphoning gas out of jerry cans into the fuel tank. When it stalled one time, I took the top apart and lost one of the commutator brush springs. By the time I found it, I'd stepped on it. I went to the hot rod shop to try to buy new springs, but the don't sell them. Best they could do was sell me a Blue Holley pump for $35 for parts-- one they'd traded out under warranty because it leaked. I never stole the good Blue springs for the Red pump, I just traded pumps. A slight weep, doesn't matter in a fuel transfer. That's what I use today.
In operation on the Sub, I had mounted it on the inside frame rail, about under the passenger seat. No indicator was needed, the Holley announced its presence when ON by a loud buzz/whirr.

[HO455]

Yikes!!!! That's a terrible thing to happen. Here I am whining about have to get out and tap on the pump to drive the last 6 blocks home.

That's one nice thing about the Mallory's they are nice and quiet. So quiet I didn't know that it had quit.

[HO455]

I got some time and a window of nice weather and made some more progress on the interior panels.

I made some pointed bolts (Photo #1) and used them to mark the panel where the seat back stop/latch attaches. (Photo #2) Then I drilled the marked spots and bolted the latch to the plywood. After marking the outline of the latch (Photo #3) I cut out the area under the latch.

The clearances for the seat stop/latches are so tight that the plywood would prevent the seat backs from latching properly. So I had to make the cut outs for the latches so they will be able to hold the seat back in place.

['68OrangeSunshine]

That's about how I was thinking it should be -- A jump seat for the pax behind Door #3.

[LT7A]

Wow! I haven't caught up on this thread for a long time. Years. You've gotten a ton done! Honestly, when I read the first few pages a long time ago, I thought that you would get tired of trying to make up for all of the messes the previous owner made. It seems like he had taken everything apart and put things back together half right while stripping the fasteners. In fact for a while there I was thinking this Suburban must have been formerly owned by a stripper, seeing how many volts and nuts were wrecked. You've turned it into a reliable, good looking rig. And you keep cleaning/fixing up one area after another. Well done! I'm not usually effusive in my comments, but this is an epic saga of persistence and resilience.

[HO455]

Thank you very much! I really appreciate those kind words.

I'm not sure how epic it is but I've enjoyed the journey. I'm not pretty or smart but I'm pretty steady. Between the house, the garden, having a job, there's never enough time to do things as fast as I would like. I hear stories about how winning the lottery ruins peoples lives. Man if I won I'd buy my neighbor's house and build a 40x60 shop and spend the rest of my days building cars and making sawdust. Oh and hire a gardener to help the wife with the yard.

I do believe posting to the thread has helped to keep me motivated. I lost a couple of months of good weather last year due to breaking my foot so hopefully I can avoid that this year and get the interior finished up.

Okay I'm done rambling. And thanks again, sir.

[CG]

With over 1000 posts on this great thread I can see finding past stuff could be and issue

['68OrangeSunshine]

The hot rod shops used to sell a USA-made Accel Starter Solenoid that was high quality and rebuildable that would go on any Bendix-style Starter.
Check Jegs and Summit.

OK. Jegs shows Tuff Stuff p/n: 3510.....$29.99

Can't guarantee country of manufacture, but it's the kind I was thinking of.
I have the Accel versions on two of my starters. Been working good for so long, I forgot when I put them on.

[HO455]

'68OrangeSunshine;9287622]The hot rod shops used to sell a USA-made Accel Starter Solenoid that was high quality and rebuildable that would go on any Bendix-style Starter.
Check Jegs and Summit.

OK. Jegs shows Tuff Stuff p/n: 3510.....$29.99

Can't guarantee country of manufacture, but it's the kind I was thinking of.
I have the Accel versions on two of my starters. Been working good for so long, I forgot when I put them on.

Originally Posted by '68OrangeSunshine

The hot rod shops used to sell a USA-made Accel Starter Solenoid that was high quality and rebuildable that would go on any Bendix-style Starter.
Check Jegs and Summit.

OK. Jegs shows Tuff Stuff p/n: 3510.....$29.99

Can't guarantee country of manufacture, but it's the kind I was thinking of.
I have the Accel versions on two of my starters. Been working good for so long, I forgot when I put them on.

Thanks for the information. But fortunately for me NAPA warranted the starter. I was under the impression it had a lifetime warranty but in reality it has a LIMITED lifetime warranty. Lots of loop holes in the warranty but when I purchased it I bought it through work and paid cash. NAPA said they only warranted it because I bought it on the company account.

Of course during installation things got difficult. Surprise, suprise, surprise! The machined block the starter bolts to wasn't machined accurately. The immediate problem was the one hole nearest the oil pan didn't seem to be vertical and I needed to file the part of the hole closest to the block to allow the mounting bolt to start and turn freely. More on the mounting block later.

Since my old starter required both shims I added the second set before I tested the starter mounting position. (Photo #1 shows the shim and the bolts to remove to access the shims) However this time when he starter was installed the starter drive gear was too far out so I had to unbolt the starter and remove one set of shims. But now when the starter was reinstalled there was too large of a gap. Grrrr!

Crikey and other interesting words were spoken. So again I removed the starter, removed the mounting block and did a thorough inspection of the mounting surfaces and the shims. There I found that the factory installed large shim had what looked like dried red Loctite underneath it and the holes for the mounting bolts were deformed so the shim was thicker around them. After filing things flat and cleaning all the surfaces I reassembled the starter with both sets of shims and reinstalled the starter and the drive gear clearance was now within specifications. This made me start to think the starter had been previously been returned.

Here is a link to when I installed the first starter some 37k miles ago.

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...698377&page=19

Moving on to checking the gear mesh clearance is where I came up against the other bit of poor machine work. The old starter didn't need any shims to be in specification. This starter without any shims had close to .100 of clearance. The specification called for between. 040 and .060. Reading the instructions it said to put shims between the mounting block and the engine block only at outer bolt of the starter to close the gap.

I've never had to do this kind of shimming on a starter before but I remember years ago removing a starter that only had half a shim installed and briefly wondering why it was installed that way. Anyhow I started inserting shims and in the end it required a 1/16 and a 1/32 shim stack to get the gear clearance to .0555 (The size of a #52 drill bit). (Photo #2 shows the partial shims I made and photo #3 shows which bolt I put them under.)

I'm not real warm and fuzzy over how things went together but, the starter sounds fine and spins the engine as expected. I guess time will tell. At one point I considered taking it back but when I got it the counterman said it was the only one in stock.

['68OrangeSunshine]

I've been lucky with both the '68 C/10 292/SM465 and '71 Jimmy 350/SM465/NP205 because the bellhousings have 3 parallel bores and my starters bolt up w/o shimming. In fact the front plate of the flywheel pan is bolted-thru so it's a big shim.

I am unfamiliar with the drivetrain you're running on WMB. Looks like automatic transmissions are involved.

That seems pretty squirrelly of NAPA to fudge on your warranty. Most of my ''Lifetime'' warranties were with Checker Auto. When O'Reilly bought them out, they promised to honor existing warranties.
Yeah. Sure. The majority of warranty replacement parts, Dimmer Footswitches, EVRs, Alternators, have been duds. I've been cannibalizing off White Fang for good late '90s or OEM vintage parts.
They did ''buy out'' my warranty on the P/S Gear for my '71 GMC K/1500 Jimmy at about $350 in cash. Then I had to buy a UFO* from RockAuto.
I kept about a hundred. When that P/S Gear goes bad, I'll have to go on the hunt again.

*TimeShare ''realtor'' slang for You F-ing Own it.

[HO455]

When it was all said and done I didn't have to push very hard to get them to honor the warranty. Here's copy of the warranty I don't think they could of argued against covering it.

The Burban currently has a TH350C & a Gearvendor bolted to 74ish vintage 350 SBC.