"Minor" Tweaks

Post date: Apr 26, 2016 4:19:09 AM

It's been a while, but nothing too major has changed. I am driving it whenever the weather is good (no windows and bare metal makes for a garage queen) and it is a blast. I keep it under 65mph (3500 rpm!) on the freeway so no long hauls. I've put on somewhere between 1k and 2k miles, all dead reliable. Sure, there are various noises and leaks, but I wouldn't hesitate to jump in it to head somewhere.

Shaun figured out the magic recipe for getting the left front inner fender mounted. The repops are just a little bit too small. Bolting it in the right order, stretching with a little heat, and lifting the car by the horns got it done. There's still a gap on the back that will probably collect water and road crud.

I had a really bad time with the brakes. The rears were locking up far too easily, so I added an adjustable prop valve on the main front to rear line. It has to be turned all the way out (maximum limiting) to keep a decent balance. That's not normal, especially since everything except the master is stock replacement stuff. So there may be some braking performance not happening with the front, but it can still lock up all four wheels.

Then the combo valve just dumped its guts and drained the master. Thankfully that happened in the garage!

Got a replacement aluminum unit from MBM and it was machined so poorly that I couldn't get the front left line to seal.

Got a brass unit from Right Stuff and got back on the road.

Once I switch to rear disks all the valving is going away. Just causes problems.

The brakes sound like a train once they get hot, and it doesn't take much for them to get hot. I can't remember the pad composition, though. May swap out for fancy stuff, may not.

Wipers. Oh the wipers.

The pitman cam for the wiper arm has broken twice. It gets jammed, then a small spring steel lever deforms, then it's all down hill. The company replaced one, and I've managed to keep the second one working. Most of the time it works perfectly, then it suddenly doesn't.

The motor control board also fried. They replaced that too.

The really frustrating part is that MOST of the kit is straight stock stuff - I even pulled replacements from the junk yard. But the pitman is custom and really finicky. Would be nice if I could adapt a stock part.

The manufacturer discontinued this design due to limited availability of the motor. Which is odd, I can snag a NEW motor from RockAuto for <$50. Granted, ACDelco has discontinued new motors, but still.

The new design uses a completely different motor that uses an external controller. Which means all my custom wiring, controls and automatic rain sensor would need to be re-done, if they even apply at all. Plus it runs about $600. Oooff.

In good news, the rain sensor works perfectly!

In bad news, the car threw the left wiper blade holder while going down the road. And those things are hard to find.

The custom rear window defrost switch worked perfectly. Until it didn't. My McGuyver switch apparently failed. Have to remove the heater control to get to it, which means that'll happen when I pull the dash. Eventually.

Quite a bit of time was spent on the PS system, sadly with the end result of switching to a standard can 'o ham pump. I just could not get the N pumps to be quiet. So it's got a Summit unit, which I'm quite certain is a discounted Tuff Stuff unit, and it's running just fine. Of course I took it apart to inspect but didn't find anything too concerning. The stupid thing is a mix of standard and metric parts though. Looks like they only have metric pump bodies, but put a standard shaft and some kind of custom conversion outlet on it. Cross fingers that nothing needs replacing. So I have a box of PS stuff that's easily $500 or $600, that will sit in the corner and none of the parts can swap over.

I did get the remote reservoir can like used on some 80's trucks and Caddys to possibly try, whenever I'm feeling like wasting time and throwing away more money. That can is just big enough to hold the full size P pump with a -10AN inlet on the top for using the remote reservoir. The reservoir I have is just so damn cool, you know?

I also did learn something. I had to significantly modify the brackets to get the N pump to mount, so I snagged a set of stock brackets that were advertised as from a '80 full size Olds. Still used plain old Saginaw pumps, so it should all work, right? Went ahead and cleaned, prepped, painted. Then went to test fit.

Huh.

The overhang on the front bracket is just ever so slightly thicker, hitting the normal pump body.

Get another set of brackets, CHECK FIRST, then clean, prep, paint. The pump is tilted just a bit so it looks like the lower bracket might need a thinner spacer, but hasn't thrown any belts yet and I've bounced off the rev limiter several times.

Got the passenger side mirror mounted this past weekend. This door didn't have a mirror on it. The standard mirrors mount with large slotted holes straight to the door skin - easy! But the sport mirrors use two sheet metal screws into a reinforcement plate. Which this car doesn't have at all. So make a template from the driver's side, measure twice, cuss a little, drill some holes, make a plate, drill more holes, use a screw just to keep the plate in place, realize it can't go there because it'll interfere with the mounting bar, move it, modify the gasket to clear the new bolt, THEN bolt everything in place. THEN realize I don't have the screw that keeps the mirror on the bracket. A typical machine screw is close enough, so press on.

Also glue in new glass. And cuss at the gasket because while it fits the driver side mirror perfectly, the passenger side base isn't quite the same shape, but the gaskets are identical.

Passenger side sport mirror. Easy.

Ran into a situation where the shifter jammed trying to move from second to first. Thankfully that was just a small bracket in the shifter coming loose plus a too-long bolt used in the mounting bracket. I was worried the TH350 was finally taking a turn.

There's a heck of an oil leak somewhere. 90% certain it's the front passenger side of the intake oil rail. In a stroke of luck (?) I picked up a used Performer RPM intake for half off. It needs to be tanked, cleaned and cut, so cost is kind of a wash, but I'm hoping to get it prepped and swapped on. If it seals well, then I can get the one I'm currently running shipped out for injector bungs for the eventual mutli-port EFI conversion. Fun fact: it's a used intake, but has globs of casting flash in one of the intake runners. The flash flakes right off. Just a reminder to always thoroughly inspect parts, even if it's new manufacture.

I still get a couple of PS fluid drops from time to time. Hard to trace. Seems to be the steering gear sometimes. Probably need to bite the bullet and get a quality rebuild instead of the parts store stuff. Also saw a glob of tranny fluid on the flood and absolutely no idea where that came from.

Replaced various lines and bits as needed. A/C is working, but only cools about 20 degrees from ambient. Doing a slow fill with a close eye on the pressures didn't really help. Low side comes up real fast. You know, maybe it needs even less than I'm thinking. New cars commonly have less than 2 lbs, while this one was 4lbs stock. The evap is pretty big, but the tubing in the condensor is dramatically smaller. Not the best, but it's all in there and it works, can be corrected later by someone that knows what they're doing. I am somewhat worried I should have stuck with the OEM style condensor, as the fancy aftermarket parallel flow unit doesn't seem to be as amazing as hoped. All the adaptation work might not have been worth it. Surprise. Would be really nice if the shop hadn't cut off the end of my stock condensor to make the jumper. Then I'd be able to just swap it back on as a test.

Oh well. Replacements are only $350 when you can find them.

Turns out the front end sits 3.5" lower than the rear end. That's a heck of a rake. Thinking either something went wrong with the springs I got, or something is crazy wrong with the front geometry. I would expect 1" rake, because most front springs are made to drop a little more than their matching rears, plus I have tall lower ball joints. But 3.5", with less than 4" ground clearance? Not great. The passenger side header has quite a few road rashes now. A new set of springs and an adjuster kit is probably in my future. Heck, might as well go with dual adjustable coil overs and be done with it, right?

The battery would go flat if I left it connected for more than a few days. Always blamed the stupid Optima as being stupid. Turns out the fancy gauge set was drawing 0.25A when the ignition was off! Rewired that to only pull from IGN1 and going solid now. The gauges just die wherever they are instead of resting nicely as appropriate, but oh well.

I got a fancy module from 3rdbrakeflasher.com that will do all the fancy new car stuff with the courtesy lights (remain on, fade, etc). It can run 5A, and all my lights currently pull 2A - still have a couple that aren't installed. So hope to install that, but need to redo the courtesy ground wiring near the steering column to divert out to that module. So that'll happen when I pull the dash. Which I'm avoiding.

The rear end seemed to not be posi-ing, so dumped the oil and re-filled without additive. The cones are definitely still good. Made a hell of a racket in parking lots, so added 4oz of the additive at O'Reilly. That softened the noise quite a bit, but both tires still spin. Also switched back to a standard diff cover to clear the fancy sway bar.

Experimenting with the G-Tech has been frustrating. Can't get 60' times under 2.6s, 0-60mph takes about 5.7s, and the 1/4 runs out to something embarrassing like 14s. It's all about traction. First gear goes by REALLY fast, and if I stay in it when shifting to second then all of second is a burnout. Getting a decent launch means going real slow. So these 14" tires will have to go. Oddly, they grip OK in the corners, just have nothing when it comes to straight line. Might have to get big wheels and good tires sooner than I had hoped. That was going to be a Phase 3 topic....... Shaun got a TH2004R in his Chevelle, although there are some shake-down issues. Still it went so easily that I'm tempted to do that earlier than planned too.

I'm hopeful to get the body work done this year. Two hail storms rolled through so all the shops in the area are really busy.

Errata completed:

Replace fuel line, replace tranny cooler line fitting (45 degree to replace the straight)

Swap the tranny shift cable so the seal can actually be bolted to the floor

Try to get the A/C to cool decently

Get A/C idle solenoid to work

Install wiring harness with superheat and thermal fuse connectors

Errata:

Just What The Hell is the loud squeaking from the back seat/trunk while driving?!

Drill a "Hydroboost" hole in the brake pedal. hah!

Prep and paint second dash pad and dash

Startup and fail-safe algorithm on the computer to prevent full-speed fan when not appropriate. The 10 second turn-on delay for the computer control isn't sufficient

Final mount of the computer

Wire an IGN1 signal for the O2 sensor

See if the PS system is done leaking and whining......... (this one stays on the list forever)