Warm enough to wrench!!! Woohoo!

-
Viper21700

Viper21700

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2013
Messages
197
Reaction score
10
Location
Aiken SC
Well gents, first day in two weeks its been warm enough to wrench without freezing my cajones off... Installed a el-cheapo sunpro tac this morning (old girl has a performance gauge, which is cool, but something about watching a tac swing when you get into the skinny pedal makes me happy)
Went off without a hitch. did it the cheap temporary way (hose clamp around the base of the steering column) at least until I get home in March and can do it better. Hooked a good vacuum gauge today to check the engine out. No problems I could tell, gauge didn't move at idle (around 17) goosed the throttle, bumped up smoothly, then went down to 20... weird, might have to look into that later.
Ran a timing light (el cheapo inductive from advance) with vacuum disconnect hooked up, showed my timing as being abour 8 degrees retarded.... hmmm... something else to investigate.
Also noticed then when shes cold she idles low, but when she warms up she idles higher (6-700 cold, 8-900 warm after goosing throttle once or twice)
Also installed a choke cable today, at least until I can get the holley electronic conversion kit ordered. no more opening the hood in cold weather to set the choke to warm her up! sweet.... Well one day at a time right?
Any input on the timing/idle/vacuum thing?
 
What?, it got all the way up to 28? :)
Our winter has been really strange this year, as we have not gotten any snow or rain at all.
Here it is, the end of January and it's still in the low 60's durning the day and barely freezing at night.
Usually it has snowed and down into the single digits at night.

It is normal for the vacuum to climb on deceleration, but not sure why it stayed higher afterwards unless the retarded timing or sitting might have something to do with it.
Being that retarded would def mess with the idle differences between cold and warm.
 
mmm good to know Beast. What part of AZ are you from? I lived out in Buckeye with my dad for a while (he still lives out there) I miss AZ weather lol.
Might break out the timing light and advance the timing a bit. She runs good, just seems to be a bit lacking on the power...
 
Viper21700 said:
mmm good to know Beast. What part of AZ are you from? I lived out in Buckeye with my dad for a while (he still lives out there) I miss AZ weather lol.
Might break out the timing light and advance the timing a bit. She runs good, just seems to be a bit lacking on the power...
Click to expand...

My Brother lived out there till recently.
I'm up by Prescott, and would NEVER consider moving down off the hill to the valley.
120 degrees, no thanks.

The car will run a lot better if you advance it to about 12 degrees or so.
It would just be a starting point and may need a little more or less.
That factory sticker that says 0 degrees BTDC is not what the engine likes to run at.
I run mine at about 12 initial advance at about 5,500 elevation and it makes a huge difference.
Obviously you will be turning your idle speed down after. :)
 
Prescott's nice area. Used to run through that occasionally. Favorite ride in the northern AZ neck of the woods was the Oak Creek Canyon road, heading up towards Flag/Williams area. Man that climb up the back side of the canyon in the Dodge ram I had was a blast... Coming back down even more so lol.
Ill play with the timing some today maybe. Might be why the 360 has some vibration to it as well
 
Viper21700 said:
Prescott's nice area. Used to run through that occasionally. Favorite ride in the northern AZ neck of the woods was the Oak Creek Canyon road, heading up towards Flag/Williams area. Man that climb up the back side of the canyon in the Dodge ram I had was a blast... Coming back down even more so lol.
Ill play with the timing some today maybe. Might be why the 360 has some vibration to it as well
Click to expand...

My Brother likes that ride on his Honda Interstate.
One of his favorites.

As far as driving goes, I like hwy 89A from here to Cottonwood.
It is almost world famous for motorcycles.

The good part starts at about 3 min
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJVqFtWRKo"]89A Jerome to Prescott Valley2.wmv - YouTube[/ame]
 
That's a fun ride lol. You ought to throw that video up on CapnKirk's restoration blog on here, hes a motorcycle nut lol.
 
We have been 70 and sunny since Thanksgiving. Makes it easy to work on the cars, but we will die if we don't get rain, so everyone in CA is praying for cold like the East has had. Only 1.5" rain so far this year in Sac.
 
wish it was sunny and 70 here. worked for a while longer then the temp started dropping again around 3ish. screwy VA weather.. pulled the door sills plate to clean them up, not a drop of rust underneath them... still had the FACTORY light mauve metallic paint from 66 underneath lol... Couldn't get all the crap out of the sill plates though. Think Im going to find some re-pops and replace both sides with... tried to clean them and paint them with Argent silver paint... yeah that didn't work at all lol
 
BillGrissom said:
We have been 70 and sunny since Thanksgiving. Makes it easy to work on the cars, but we will die if we don't get rain, so everyone in CA is praying for cold like the East has had. Only 1.5" rain so far this year in Sac.
Click to expand...

Damn, I heard you guys were in a drought.
It is like 10 deg here and a foot of snow on the ground.

This has to be the worst weather we have had in 10 years, when this melts off it will cause flooding.

It is supposed to stay in the - numbers during the night next week.
 
Did the seat pivot bolt show up yet? I hope I got the address correct, it was quite a mouthful!! Geof
 
No Geof, seat bolt hasn't shown, but mail here on base isn't the quickest usually. It should show up this week. I still owe you one!
On another note- one of my friends is a woodworker. He stole my busted up arm rests and pads, and is going to attempt to make a set of oak arm rests for the car. If it comes out nice, it will be a nice, slightly different variation on the ol' girl.
 
Well warm enough to wrench part deuce. balmy nice 55 degrees today.. Went outside advanced the timing using my handy dandy vacuum gauge, and tach. Timing light crapped out on me.. second time using it, less than a week old.. POS advance auto parts garbage.. mostly did it by ear, adjusted listening to her rev up, watched my vacuum, then found her semi-happy spot, and back off just a smidgen. Seems like the ol' girl revs smoother now, and quicker to boot.. Hopefully I didn't go to far lol.
Went to adjust the carb, both set screws (holley 600 CFM vac secondaries) to light full seat, out to 1 3/4 turns.. Watched the vacuum gauge, adjust individually, no change what so ever.. goose the throttle to clear the plugs, no change. holding 17" steady at idle.... WTF over... Vacuum leak somewhere?? So I dialed in one of the screws to see if the engine would die.. Yup engine shut off. Reset both to 1 3/4 and tried again... no success.... screwy engine... now I have no idea how lean or rich this ol' beasty is running... cant find a vacuum leak anywhere... Theres only three lines for Vac on the car. One to the vac gauge inside (disconnected, had my vacuum gauge directly connected for testing) one to advance, and one to PCV valve system. So I bypassed the PCV and tied into that port.. no change same readings as before. hmmmm.
On a slightly different subject. Walked out last night to grab my bag out of the car, realized my tach light was still on... some dufus (not naming names.... myself) wired the light into a constant 12 + source not thinking about it. snipped the wire last night. Re-wired into a proper switched 12+ source... yay. the light turns off when the car does... go me. Maybe I should have broken out my multimeter yesterday when I was wiring... dumbass...
 
Well another decent day. broke out the tool bag yet again.. todays project? Install a cheap stereo in the glove box.. Install went well, not quite done yet, haven't wired the rear speakers. The more I play with the car, the more I worry that Im getting in over my head... Previous owner did a lot of crap jobs on the car.. at first glance and at a decent look over, the car looked great... but I pull the front carpet by the firewall back when I pulled the kick panels... the majority of the floor pans are entirely rust free, but right below where the old, now missing, firewall passthrough block for electrical went the rust monster has reared his ugly head... I spent two hours before I bought this car searching for rust and issues, and only found a few, now I found this one... the floor pan is rusted through about four to five inches long, and about an inch or so wide.. I guess water came through that stupid hole where the block was and soaked into the carpet... Im kinda upset now about this...
On to non-rust related work.. Im really irritated at the previous owners crappy hole cutting jobs for where the previous speakers were installed. pure crap. his wiring looks like *** under the dash, the more wires I trace and figure out what the heck he was doing the more I find that Im like whiskey tango foxtrot over..(WTF Over in non mil-spec lingo)
The radio got installed though. Bought a cheap Dual brand AM/FM/CD/Bluetooth rig (100$ at Auto-bone) and a set of 120w Dual 5 1/4 3 ways.. the front two speakers sound pretty good, threw some Megadeth on and for a cheap setup they sounded fairly crisp. Tomorrow its supposed to be in the mid 60's... going to mount the 6 3/4's under the rear seat.. should be enough room hopefully, no one sits in the back anyways...
Anyone know where I can get a replacement floor pan at? I might need to bone up on my welding skills earlier than I though..... ugggggg..... Also- turns out the vibration issue Ive been having with the 360- P/O in is infitinate wisdom, dropped in a 360, used the original 273 torque converter and most likely a 273 flexplate... no balance weights on the TC at all... My local mechanic is going to order the Flexplate and drop it in next week when hes rebuilding my complete brake system... I would do it myself but shop resources are kind of low with me right now..

Sorry about the long post, just had to vent abit. Thanks guys for all the advice and help you've been pushing my way
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top