1985 Pontiac Grand Prix

It's gone.

2009-03-13T16:06:00.004-04:00

Late to the party, but I have pictures.

The Bucket is gone. I sold it to a scrapyard on February 18th. A funny story: the car didn't want to leave. The tow truck driver apparently hooked the winch to a rather rusty part of the frame, and it gave way as he was cranking the car up onto the rollback. It rolled down the ramp and barreled back down the driveway towards the garage where it spent so much time, like a puppy that runs to its dog house when animal control comes to take it away.

Separation anxiety in the extreme.

Anyway, here are the pictures. Farewell, my friend. I gained a career's worth of knowledge about EFI and GM engine systems with you. You'll be missed once I finish repressing the memories of all the times you left me stuck on the side of the road.

Engine's out!

2009-02-07T15:27:00.002-05:00

I pulled the engine out of the 'ol Bucket today. Not a whole lot to tell. The catalytic converter was melted and plugged, which was bad. I was going to keep it, but I guess I'll see if a recycler will pay for it.

Only mishap was a set the engine down right on top of my garage light, crushing it. Ooops.

On to the pictures!

Here it is in the engine bay:

From 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix

Here's the radiator on the floor

From 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix

On the way out

From 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix

Out

From 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix

And on the floor!

From 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix

Though not pictured, I've already separated the transmission and gotten the engine up on a stand.

I've already called the junkyard. They'll be coming to get it on Monday or Tuesday, then the Datsun can go back in the garage.

Plumbing...

2009-02-01T23:22:00.002-05:00

No updates on the car, because I've been working on the house.

From that work, I've learned a few things about plumbing:

1) Don't try to fix a problem if you can bypass it. Ripping out walls is a pain
2) You only get one shot with PVC. Measure three times.
3) Gaskets are single use, and most "kits" for items like toilets will be missing parts from the store.

Cars are easier. I suspect it's because cars are designed with some expectation of maintenance. Homes are not.

Disassembly has begun...

2009-01-03T21:29:00.001-05:00

I've started pulling the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, out of The Bucket. Today I managed to yank the rear shocks, the radio, the rear deck speakers, the wideband O2 sensor, and drain the radiator. I already have a buyer for the shocks, so I'll be pulling the fronts tomorrow and hopefully shipping them out later this week.

With the radiator drained, I can pull it. I think I'll be able to use the big electric fan on the Datsun. The radiator itself will go up in the attic as a spare for the Grand National, and I dunno what I can use the second fan for. Maybe it can blow on an aux oil cooler in the Z if I ever get one.

With the radiator out, I should be able to get the engine out in short order. We shall see.

The pain became too great...

2008-11-11T14:08:00.006-05:00

Well, it's over. After dying twice in the line to drop my son off at school, requiring me to push it out of the way and wait for it to cool off and/or whatever what was wrong with it, I've given up on the '85GP.

After much research and a little negotiation, I shelled out $9700 for this Panzerwagon:

It's a 1999 BMW 540i with a six speed manual. It had been on a local car lot for the better part of a year with a malfunctioning alarm, non-working CD changer, a toasted clutch, and a couple handfuls of other broken bits. During that year, the dealer had put on a new alternator, radiator, and replaced a broken right rear window regulator (and fucked the door panel to hell in the process). They had it advertised for $11,995. I walked out with it for $9700. Spent another $1400 on a clutch and a new set of tires, and off I went.

Since the purchase, I've put almost 2000 miles on it. It's been to Cincinatti and back, and Madison Indiana with nary a hiccup. I've also blasted through a list of minor broken things:

Replaced broken rear cupholders with a nice little storage cubby
Fixed the right rear door (outer handle didn't work)
Replaced the front speakers in the stereo
Replaced a fuse on the CD changer and got it working again
Replaced the main battery, which had the side effect of fixing the goofy alarm. The dealer had installed a nice, brand new Interstate, but the one they installed was 200 amps too small and they promptly allowed it to go flat and stay there, ruining it.
Replaced the leaking valve cover gaskets and changed the oil

That's pretty much everything that was broken on the car. It's nearly good as new.

I'm getting - no joke - 21mpg around town, and we saw 26mpg on our trip to Cincinnati. All the widgets work inside the car. The display under the speedo is missing some pixels, but that seems to be normal for German cars of this vintage. Best of all, it starts every time and doesn't overheat and die in line to drop my kid off at school. It's also the nicest car I've ever driven. Quiet, smooth, handles well, lots of power... it's everything I wanted The Bucket to be, plus it doesn't have any rust. Coil-on-plug also means I no longer have to deal with burned up ignition wires.

And The Bucket? I've already sold the Megasquirt. I'll soon be pulling the drivetrain and electronics (stereo and speakers), pulling the hi-po shocks off and putting the Gabriels back on, and then dragging the car to Pull-A-Part where it will be sold for scrap. The tires are going to my Dad for his in-progress '66 Mustang restoration.

All this means that the original purpose of this blog, to document the work on The Bucket, is gone. I may update this with the deconstruction, and hopefully a memorial to the car when I finally drag it to the scrapyard.

So, I'm actually doing pretty good with this thing...

2008-09-24T20:33:00.002-04:00

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/noframes/519.shtml

Yup, original fuel economy information for the 1985 Grand Prix with the 5.0L V8 and a 3 speed.

15/20. I'm getting that when I don't have roasted plug wires. Hoo-ray for matching the factory with a bigger engine, bigger camshaft, and 3.73 gears out back. Go me.

#$@#% ignition!

2008-09-24T16:04:00.002-04:00

So, last tank was a paltry 13.4mpg and it feels like the miss is back.

I go and inspect the plug wires. Two are burned up. TWO. These are supposed to be super-duper high-temp wires. Burned wires on on the passenger bank, so the O2 sensor didn't pick up on it.

Oh, and Edelbrock, your T.E.S. headers for G-bodies are SHIT. I'm sorry, but the passenger side header provides no way to get the damn plug wires to the distributor without running them dangerously close to the primaries. Technically, you owe me three sets of Accel Spiral-Core plug wires.

I've wrapped the burned up wires in electrical tape and tied them up against the valve cover. Hopefully they'll last until I can get some different headers. Wife's going to love this...

Andrew as a gerbil...

2008-09-13T21:51:00.002-04:00

Save the Richard Gere jokes. This was over at Icanhazcheeseburger.com. Topical, I thought.

15.2 mpg!

2008-09-11T15:40:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I got the timing control in the distributor. Prior to that, I had richened up the fuel map to get the car to run smoother, dropping my gas mileage into the low 14s and high 13s. After the first tankful using the computer-controlled timing, a tankful that included a lot of city driving, and lots of putting my lead foot into it trying to tune the upper parts of the fuel map, I'm back in the 15s.

I'm going to drive like a grandmother this tank and see if I can stretch it into the 16s. I've also reduced the authority on the closed-loop algorithm. While I was tuning the maps, I gave it 10% leeway in either direction, I've necked that down to just 5%. The swings are much reduced as seen on the wideband and in the datalogs, so hopefully that'll cut my fuel usage more.

Computer controlled timing!

2008-09-04T11:23:00.003-04:00

Finally, I've done it. During that horrible UK/UL football game Sunday, I did the board modifications to allow me to run a computer-controlled distributor.

I then spent three nights, probably 9 hours total, fighting with what I thought were bad HEI modules and coils. Turns out the instructions for modding the megasquirt had me use a resister on the tach circuit that was way too high impedance. I replaced the resister and it started right up.

I ran it around the block yesterday afternoon, and it ran great. Idles better, miss at cruise is gone, and the car can pull all the way to 5000 rpm with no spark scatter. Then it died. After sitting on the side of the road for a few minutes, It started again. I'm guessing an overheated coil. I changed the poop coil I had been using during the troubleshooting out for my good coil and made the drive in to work this morning with nary a hiccup.

Now to find some time to get over to Autolab and use their dyno.

15.4mpg

2008-07-10T10:27:00.002-04:00

Some more tweaking on the map netted me another 0.5mpg. That's an additional 3%. I may be able to gain a bit more by tweaking the cold start stuff, I think I'm richer than I need to be under warmup. The priming pulse is also too long and is flooding the engine, so that's wasted gas as well.

In August the Street Rods are coming to town. Hopefully I can score a 3.42 or 3.08 ring and pinion for my rear end. That'll drop my cruising revs a bit and fix the speedometer.

I also need bigger fans. I've seen the coolant temp as high at 230 degrees on a 92 degree day sitting still in traffic.

14.9mpg!

2008-06-25T15:41:00.002-04:00

Yes, lower than the 15mpg I posted earlier, but there's a caveat:

That 15mpg was 60 miles of highway driving. This 14.9 is 191 miles of mixed city driving.

Also, updates to this blog will probably slow down again. At 6:45 am on June 17, my daughter, Wednesday Judith Huffman Scott, was born. She was 8 pounds, 6 ounces, and 19.5 inches long. A week later sees her back up to her birth weight and the whole family is doing quite well. She is sleeping well, eating well, and has proven to be a poop machine.

Refinement

2008-06-16T11:02:00.007-04:00

Not being one to leave well enough alone, I set about trying to improve my erratic RPM signal. As you can see in this picture, the RPM (yellow plot, top graph) the Megasquirt has been reading has been really choppy. This can be due to lots of reasons, but the biggest is noise getting into the signal line.

After about 30 minutes of fiddling, a 10K ohm resister turned out to be the best at filtering out the noise without cutting off the signal entirely. You can see a huge difference in the graph below (again, yellow plot).

Fixed!

2008-06-10T10:00:00.002-04:00

Finally, after nearly two years, the car runs properly!

In addition to the plugwire I saw shorting the other night, one plug wire was disconnected. The car has been running on six cylinders for a long time. The plug was fouled something terrible.

I got the new shorty plugs installed last night, got the new wires and looms installed, and drove the car to soccer with my stepson. It has power now, like it should. It runs smoothly, like it should. I was seeing some pretty high temperatures last night (205 degrees coolant and 165 degrees intake air). I hooked the vacuum advance back up this morning, and that solved that problem. Not enough timing at cruise generates a lot of heat.

Oh, I also fixed the sticking rear brake. I took the drum off and sanded the shoes and the inside of the drum, then doused it all in brake cleaner, and cleaned the drum with carb cleaner. It still smelled like gear oil, I guess the stuff managed to embed itself in the pores of the metal. If the squeal and sticking comes back, I'll have to get that drum turned down a couple thousandths.

I'm pretty happy right now.

Parts parts parts

2008-06-09T11:58:00.004-04:00

Well, O'Reilly had everything. I got new plug wires, shorty header plugs, and a wire loom kit. $100, but it should hopefully end these recurring ignition problems, and hopefully bump the gas mileage a bit more. If it can get to 20mpg, these parts will pay for themselves quite rapidly.

Damnit!

2008-06-08T23:48:00.002-04:00

Way back on March 15, 2007, I detailed a burned up spark plug end that was causing a miss.

Well, it's happened again. I bought schmancy new high-temp 8mm Accel wires, and have them in the little fiberglass socks, and I still managed to burn one up. Found it again tonight with the idling-car-in-the-dark trick.

So, tomorrow, I'm off to O'Reilly to pick up another set of plug wires and hopefully they can order me some shorty spark plugs to give me more header clearance. Their web site says they have them but they have to be ordered. I may call Street 'n Strip and see if they have them in stock or not. Hopefully they do.

I disconnected the vacuum advance, too. Feels a little better until it gets hot and that plug starts shorting.

It's a miracle the catalytic convertor hasn't taken a dump yet. I'm going to have to check the oil, too. Stupid car.

15mpg!!!

2008-06-05T10:44:00.002-04:00

Woo-hoo! Drove sixy miles last night on four gallons of fuel. Yee-haw.

Finally, improvement.

13.2mpg

2008-06-04T13:18:00.002-04:00

GODDAMNIT!

Runs much smoother with the timing fix. I'll check back in after I go through another tank.

Timing is everything

2008-06-03T21:10:00.002-04:00

So, I'm almost through the first tank of gas since fixing all the fuel issues. I don't know the mileage yet as I haven't filled up, but it looks to be a bit higher than it was. I'm at 210 miles on the odometer with about a quarter tank left. After adjusting for the incorrect speedometer gear, that means ~175 miles on ~12 gallons, or 14.5 mpg. That's a vast improvement, nearly 50% over pre-fuel fix (10mpg).

Moving the bottleneck down to the next step in the ladder, I went outside today with my fancy timing light to check the timing. With the vacuum line off at idle, in gear, 12 degrees. Perfect. With the vacuum hooked up? 35. Oh snaps. Too high.

Rev the engine to around 2000rpm in neutral? FIFTY DEGREES of advance. That's way too much. I backed the vacuum advance off until it was 40 degrees at 2000rpm. That put it ~23 degrees at idle, and really smoothed things out a lot. We'll see how it drives on the way to work tomorrow.

Progress? I think yes...

2008-05-28T09:40:00.002-04:00

Verdicts after driving to work this morning:

No exhaust leaks when I started it, and it was colder this morning.
Thanks to the fixed exhaust leaks, the wideband was showing sane numbers
Valve tick is gone
I was crossing an AFR border on my target table on the way in to work today. I've raised my 16.0:1 AFR cruise block by one row to try and get a leaner cruise at highway speeds. The difference appears to be large. Using the calculated instang MPH in the log viewer, at 65mph, an AFR of 16.0:1 = ~24mpg. 15:1 = 17mpg. Its huge. Just hope running it at 16:1 doesn't melt anything.

Oh, and click on my google ads and send me pennies.

Moving along...

2008-05-27T19:48:00.002-04:00

Fixes from tonight after work:

Valve adjustment on #5 exhaust valve, got rid of a tick
New driver side valve gasket, should eliminate my only oil leak (so far)
Checked #5 plug (because it was easy to get to), looks good
Put a spring on one of the bolts to the driver side header to hold the flange tight when cold
Tightened a finger loose bolt holding the driver side header around #7.

Took a ride. Car starts wonderfully now since a cranking pulsewidth tweak during lunch at work. Dunno about peppy, which it really isn't, but some acceleration enrichment adjustments made it feel peppier, and it makes neat noises when you rev it in neutral. The wideband is no longer showing ridiculously lean conditions at idle, which was really an indication of a super rich condition (opposite day!).

We'll see how it does on the way to work. I just finished some dinner, I'm going to take a shower and look at the datalog from the drive home and see how the gas mileage was.

Well, drove it to work again...

2008-05-27T15:00:00.002-04:00

...plus to the Y and back during lunch, and just now got back from AutoZone. No fuel leaks. The annoying exhaust leak at the passenger header is back. I got some exhaust bolt springs at AutoZone, I'll try to get them on tonight and hopefully solve that leak once and for all. Then I can listen for leaks elsewhere and get rid of all the weird O2 readings.

Car's a dog again. It was kind of peppy the other night, but it's not feeling quite as spunky today. Then again, it's 20 degrees warmer than it was the other night, so that may have a lot to do with it. I also may have an ignition miss. Again. Fucking cars...

Snowballs

2008-05-24T23:38:00.002-04:00

A interesting tale of cause and effect:

I've been fighting with this Pontiac for a long time. I couldn't seem to catch a break. Stuff just didn't work right.

To catch everybody up, I've had massive fueling problems for awhile. Just way too rich. Gas mileage, which was near 15 mpg right after I put the Megasquirt on, had fallen to 10-12.

I'd found a torn diaphram inside my fuel pressure regulator. The tear was allowing fuel into the intake via the vacuum line on the regulator. Fixed that. Still too rich, even with the FPR backed all the way out.

I dyno'd the car, and got a stellar 109 hp. Not right. I took the car to an exhaust shop and had them look at the catalytic convertor. It was fine, but there was lost of unburned fuel in the exhaust tract.

I finally got a decent fuel pressure gauge, and pressure was pegged at 60psi at idle. Way too much. Then, to top everything off, it started leaking from a fitting at the fuel filter. I parked it. Tests with the new gauge revealed I had a restriction INSIDE the fuel rail.

So, today I pulled the rail off, filled it with carb cleaner, and blasted it out with compressed air. I put it back on. I then pulled the line that runs from the fuel filter to the fuel rail out of the car and re-did the AN fitting on the end. I put it back on. I hit the fuel pump relay with 12v to fire the pump and watched the gauge.

46psi. I'd done it. I took the car out for a test drive and when I got back, my heart sank. It was leaking from the filter still, plus a leak out of the schrader valve on the fuel rail.

I pulled the filter off, and found the problem as soon as I loosened the clamp. I was greeted with a fine spray of fuel from a crack in the filter. I replaced the filter and put it back on. I then pulled the schrader valve from the rail, slimed it with thread sealant, and put it back on.

Fixed. Finally. I hope.

So, to recap:

A small amount of dirt in the rail caused a restriction in the return line that forced pressure from the outlet of the pump to the rail to not drop below 60psi. Over time, that pressure tore the diaphram in the regulator, causing a massive fuel leak into the engine. Once I repaired the regulator, it burst the filter and compromised the seal on the schrader valve, causing leaks onto the ground and onto the top of the intake manifold. It's a miracle the thing hasn't caught fire yet.

A little dirt, months of frustration. Months. And wasted gas. 10mpg with $3.50 gas sucked. Now that it's $4, I'm glad it's fixed, and I hope it stays that way.

Blah

2008-05-18T09:28:00.002-04:00

So, I finally got my fuel pressure test kit and hooked it up. With the pump on, pressure in rail shoots to 60psi. Turn off the pump, and it drops to 20psi and holds, which is about where it should be with the regulator turned all the way out like it is.

I unhooked the return line and ran it into a bucket, same result, so the restriction is in the rail. Yippee.

I won an auction for another rail assembly last night. $23.50. Hopefully it isn't all full of crap like this one was.

On the bright side, the Datsun has been running beautifully. No smoke, good fuel mileage, though I can't tell exactly how good since the speedometer doesn't work. derp.

Yee-haw!

2008-05-07T11:06:00.005-04:00

Well, I drove the Z to work today. Vast improvement over the truck, though a radio would be nice to have.

No smoke. It's wonderful. I'll pay attention when I start it today to go home, but it looks like the new valve stem seals did the trick. Warm idle needs to be raised, but that's all that's wrong so far. I even got most of the interior panels installed last night.

For reference for anybody out there:

If you're rebuilding your Z-car head and using anything other than bone stock valvetrain parts, save yourself three head rebuilds, and throw out the standard valve stem seals. The seals you want are Fel-Pro part number SS 72686. They're for a Ford Capri V6. They fit the Z guides perfectly, and are much shorter than the stock guides, giving you lots more room for those thicker spring retainers and larger camshaft. They're also designed to be immersed in oil and still not leak, which is a big consideration if you use a high volume pump and end up with a lot of oil up in the valvetrain. Autozone usually has them in stock.

More gas on the ground...

2008-05-06T13:56:00.002-04:00

So, I started the Bucket up yesterday, and then moved the wife's car out from behind it. As I was backing out of the driveway, I noticed a puddle forming under the Bucket. That puddle was gasoline, leaking from the outlet of the fuel filter. Seems fixing the leaky regulator just pushed the problem to the next weakest link.

I've ordered a fuel pressure test kit to help me troubleshoot this. Until that comes, the Bucket is parked. Too much risk of a fire.

However, I did get the Datsun started again last night. A four month ordeal with that car has ended, and I now have a new cam, followers, and valve stem seals that don't leak. It started on the first turn of the key, and I ran the cam in for 10 minutes last night, then changed the oil. I'll probably have to change it again in a week or so to make sure I got all of the cam break-in lube washed out.

Hopefully I can put it back on the ground tonight, take it for a test drive to make sure I haven't missed anything, and start driving that to work until I get the Bucket fixed again.

Fixed again...

2008-05-01T10:43:00.002-04:00

Got the FPR diaphragm replaced. The one in the car had completely ripped off the spring assembly. Not good. It was an Accel adjustable kit. I put a GP Sorensen diaphragm in to it. We'll see how it goes. Car is running much smoother now, though acceleration isn't very good. I may have to get run a compression test on it and see if I did manage to wash out the rings.

I think I need a power resister for the fuel pump. With the adjuster backed all the way out, I'm running 60PSI of fuel pressure at idle. That's too much, and probably why the regulator failed. If anybody out there is an EE and can tell me a part number for a resister that can survive 30 amps and cut voltage from 14 to about 12, contact me.

Gas in the face is bad, m'kay?

2008-04-30T10:20:00.004-04:00

So, I took the car to the dyno again on Saturday. Wheezed out a stunning 109 horsepower and 200 lb-ft of torque. Gas mileage has also dropped like a rock. Fearing a fouled and clogged catalytic converter, I took the vehicle over to Bluegrass Muffler. The nice fellows there pulled the cat and called it good. They also put some heat shielding on my fuel lines and fixed a couple of leaks.

Fixing the exhaust leaks radically changed the AFR I was reading, and I started retuning the map.

Then, everything went wonky. Super-lean readings. Very strange. So, fearing some sort of malfunction that was dumping fuel into the cylinders and causing misfires, I ran to the store, got some oil, and changed it in the driveway. While waiting for the pan to drain, I noticed something dripping from the vacuum line going to the transmission.

It was gasoline. In the vacuum lines. Traced those back to the plenum, and then pulled the hose off the fuel pressure regulator, and got a healthy dose of gasoline sprayed on me. Diaphragm in the regulator has failed, car was getting a 60psi spray of fuel through the regulator's vacuum line right into the intake manifold. It's a miracle I haven't washed the rings out. I'm guessing the thing had been leaking a little for awhile, causing an over-rich condition. The exhaust leaks were letting O2 into the exhaust stream and causing further wonky AFR readings, which led the car running like crap.

Oil's changed, and I got a new diaphragm at AutoZone this morning. Hopefully I can get it back on the road this afternoon.

If it isn't one thing, it's another...

And the bottleneck moves down the line...

2008-04-11T16:09:00.002-04:00

Well, I will declare the wideband a success. Drastically leaned out the map, car runs very well, part-throttle acceleration is very good, and it pulls very hard with the loud pedal down. As a matter of fact, I was finally confidant enough in the upper parts of the map to finally stomp the gas at a stoplight.

A small amount of wheelspin and I was off. Then just below 4000rpm, the transmission tried to shift into second, and was having big problems. Slipping. d'oh. I'm also getting a lot of noise in the tach signal, so I think I'll need to replace the wire with a shielded one and throw in a resister. That's a pretty easy job.

Hopefully I can start back up on the doors soon.

Oh, the wonder of it all!

2008-04-09T11:13:00.002-04:00

And by all, I mean "neat eletronic toys."

I put a wideband oxygen sensor on the Bucket. It was a killer deal off an internet forum. An Innovate LM-1 wideband controller and sensor for $200. I scarfed it up immediately. That was two months ago. Last night, I had time and some nice weather, so on the car it went.

I had to make a cable to run the analog output from the wideband controller to the relay board, and getting the connector pushed through the grommet in the firewall was a pain, but it was a straightforward install.

I loaded up the Innovate software and remapped the analog output for 0-5v (10.0 - 20.o:1 AFR, linear), then set the stuff in MegaTune, and started the car.

Holy crap I've been running rich, no wonder the gas mileage has been lower than expected. It was idling below 10:1. Once I got the idle leaned out, I ran to Kroger to get the wife some sorbet, and ran MegaLogViewer's VE analysis against the log when I got home. Since it was a pretty short trip through the neighborhood, it didn't touch a lot of the map, but what it did touch has been leaned out dramatically.

I have band rehearsal tonight, so I'll be able to get about 30 miles of highway driving on it getting to and from Indiana. We'll see what happens to the map after that.

Doors!

2008-02-16T23:54:00.001-05:00

A long lapse in updates, mostly because not much has happened.

However, recently I got out of the stuck mode (really, I wasn't stuck, been working on more important things). A couple of weeks ago, I ventured out and straightened up the garage. The result of that, you can see here.

Today, I started sanding and priming the two new doors for The Bucket. One door is pretty much done on the outside. The other, I just ran out of Saturday. If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I should be able to get the second door post-prime sanded. At that point, I'll need to flip them both over and clean/scuff/prime the jams and the inside surface. At that point, they'll be ready for a seal coat.

Once the seal coat goes on, I can pull The Bucket into the garage, take the old doors off, clean up and prime the doorjams on the car, and finally hang these new doors. Then begins the hopefully not-long process of fixing a few bits of body rust and then prepping the rest of The Bucket for paint.

I also picked up another 200-4R transmission today. I'm going to buy a rebuild kit, and rebuild it myself. If I don't screw it up, it'll make a great spare for the Grand National, or I'll swap it into The Bucket, hopefully with correct speedometer gears.

Busy six weeks...

2008-01-08T15:02:00.000-05:00

The last six weeks have been brutal. I've been rehabbing the house with the help of my wonderful girlfriend, preparing it for her, her son, and our on-the-way baby. New carpet in the basement, new vinyl around the bar and in the kitchen, new paint in the kitchen, dining room, and the little boy's new room. I also had the tub reglazed and have been selling furniture left and right on Craigslist.

On top of all of that was Christmas. And on top of THAT, the car took a crap. The Megasquirt wasn't working right. I ended up buying a new one from DIYAutoTune. That, plus totally new ignition electronics and wires. I got the car back on the road last night.

What a difference a properly functioning ignition and computer makes. This thing is fast now.

I still need to paint my bathroom, trim the front room, and unpack/put away a ton of stuff. I'd also like to get the non-rusty doors on the car and start prepping it for paint.

All fixed!

2007-12-09T19:34:00.000-05:00

Transmission adjusted, finally. I got a new TV cable from the parts store, installed it, and it was still screwed up.

Turns out the steel inner cable was way too long. I had to shim it with a pipe fitting and small clamp. After that, I was in business. Shifts in the proper places. Downshifts on demand. Shifts at 4000 rpm under WOT, just like it should.

Powertrain is done.

I also fixed the grabbing right rear brake. It would grab hard when cold, resulting in noisy skids and the like. Half a can of brake cleaner and some sandpaper to get the contaminated brake pad material off the shoes and the inside of the drum solved the problem. The fast idle valve is also working now.

That out of the way, I'm turning my attention to my house. I've installed new vinyl and carpet in the basement, and new vinyl and new paint in the kitchen. I've cleaned the grout in the bathroom, too. Pretty soon, this place my look like less of a dump.

Updates...

2007-12-02T10:45:00.001-05:00

Been doing a lot of running around the past few days. Items that need attention:

TV Cable. It's fucked. The clips that snap it into the throttle side are all mangled. It's sort of flopping around, I think it may be contributing to my issues getting it adjusted.

Timing. It's pinging above 3100rpm. I think I need to take a couple of degrees out. I also think I may need some new plug wires.

Iterations

2007-11-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

I've been driving the Bucket all week on the new engine. Tuning with the Megasquirt has turned out to be and easy, but time consuming iterative process.

Basically, I drive somewhere and log the trip. During the trip, I try to run the car through as many throttle positions and loads as I can. When I get to my destination, I run the log through MegaLogViewer and have it re-analyze the VE table.

My first trip out, the car wouldn't spin past 3000 RPM. The map was just too out of whack. So far, I've got the VE map tuned out to 4200 RPM. Every time I analyze the log, the engine will spin a bit higher.

I'm also having issues with the TV cable adjustment on the transmission. It just isn't shifting correctly. There are also exhaust leaks on the headers, which are driving me insane. I think once I get the panels under the dash reinstalled, that might get a bit better. We'll see.

Almost through a tank of gas already. Gas milage seems to be abysmal, but I've been hammering on it and the VE table was crap, and the maladjusted transmission has the shift points all fucked up, so its been spinning higher in some cruise situations, so hopefully that will improve. Once I'm comfortable I have a table that won't blow the engine if I have to go WOT to pass something, I can start looking more closely at the cruise parts of the map and increasing fuel mileage.

Made it to work today...

2007-11-27T09:33:00.001-05:00

I made it in to work in the Bucket today. Last night, after my soccer game, I drove it around the neighborhood, fiddling with various spots in the VE map to get it to not stutter and stall accelerating from a dead stop. I then fed the log of that session into MegaLogViewer and used its VE analyzer to "fix" my VE table.

I then drove it all the way to work with no problems. 12 miles. Super sweet. The picture is a screen capture of the log from the drive in today. I ran the VE analyzer against the log from the drive in this morning, too. I'll load that table in the car when I head home from work.

The torque convertor lockup works, too! What's better, I got it's 12v power from the old choke line, so when the TCC locks up, the choke light on the dash comes on and lets me know it happened. I'm pretty pleased.

2007-11-24T19:30:00.001-05:00

It made it to the gas station and back again. Yee-haw.

GAHHH!

2007-11-24T16:28:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out I'm mildly retarded.

I've been fighting huge vacuum leaks this week. I replace the upper plenum and runner gaskets. Improvement, but still hear some pretty bad hissing. Turns out I didn't put O-rings on the driver side injectors. Derp.

Once I got that fix, bam. Vacuum leaks gone. Car starts. No hissing. Got it re-timed, and then it starts missing badly. Timing light shows that the poor thing is losing spark. Quick look at Megatunix, and I only have 10.8 volts coming out of the battery. An HEI module doesn't work very well below 12 volts. Turns out I left the pin I used to hold the brushes in the alternator down when I took it apart a few weeks ago. No brush contact with the stator = non functioning alternator.

Pulled the pin, put the battery on the charger. Going to give it an hour to juice back up and see where we are.

IT RUNS (again)!

2007-11-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at 3:10pm, EDT, the Bucket started for the first time under TPI/Megaquirt power. It was amazingly easy.

I just got finished installing some electric fans, so now I can let it idle long enough to warm up fully, and then start tuning it. Yee-haw.

Two days, lots of stuff...

2007-11-20T01:44:00.000-05:00

I had all day Sunday, hoping to button it all up and start it.

Not so much. Leaks. Bad leaks. I pulled the fuel rail and replaced the O-rings on the injectors. Put it back on, hit it with the fuel pump again. Pressure shot up. Way up. Pegged the gauge. Not good. Pulled it off and dismantled the pressure regulator. Whoah. Big mess. The passenger side passage from the rail to the regulator body was completely clogged with some kind of shit, and the little tube that connected them was badly corroded. A bit of time with the bench grinder and some oversized O-rings fixed that point. A new fuel pressure regulator top took care of the totally fucked internals.

So, buttoned it all up and hit the pump again. Pressure shot to 50psi, and then the regulator went into bypass, just like it should. Then gasoline started dumping out onto the ground right below the driver side door. The return line was rusted all the way through.

This morning, I stopped in over at Street and Strip and grabbed another ten feet of braided steel hose and ran a new return. No more leaks.

So, I put the upper plenum on, hooked all the wiring and vacuum lines up, and then looked at the heater hose problem. I was worried I'd have to splice a return for the heater core into the lower radiator hose, but I lucked out. The radiator I bought last year has a port on the tank for the heater core return. All I need is a length of 1/2" heater hose and I can fill it with water.

After that, I need four small bolts to attach the water pump pulley, and then I can start it. If it fires, I'm going to jump up and down like an idiot.

Hammer time!

2007-11-13T00:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I was really proud of myself. I went out to the garage after work, and again after my soccer game and some tasty Wendy's.

I wired the fuel pump and relay up. I fitted the fuel pressure gauge from the Buick onto the TPI rail so I could set the fuel pressure. I got the torque convertor lockup mechanism hooked back up, AND I hung the gas tank and put about a gallon into it (just what was in the lawnmower can).

Sensing near victory, I decided to run the fuel pump to pressurize the fuel system and see what I had.

What I had was a mess. One of the injectors is leaking, and the pressure regulator appears to be rubbish. As soon as the pump managed to suck some fuel out of the tank and actually pressurize the rail, the pressure shot up way past 60psi. Not what was supposed to happen.

Thankfully, I have a new regulator on the way. My air filter shipped from Amazon today. I'm going to have to pull the plenum off and pull the rail to replace the O-rings on that leaky injector, but that's not a horribly time-consuming job... I hope. Bonus is the regulator kit comes with a new set of upper plenum gaskets.

2007-11-12T10:36:00.001-05:00

Progress over the past few weeks. I've gathered all the pieces for the fuel system. I gave up on trying to mish-mash up stock pieces, and just went straight -6 AN all the way through.

The first pictures is a feed line to go from the inlet on the fuel rail to the fuel filter.

The second is a nice shot of the front of the engine, you can see my supply and return lines hooked up to the rail. I'm reusing the stock vapor return line as a fuel return. It's a 5/16" steel tube, so it should work for a return.

The third picture is my Walbro fuel pump. I'm running 3/8" rubber from the fuel tank to the pump, and then it's -6 AN from the pump outlet to the filter, and on to the rail.

The last picture is the filter itself. For anybody doing this conversion that may be reading, give up on an aftermarket filter. The ones that can handle EFI level pressure are hundreds of dollars and have ridiculously sized inlets (-8 AN and up). Get a $6 filter for a fuel injected GM product, and buy these adapters. The filter has 16mm O-ring style fittings. The adapters I used to convert them to -6 AN were available at my local speed shop.

What's left? My mental list is getting shorter all the time. I need to put the gas tank back in the car and hook it up. I need a working electric fan for the radiator. I need to find or borrow a fuel pressure gauge so I can set the rail pressure. I also need to splice a tee into the lower radiator hose for the return from the heater core. Then its tighten everything down, put some gas in it, and see if it'll start. Maybe sometime this week? If I'm lucky...

Parts a-comin'!

2007-11-08T13:53:00.000-05:00

The fittings for the fuel rails showed up yesterday. The fuel pump should be here today. Hopefully I can mount and wire the pump Sunday, and after that it'll be a matter of getting enough AN line to hook it all up.

I'm starting to get excited.

And on and on...

2007-11-05T13:35:00.002-05:00

New Walbro fuel pump and the exact fittings I need ordered, and they were $40 less than the mess I returned this morning. I'm walking on air.

Sweet!

2007-11-05T10:03:00.000-05:00

The auto parts store graciously accepted my return of the fuel pump I can't use and ten feet of fuel tubing I didn't use. $167 back into my checking account, and now I'm off to find a fuel pump that'll actually work.

And another...

2007-11-03T01:06:00.001-04:00

Transmission valve cable is in and adjusted.

Steps at a time...

2007-11-02T21:42:00.000-04:00

Well, the last two weeks have been a whirl, and not of things getting done on the car. But, I got back out there tonight.

I hooked up the fast idle valve, and got the throttle cable in.

For people looking to do this swap: use the accelerator cable from a 1989 Camaro (305, the parts store will not be able to get the cable for the 350... but they were the same). The hole in the firewall will have to be enlarged, the keyway nub must be ground off the part that clips into the firewall, and on the throttlebody end, some plastic must be removed so that the throttle plates will be able to open all the way.

The only electrical part left is the fuel pump. Unfortunately, the fuel pump I bought isn't going to work. If I can find the receipt, I'm going to take it back and use a Walbro 255. Fittings to adapt the fuel rails to -6 AN have also been ordered.

2007-10-14T22:43:00.000-04:00

Well, busy day. You can see the pictures. The Megasquirt in the floor, the relay board all hooked up, and the original fuel feed line on the ground. The hardest part? Getting that damn fuel line out. I still have to extract the old vapor return line. That's not going to be fun, either. I did manage to clean up some rusty stuff and hit it with Rustoleum. Hopefully that'll arrest it for at least a little while.

The battery is back in the car, and all the sensors except the TPS are hooked up. I still need to find a TPS connector. I'll be in D.C. next weekend. Hopefully I can hit a scrap yard after I get back and pick up a TPS plug. I've also made my hose list. Lots of fuel line and some vacuum line. I've already picked up a flaring tool and a tube bender, and a fuel filter. Two weekends from now should be a fun one. I'll mount the pump and filter, and run the fuel and return lines.

After that? Charge the battery while I'm putting the gas tank back in, put some gas in it, and try to start it. I loaded all the default settings for the Megasquirt into the computer today. The guy that designed the unit has a TPI Chevy, so all the default stuff is for that engine. It should be painfully close on the tune.

I also need to figure out how to mount my fast idle thingy. May have to drill and tap the throttle body. Stay tuned.

It's alive!

2007-10-13T18:15:00.001-04:00

Lookie here. A live screen from Megatunix, the Unix based Megasquirt software. The computer is alive and works. It's reading live data from the MAP, coolant, and air temp sensors.

I travelled to a junk yard this morning and grabbed an electric fan... which didn't work when I got home. I did get a fuel block-off plate, and the fan looks in good condition, I may be able to fix it.

I then spent the afternoon getting the upper plenum and throttle body instealled, and then wiring up the injectors, coolant sensor, and intake air sensor. I also soldered power and ground leads to the relay board and ran the cable into the passenger compartment to hook up the Megasquirt. I'm very happy to report that it'll easily fit in the passenger footwell compartment vacated by the factory computer.

Anyway, off to the S.O.'s for some much needed grub.

Mockup fun...

2007-10-12T15:56:00.001-04:00

Here you see a "something." This something is a very elusive something, so I'm going to type every descriptive term I can about it so that the next me that comes along can find the answer:

A vacuum advance HEI distributor will fit behind a TPI (Tuned Port Injection) setup.

I mocked up the tubes and upper plenum, and slapped the distributor in. It looks like I may even have more room to swing the distributor around than I had with the carb and old throttle brackets in the way.

I also started making a list of things I need. The way I have to route the upper coolant hose interferes with the mechanical fan, so I'm going to have to get an electric one. I need an EGR gasket and block off plate. I need a fuel pump block off plate. I'm hoping to take a trip to the junkyard tomorrow and see how much I can find cheap there.

I also have some other challenges.

Here you can see the front of the intake manifold, the top of the water pump, and the fuel line inputs. It's very crowded. I'm going to have to get clever in order to route the heater hoses and get the coolant temperature sensor wired.

More as I get further along...

Gawddamn!

2007-10-09T01:52:00.000-04:00

This car really gets my goat sometimes. The first picture is the computer harness. One would think that getting it out would be a simple matter of cutting the plugs off and yanking it out through the passenger footwell.

Ahhh, not so much. I had to remove all the bolts holding in the fenderwell in order to get enough room to undo the two 8mm bolts holding in the grommet. Got those out and pulled it through. The leaves and shit? Mouse nest. It was sitting on top of the harness. A lot of that landed on my face before continuing on to the ground.

The second is the intake manifold. Bolted in and torqued down. I think have at least 10 hours wrapped up in making the middle four bolt holes work. But they work now. Its on. Now I can stab the distributor back in and mock the upper plenum in to see if it'll clear.

Beyond that, the hard work begins. Dropping the gas tank and finding out why the tank overflows onto the ground before the pump at the gas station automatically shuts off. Then I get to rip out the old fuel lines and run new ones, and mount my new fuel pump.

And so it begins again...

2007-10-07T23:39:00.000-04:00

Finally moving forward towards getting my Chevrolet TPI system installed on the Pontiac. Here you see the case for the engine compartment relay board mounted where the electronics that ran something or other was mounted.

The relay board installed.

Here's some nasty dremel work. The intake manifold is for a 1987 and later Chevrolet. The engine in the car is a pre-'87, so I have to make some changes to the four inner manifold bolt holes.

Squirt!

2007-10-01T13:04:00.000-04:00

Here it is:

Yes, my MegaSquirt Fuel Computer. I will be using this wonderful device, a whole lot of wire, and a Tuned Port Injection setup from a 1987 Camaro on the Bucket. The GP will get fuel injection. Goodby carb, hello decent gas mileage.

Painful Zs....

2007-10-01T11:20:00.000-04:00

So, the Z broke two weeks ago today. I drove it to work that day. Coming off the highway on the way home, there was a violent bang and then some awful clanging and banging. I managed to limp it two blocks to the house, craw under it, and I see:

Yup, U-joint failure. Bad stuff. Not happy. Of course, I knew something like this was going to happen. The early Z cars had problems with this very thing. I actually already had the parts to prevent this in the bed of my truck.

So, I rebuilt the axles, and moved the diff back 30mm. This gives the halfshafts a straight shot from the diff to the hubs and eliminates this type of failure.

Purty pics:

Sanblasted parts

Powdercoating stuff

newly assembled axle.

The car is back on the road. It actually rides much nicer. Apparently straightening out the U-joint angles in the back also eliminates some vibration. I also had to get my driveshaft lengthened, and it was rebalanced as a part of that.

Wheel locks are bad, m'kay?

2007-09-11T14:30:00.001-04:00

Well, I lost the key to the wheel locks on the GP. Big PITA.

I then got sick. Five days of vomit and diarrhea. Not recommended. However, once that all passed, I hammered a socket on the wheel locks and twisted them off. I then proceeded to snug up a front right wheel bearing, inspect the front brakes, and replace the shoes on the left rear corner, as they'd become contaminated with axle grease.

I'm looking at new cylinder heads now...

Updates trickling in...

2007-08-07T20:00:00.000-04:00

It is hotter than a popcorn fart this month. Stupid hot. Icky-feels-like-you-are-sticking-your-face-in-an-oven hot.

As such, I'm happy to report that the A/C is still working fine. The new distributor is working great. The Autozone radiator I put in last summer is working fine, too.

I put new Bilstein shocks on it. Much better. Still getting a nasty vibration on certain sections of the Snyder. I'm chalking up to the body not being firmly attached to the frame behind the rear wheels.

I'm working on the Z again. Watch this space over the winter. I'm tired to half-assing it with that car.

Funness...

2007-07-13T16:04:00.000-04:00

I found this video on my hard drive. Thanks to the miracle that is YouTube, you can see it as well.

This is from an autocross in 2004. There's no sound, so don't jack up the volume expecting any. Could cause a surprise the next time a sound plays on your machine.

The truck

2007-07-12T09:11:00.000-04:00

No cool pictures today, because this subject isn't worthy of pictures.

That subject, of course, is my truck. Its a rusty truck. Its white. It has a red dash and seat, rubber floor instead of carpet, and nothing else. It is a 1984 Ford F150 regular cab, long bed. I bought this truck from a friend almost three years ago for $1000. It had the 5.8L (351w) engine, four barrel carb, long tube headers, dual exhaust, and made big noise. I drove that truck for four months. It would often break down.

Then one day is asploded. Started pouring smoke out of it. I managed to limp it home, as it popped less than three miles from the house. I had to pop it into neutral and rev it to keep it running at the lights, all the while dumping smoke and oil out the tailpipes. I got it home and parked it out of the way, and there it sat for 7 months.

Then I went to a junkyard. Right there in row five at Amen Auto Salvage was a 1977 Mercury Marquis. Painted accross the windshield were the words "Big block, runs." It wasn't really a big block, it was a 400 cubic inch Ford V8, which is technically a small block, but who's counting? Anyway, we got a battery and started it. It did run. It didn't knock or smoke. I bought the engine and the transmission from the yard for $450. They even pulled it for me.

Over the next four months, I cleaned up that engine, replaced all the gaskets, put new cam bearings in it, a nice Summit RV cam, and had the transmission rebuilt. Since then, the truck has run well, but not perfectly. It had an overheating problem I ascribed to the 23 year old radiator, and it leaked oil badly, which I ascribed to the oil pan my father made for me because a rear-sump pan for this engine was $300.

Well, I put a new radiator in it last night, and during that operation, I found a bolt hole in the front cover with a bolt missing. The source of the oil leak. I'm happy to report that with the new radiator and that hole plugged, it no longer gets hot, and it doesn't leak. I'm stoked. Now I can think about getting a trailer so I can tow the Datsun around.

Plugging leaks

2007-06-22T01:03:00.000-04:00

I fixed the axle seal leak.

This is the offending axle seal. I wasn't nice when I removed it.

This is the passenger side axle out of the car. My first GM axle removal. Surprisingly easy it was.

This is the new axle seal hammered into place. The brakes had been contaminated by gear oil, so I had to replace them as well. No photos of that, because I hate drum brakes, they hate me, and the install didn't go very smoothly.

The ultimate solution... and some more problems.

2007-06-20T21:31:00.000-04:00

Right here is the ultimate solution for my ignition problems. A whole new distributor. Sure, it's a Procomp, which means its Chinese crap, but for $69 shipped, I couldn't argue. My epileptic ignition timing is now rock steady, and the advance is better. Driveability way up, and car can now chirp second gear.

However, I noticed today that my passenger rear axle seal is leaking, so the rear end is going to have to come back apart. Nothing like an eight hour labor job to replace a three dollar part. Hooray.

Third ones the charm...

2007-06-18T15:43:00.000-04:00

Alternators hated me last Friday.

On the way to work, I started hearing this high pitched squeal, much like you hear from a television, but louder. I glance across the gauge panel and see the voltage gauge pegged at 18 volts. Ooops. The regulator in the alternator has failed, and the alternator is stuck on full charge. This isn't going to end well.

Then the noise stops, and the needle on the gauge sinks to 13. Battery voltage. The alternator has cooked itself.

Then the smell began. Burning rubber. The alternator seized. Then the belt jumped the pulley. thumpthumpthump.

I managed to make it to the NAPA on Bishop Lane. Popped the hood and whoah. The belt was wrapped around the fan, and the alternator was still glowing red. Ouch. I went inside and bought an alternator. After the burned one cooled enough, I pulled it off the car and took it inside. The NAPA guys swapped the pulley, I put the alternator on my car, and off I went.

Thirteen hours go by, and I'm almost back home after a soccer game. It was a depressing game. We lost 3-1. Belt squeal, dim lights, 10 volts on the gauge. Damnit. Lost another. Got it home, popped the hood, and the plastic fan on the alternator had melted. Once I got the alternator off the car, it was obvious what had happened. A spacer was missing behind the fan when the NAPA guy zipped the pulley on with his impact. The fan was pressed against the housing, and as it spun, it heated up, melted, sagged until it caught a bolt, and then stopped. The mainshaft of the alternator kept turning, and the shaft cut through that fan like a dremel through soft plastic, until it too, heated up and failed.

It's now Monday. Alternator #3 is on the car, with the proper pulley and fan. Lets all cross our fingers.

Air Conditioning!

2007-06-14T21:42:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a month since my last entry, and even longer since an entry pertaining to the Pontiac, but I finally have some news.

First, the car is running OK. Gas mileage is really bad (10-12mpg), and the speedometer is still way off.

However, I finally made some movement towards getting the A/C working.

Right there are my A/C lines. They leaked. New ones were ordered. Order was canceled because the part no longer exists. So, Roppels was nice enough to rebuild them for me. That done, I scheduled next Saturday for them to suck down and refill the system and set about putting everything back on tonight.

In this picture, you can see the compressor, the lines, and my new receiver/drier. It was about two hours of futzing, mostly getting the power steering pump to line up and buying a new A/C compressor belt at AutoZone. The A/C system is now back on the car. I also replaced the blower switch in the dash, as the existing one had the stem broken off. My next trip to Pull-a-part will have me nabbing a trim button for it and that'll be good as new.

Next Saturday the system gets recharged with wonderful R134a, and I'll be cruising in style and comfort... well, maybe comfort. I did wash it. At least the wheels are shiny again.

Long time, no updates...

2007-05-13T23:42:00.000-04:00

...and still no updates on the Pontiac. However, I have been busy.

I spent this past weekend at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. I entered my Buick into the Winged Warrior III Challenge, a performance auto event with all the proceeds going to the Riley Children's Hospital in Indy. Worthy cause, and the format of the event looked fun.

It was a three-segment points based competition. A drag race portion contributing 40% of the score, an autocross contributing another 40%, and a concours judging comprising the remaining 20%. Cars were classed according to modifications made.
The first picture is me launching on the drag strip. The car was wonderfully consistent, clicking off 13.5s at 102mph. Good enough for first place overall in my class in the drag race portion of the event.
The second picture is my car at the concours judging portion. Every car started with a perfect score, and then points were deducted for stuff. I had no points deducted at all.
The third picture is on the autocross course. The course they set up was huge. The average time was somewhere around 70 seconds. A normal course would be near 3o seconds long. It was a fun, but relatively simple course. Easy enough for newcomers to navigate without getting lost, but plenty of spots for experienced people to pick up some time. I finished fifth in my class in the autocross, being beating by MazdaSpeed Protoge NASA road race car, a Mini Cooper, and a few other much better handling, lighter cars. However, behind me were also much lighter, better handling cars.

However, at the end of it all, the dominating performance on the drag strip, the perfect car show score, and the surprisingly competative autocross performance granted me the overall first place in my class. The trophy is huge, and it's actually silver-plated metal, no plastic.

Pictures...

2007-04-13T08:35:00.000-04:00

So, I finally found my camera. Here's the rust repair pictures I promised. The first is, obviously, a big nasty rust spot. Second is the hole I cut out, and the third is the patched hole.

On top of this, I finally got my second new speedometer gear in. Speedometer went from reading 25% high to 20% high. An improvement, but not good enough. Unfortunately, I'm all used up on available driven gears. I'm going to have to change the drive gear inside the transmission, which is going to be a royal pain in the ass.

Carpet is in

2007-04-08T19:41:00.000-04:00

I got the new carpet in. As expected from a $79 J.C. Whitney replacement carpet, it didn't quite fit perfectly. However, it fit well enough. It made all the difference in the world. The interior of the car no longer looks old and junky. It still looks old, but not as junky.

I also removed most of the stains the seats with GooGone while I had them out. The new seats didn't go in. I still need to make some adapter brackets, but I needed to get car back on the road. Maybe when the weather warms up.

I also took a moment this weekend to put new pilot jets and pilot adjustments screws into the carbs on the 240Z. I think I've eliminated a pesky carb backfire. We shall see on Sunday.

And... Happy Easter.

Rust rust rust...

2007-04-02T11:00:00.000-04:00

So, I set out early Sunday morning to replace the carpet and seats in the GP. Got the seats out, pulled the carpet easily enough, and there it was. Rust. A spot, about a foot back from the front of driver side door opening. Stuck my finger right through it.

Thirty minutes later, I had cut out a 5"x6" section with the grinder. Bolted the driver seat back in, and headed over to my Dad's to use his welder. An hour after that, the floor was patched. I headed home. I have pictures, I'll have to upload them tonight.

Pulled the seat back out, went to mock up the new Camaro seats in. And... they don't fit. 1" too narrow. I have some very generous friends, though. They think they can get me some leftover 1/8" plate I can cut into adapters. Until then, I'm driving the truck, though I may get out the Z tonight.

Results from Sunday!

2007-03-28T12:42:00.000-04:00

Sunday's race went very well. I sucked as a driver, but the car performed perfectly.

Actual event results are over at KYR's website.

I didn't place very well, second from last in my class, but there's always an explanation. Mine is I couldn't drive yesterday. Every attempt to use the loud pedal resulted in large amounts of wheelspin and general uncontrollableness. I was also the only car in my class not on race rubber. I spun three times in my first run, and my best run didn't even crack the top 50% of raw times.

The next event is on the airfield at Fort Knox. I'll have the r-compounds on, and that place has a lot more grip. I should do better.

On the its-a-small-world-after-all front, I ran into the father of a very old, very good friend. Hadn't seen him or my friend since early 2000. Good to get connected again.

Anyway, I think this brings our detour into the land of Datsun to a close for a while. This weekend, I plan to replace the seats and carpet in the Grand Prix. Expect photos of really nasty things. There's a huge lump in the carpet under the passenger seat. That lump does not have a corresponding dent in the floorpan as seen from underneath the car. I have no earthly idea what could be in it. I will be wearing gloves and eye protection when I cut into it, though.

In other news, my Grand National was accepted into the Winged Warrior Challenge (Link), to be held May 12 at O'Reilly Raceway Park (formerly IRP). It's a combination Drag/AutoCross/Concourse event, with proceeds going to charity. Looking at last year's results and the cars in my class this year, I'll be firmly mid-pack on the quarter-mile, probably lower third in the Autocross. I'll just have to make sure the thing is very clean and make it all up during the concourse judging.

Here it is

2007-03-24T22:00:00.000-04:00

Well, here it is. Dash back in the car, ready for tomorrow's Solo II event. The unsightly wiring you see hanging under the steering wheel is my fault. I cut two wires too short, and the bunch won't tuck up behind the dash. I'll have to lengthen those two wires later this week.

For the first time since I've owned the car, all of the heater controls work. I have a circuite left, which I'm going to use to put a radio back in the car.

I drove it to Lowe's and returned some stuff I hadn't used. I'd forgotten just how violently fast this car is. Driving the Grand Prix makes it even more apparent. Lights have also never been brighter on this car. I'm really, really happy right now.

Z's alive!

2007-03-24T00:23:00.000-04:00

Got the dash back in tonight and started it.

All the lights work, the tach works, volt gauge works. Autometer lights work, but the speedometer's do not. Going to have to pull it back out and figure out what's up with the Speedometer lights, or maybe I just didn't ground the gauge housing well enough.

Anyway, it needs coolant, and I need to figure out how to get the water temp gauge sender installed. H&S actually has a good selection of metric pipe fittings, so hopefully I'll get lucky.

Fun times in Belmar

2007-03-23T02:16:00.000-04:00

Big progress this week, I've completed all the wiring necessary to run the car. Here I have pictures of the back of the dash, the front of the dash with all the gauges (yes, I know the three little ones are crooked, I'll bend them straight once it's in). The last is the passenger floorpan near the MSD.

The only things left are:

1) Wire up the heater
2) Wire up the wipers
3) Hook up the heater core and refill the radiator
4) Put the dash in, and start the car.
5) Hammer

Complicated combination switches are teh debil

2007-03-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

The car came apart way too easily. Saturday and Sunday were almost entirely taken by figuring out the five-thousand terminal, thirty position switch set that does the turn signals, brakes, and hazard flashers.

Finally finished those tonight. I also have the starter working and the fuel pump.

Left to do? The gauges, headlights, corner lamps, and the alternator.

Purty, purty

2007-03-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

Lots done tonight before my 9:30pm soccer game. I managed to remove the heater box, pull the heater core, and flush it out. Lots of nasty rusty stuff inside. I flushed it until the water ran clean, so hopefully it'll be less crappy now.

This picture is the dash. I've removed all the stock gauges and the wiring, and so far have installed the new tach and the water temperature gauge. I'm making little mounting brackets from a piece of sheet steel left over from the ductwork on my furnace. The speedometer is still installed in this picture. I pulled it after I got home from my game, dismantled it, and cleaned it. It looks much better now.

A sideshow of sorts...

2007-03-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

My 1970 Datsun 240Z is a classic. My example carries VIN HLS30-00303, the 303rd chassis built, finished sometime in November of 1969. It was among the very first two or three shipments of the now-famous Z car to the United States.
My example was uncovered by my good friend, Emohn, several years ago. We went in on the car together with bright hopes of turning it into a GRM $2003 challenge car. As we learned more of the history, and wrestled with some of the problems of it having sat for seven years, that hope was extinguised. I eventually bought out Emohn's half, and now this car is my full-time autocross car.

I've put most of my time and money into the engine and the suspension, to great benefit. The car is a rocket, handles well, and is an absolute blast to drive. While I can't compete for first in my class, I'm never last. In SM2, that's an accomplishment by itself considering the age.
However, all is not rosey. The wiring is original, and it sucks. I had two electrical fires inside the dash last season. Both times, I band-aided it, but no longer. I was finally forced to deal with the problem when the alternator could no longer keep the battery charged. The alternator is brand new, the voltage regulator is brand new. Something in the harness is drawing so much power, the puny 50 amp alternator simply can't keep up.

The first picture is the dash. Looks nice from here.

The second is after removing the heater controls and the dashplate against the window.

The third is the dash out of the car. In the center is the heater box. That's coming out next. The core is clogged, and the thirty year old hoses that feed it are cracked and leaking. Once I got the dash out, I spent an hour and a half wrestling the engine-side harness through the firewall and out of the engine bay. It sucked.

The plan now, after getting the heater core spiffed up, is to mock in the new fuse panel, and get a GM 90 amp alternator mounted. I'm going to keep the interior harness that feeds the dome and rear lights. Being inside the car, it's not in very bad shape. The engine side will be completely replaced with new wire all the way out to the front turn signals and headlights. The dash will also be getting new(er) Autometer gauges. I have a 5" tachometer, oil pressure, volt, and water temperature gauges to replace the intermittently working stockers.

It will be a very busy weekend. I have to have this thing back together and running by 8am on March 25.

Oh, and Louisville beat the snot out of Stanford today. Go Cards!

garage cleanout, a segue.

2007-03-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

I considered starting another blog, but then I realized I really didn't feel like it. I'm lucky enough to actually have a few people that read this thing, and dividing their (and my) attention probably wouldn't do any good. So, 85gp.blogspot.com is temporarily becoming 240z.85gp.blogspot.com (no, I didn't register that, don't try to go there).

I made good use of this evening. I needed to get started on the rewiring the Datsun. Before I could start that, I needed to clean up the mess from the Grand Prix. You've seen the pictures of the scrap in the truck, now behold the pictures of the cleaned up garage. This first picture was taking from the man-door looking towards the back.

The second picture is right up the middle.

The third is from the right side, looking left along in front of the workbench.

This is a gigantic improvement. I'm very happy. Another post is coming shortly...

Small problem, don't you think?

2007-03-15T00:12:00.000-04:00

What you see here is the reason for a lot of problems. A vibration caused by what I thought was a driveline imbalance; lower than expected power; crappy fuel mileage...

All from one bad plug wire.

What you see on the left if MY plug wire. On the right is a new plug wire. Notice a difference? It wasn't pushed all the way down on the plug, and melted against the header. The kicker was I have these little fiberglass things over the plug wire ends to protect them from the heat, so I couldn't see the melted plug wire end. My Dad found it, indirectly.

You see, I had a coloscopy today, so I wasn't supposed to drive. So, my Dad drove me home in my car. He noticed the vibration and since he's older and smarter than I am, he said, "That feels like a miss, do you have new plug wires on this thing?"

Of course I didn't. They were the plug wires that came with the car, which the previous owner had recently replaced.

"How do you find a bad plug wire?" I inquired.

"Start the engine in the dark and look for sparks." answered. Duh.

So I did, and there it was, bigger than shit. Ventured to the Autozone that doesn't close until midnight, got a new set of wires, and replaced the burned up wire. Car idles smooth as glass now, and I pulled it in first all the way to 5000 rpm on the way back home from the gas station.

The real kicker is gas milage. Adding the vacuum advance bumped it from 9.5 to 10.8 miles per gallon. Fixing a cylinder that isn't firing at all, into which gas is pouring and then simply being pushed out into the exhaust manifold, will have a HUGE impact on that.

I'm so happy, I could do a little dance or something... but I won't.

Spring cleaning...

2007-03-11T20:50:00.000-04:00

Well, I didn't start on the Datsun today. I had an interesting morning. Not paying attention while moving the truck resulted in my hitting the steps to my porch, completely destroying said steps. So, I had to rebuild the steps. The process of getting my tools together to repair the steps, I decided the garage was too much of a mess to continue.

Five hours of work with the help of a good friend:

That's the spot in the garage that was cleared out. Before today, that section was completely full of crap.
Here's a shot of the crap.
Here's more of the crap. There was a lot of crap. I'm hoping to get at least $50 for this crap at the recycler.

Here's more of the crap. There was a lot of crap. I'm hoping to get at least $50 for this crap at the recycler.

Oh yeah!

2007-03-09T19:43:00.000-05:00

New vacuum advance module, 12 degrees initial static advance, and holy moly. Mash the gas and there's no hesitation.

Folks, we have a car. I'm going to Dayton tomorrow with a friend to help him haul back a shitload of arcade equipment, but Sunday begins a new project: a complete re-wire of my 1970 Datsun. Racing season is coming up fast, and I need to get that done.

Once that's finished, we'll be back on the GP. New carpet. New Seats. New doors. Maybe even a booming stereo, since it's a hoopty and I already have a phat Alpine V12 amp and 12" Solobaric collecting dust.

More stuff...

2007-03-08T21:59:00.000-05:00

Okay, quick five minutes after work today is all it took to re-set the timing. I added two degrees and took it for a spin. Incrementally better again.

Also in the mail was delivered another speedometer gear. Two more teeth. It'll help, but I'm not sure it's going to make the speedometer accurate. Hopefully it'll get close enough for horseshoes and/or hand grenades.

From the Speedometers suck department:

2007-03-06T10:21:00.000-05:00

I replaced my speedometer driven gear last night. My speedometer is still wrong. Damnit.

First off, I jacked the car up, and I got the cable undone. Getting the housing that holds the gear out was a bitch. I finally had to just grab it with some channel locks and twist the bastard out.

Once I had it out, I peered in the hold. CRAP! Orange drive gear. Orange is 11 tooth. I had done all my math hoping it was a 10 tooth gear. My 29 tooth driven gear wasn't going to be right. It'll be closer than the 24 tooth gear that was in there, but it won't be right. I had it apart, and I decided to put it in anyway.

Except I have messed up the threads on the housing with the pliers. Off to H&S hardware to get a thread file. While I was there, I also grabbed some new bolts for the exhaust.

At home, I cleaned up the threads on the housing, and put it all back together. I also replaced three of the four exhaust bolts, and tightened them down. Less leaking now. If I keep this up, I might have a bug-free car in two years or so.

Off to order another speedometer gear...

Coil is fixed!

2007-03-05T10:11:00.000-05:00

I had another ignition coil laying around the garage, so I swapped it in last night.

Big difference. Idle smoothed out, and the car pulled easily right on past 4000 rpm to 5000 in a second gear pull. Also got much less water vapor out of the exhaust when I started it this morning, which tells me I'm dumping much less unburnt fuel. Still need to do a third gear run, but that takes the car up around 90mph, and that's slightly illegal. I'll need to find a safe place to do that.

I'm going to replace the speedometer gear tonight, I hope.

Here it is...

2007-03-01T21:05:00.000-05:00

This is it, my dyno sheet. Well, it's one of them. It's one with the highest horsepower number. That number is... 101. Yes. Just 101 horsepower. All this work, and 101 horsepower. Pretty shitty, but there's a silver lining. I'll get to that in a minute. First, I'm going to talk about my day at the dyno yesterday.

First, I get there. Get the car strapped down. Ask them to use the inductive pickup for RPM.

Blank stares. They've never done that. They always set the things to use roll speed. You drive the car in the test gear, hold the car at 2000 rpm, and the computer does some math and can infer the crank RPM from the wheel RPM. This works great with cars that have clutches. The crank is physically connected to the wheels.

Not so much with an automatic. Torque convertor slippage makes roll-speed derived readings inaccurate. I wanted accurate. So, I asked them to call Mustang and ask. Two hours later, we had a good answer, and the inductive pickup was working. So, we made a pull.

Negative horsepower and torque. Crap. Got good air/fuel numbers though, so we ran another part-throttle run. Again, negative torque, but good air/fuel. Amazingly, the air/fuel ratio is spot on at WOT and part throttle. I was quite happy.

So, we reset to use roll speed to get some better horsepower and torque numbers. The first pull yielded this sheet. 101 horsepower, 183 lb-ft of torque.

I added two degrees of timing, we pulled again. 98 horsepower. Subtracted four degrees, ran again, 96 horsepower. Mostly, power decreased due to the engine getting hot from the pulls. So, we packed it in for the day. Because of all the trouble, they didn't charge me full price, which was nice of them.

However, when I got home, I saw something amazing. On the second run, the run where I put two more degrees of timing in, the car picked up twenty three pound feet of torque. Secondly, the torque and horsepower are dropping off sharply above 3000 rpm. This points to two major problems: the engine wants more timing and the ignition is flaking out above 3000 rpm.

New HEI modules are $8. Fixing the timing is going to take a new vacuum advance module, and a few minutes with my dad's fancy timing light and my assortment of distributor springs and weights. I'll post the results as soon as I have them.

In other news, my speedometer gear showed up, and so did my carpet. The carpet is the wrong color, but screw it. It's still gray, it won't look too bad, I'm putting it in anyway.

tingtingtingtingtingting...

2007-02-26T07:12:00.000-05:00

Well, at certain RPMs, the flexplate is still contacting the cover somewhere. Damn damn damn...

Odds 'n ends

2007-02-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

With major mechanical operations now completed, attention turns to the little annoying things.

Today, the annoying things that were scratched from the to-list were the flexplate cover and the driver side exhaust leak.

The flexplate cover was a pain. I had two OE plastic ones, and neither fit. Apparently I bought the wrong flexplate, and it's too big around for the stockers. So, I called Jeg's and got a chrome cover for a TH350 or 400. It fit better, but was still contacting the flexplate in one spot. I spaced it off the bellhousing with three washers and moved on.

The leak was at the junction between the driver side header and the tube that runs under the engine over to the cat. The donut gasket wasn't thick enough, and the pipe was contacting the oil pan, causing some misalignment at the flange.

Ten minutes with a ball peen hammer solved the clearance problem, and the nice guys at O'Reilly managed to dig up a thicker gasket, which I shoved in.

I also drained the 500-mile break-in oil and dropped in four quarts of Rotella and one quart of Mobil 1.

I started it, exhaust leak gone. There's still another on the passenger side, but we'll leave that for another day. Tonight I get to take it out on the highway to a soccer game and the grocery store.

Done, sort of, again

2007-02-24T23:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, got up this morning, and got the brakes together rather quickly. No big problems.

Then came putting the gas tank in. Well, not so much fun. The new tank was just a smidge larger than the old tank, and the straps didn't fit around it. After FOUR HOURS of laying on my back, bench pressing the tank up, lodging my knee on it to keep it there, and fumbling around, I managed to get the bolts run in.

I hate gas tanks.

I then put the gas in it, and drove to the Carl Casper Custom Auto Show. Of course, it had started raining, hard. The car spins the tires at will in the wet. Yippee.

On the way back from the show, I was driving down Preston, and scared the crap out of myself. I was driving past a known speed trap, looked down, and saw the speedometer reading over 55 miles per hour. I was in a 35... but not passing anybody. D'oh. Speedometer is off. I was prepared for it to be off, but not by this much.

After getting home and crunching the numbers, the speedometer should be reading about 44% FASTER than I'm really going. I've ordered a new speedometer gear. Until it arrives and I can put it in, I'll be taping this into the car:

Gear	Speed	RPM	Indicated
3	25	1206	36
3	35	1689	50
3	45	2171	65
4	45	1455	65
4	55	1778	79
4	65	2101
4	70	2263

Yes, a cheat sheet showing the gear I'll be in, the actual speed, the engine RPM, and the indicated speed. As you can see, simply poking about on the expressway at 65 is going to have the speedometer pegged to the pin (it only goes to 85, indicated speed at 65 would be 93).

Should be a blast.

I hate drum brakes with all my body and soul

2007-02-23T23:56:00.000-05:00

It has been a very busy day today. I crawled out of bed around 9:30, ate some toast, and ventured outside. My first task for the day was swapping the carburators between the truck and the Pontiac. The truck came with a 600cfm Edelbrock, and I put a 500cfm Edelbrock onto the Pontiac last summer.

With the new engine, the Grand Prix was very under-carb'd, and the truck always had been over-carbed. That's all changed. A scant two hours, and both vehicles were running again, with idle and chokes properly re-set. Idle quality on both was greatly improved. A drive in the Pontiac to O'Reilly to get some bushings revealed a completely different car.

So, with that done, I set upon the rear axle. I had to replace the upper control arm bushings, which I had to buy. I have a set somewhere in the garage, but I couldn't find them.

Anyway, they weren't coming out easily. I ended up cooking them with a propane torch to chunk up the rubber, then collapsing the outer sleeves with an air hammer, then beating them out with a ball-peen hammer. Installation of the new ones was accomplished with the same ball-peen hammer.

The next task was removing the 2.29 third member from the GP. Taking it out was actually very easy. The part that sucked is visible in the first picture. My gas tank was leaking, and not at someplace easy to fix. In the picture you can see an upper water line of sorts. Fuel was seeping through the pinch welded seam of the tank. That isn't fixable. So, I piled in the truck and headed up the road to Roppels. That was when I realized the truck was now a completely different animal. Throttle response was better, it ran smoother, and the transmission was shifting in the right spots. It was wonderful. What a difference having the proper sized carb makes. Amazing. Remember kids, before you buy that 1000cfm Road Demon for your 3.8L six, be assured it will run like shit. More is not better.
$170 later, I had my new tank. That's it in the second picture, with a nice coating of whatever paint I had at the time. The tank came in bare steel. To keep it from rusting and eventually looking like shit, I painted the bottom with the last of my can of satin black RustOleum, and the top with the last of my Rustoleum hammer finish gray.
The last picture is the new rear in the car. yippee...

Anyway, after a nice dinner consisting of a 6 oz. filet, green beens, and rolls, I headed out to put the rear drum brakes back together.

Holy shit I hate drum brakes. Putting the parking brake lever back onto the cable? Nearly impossible. Took me two hours to get them both. After that, reassembly on the passenger side was pretty straight forward, except for those damn capped springs that hold the shoes to the backing plate. They pissed me off, too.

I finally had to give up and come in around 11pm, though. It was getting cold, and I was missing a very small piece from the driver side. Hopefully the morning and some fresh eyes will let me find it. Once I find that, I can toss the new tank in and put it back on the ground.

Pictures again!

2007-02-22T22:33:00.000-05:00

Well, camera was charged, so here are some pictures. The first one is an image of my new seats. Very good shape they are. I think I'll have to swap the tracks with the seats on my car, but that shouldn't be a big deal.
This second picture is my new rear axle. It is #3 on tomorrow's to-do list. First is getting up early and heading to Hi-Way to fix the exhaust leaks, then swap carbs, and then this guy. Lots of work will this guy be. I have to swap the drum brake hardware from my current assembly, and then swap the assemblies themselves. I also have to beat out the UCA bushings you see in the pictures in the ears on the top of the pumkin. That is not going to be fun or easy.

No pics, but...

2007-02-21T13:26:00.000-05:00

Camera was dead last night, so no new pictures.

However, I did pop the back off the new differential, drained the nasty stuff, cleaned up and painted the cover, filled it with Redline 75w90, and put the cover back on. Also managed to get the old wheel cylinders off, and one of the lower control arms. Next is to get the other LCA off, and swap the UCA bushings that are pressed into the housing.

My new seats showed up today, and they're purty. The gray is going to match almost perfectly. Now to order new carpet...

Snow, snow snow

2007-02-17T16:01:00.000-05:00

Yes, snow today. Not quite as cold as it was yesterday (11F, ouch), but snowing. The dog is loving it, I'm stuck inside watching basketball and NASCAR.

However, all is not lost. Yesterday, my Federal Income Tax refund hit. Tack on the fact that payday was Thursday, and I have a bit of a chunk sitting in the bank right now. So, naturally, I had to spend some of it on car parts.

Item one was a pair of very nice seats. Scored on EBay, they're a nice set of tweed and leather buckets from a 1LE Camaro, and they're gray. The significance of the 1LE designation is large. 1LE was an option code for 80s F-Bodies that gave you a lot of go-fast parts. You got larger brakes. You got higher durometer rubber bushings in all the suspension parts. You got a baffled gas tank that could be run down to almost completely empty without having to worry about the pickup starving due to fuel slosh. And, you got more durable, better supporting seats. The tweed doesn't wear like the regular GM cloth, and the leather is high-quality and in places where it won't crack.

Items numbers two, three, and four are on the way from Jeg's. First up is an Edelbrock Carb calibration kit. A nice assortment of jets and springs and other pieces for the 600CFM performer carb that will be transferred to the car from my truck. Once the weather gets better and I get the new rear axle in, I'll be getting an appointment at the dyno and will actually take the time to tune the car.

Second up is a bracket kit for the carb that will allow me to properly connect the cruise control to the throttle linkage.

Last up is a flexplate cover.

Next weekend is supposed to be in the 50s, I'm planning on making it a busy weekend.

And on a completely unrelated note, have you seen the lastest iTunes commercial? That song, Flathead by the Fratellis. Insane. I grabbed the album last night, and it's one of those you simply cannot turn up loud enough. Amazing. Highly recommended.

FastAr!!!11

2007-02-12T10:42:00.000-05:00

Well, got bored yesterday and worked on the car some last night. The goal was to fix the choke and the TCC lockup, neither had been working properly.

A bit of testing with the multimeter found that I'm retarded. An electric choke is nothing more than a heater. I didn't think about this, and spliced the choke and the TCC lockup into the same switched 12V line. The result? Voltage grounded through the choke, TCC clutch got nothing.

So, fished the original choke lead out of the harness, and plugged it up to that. Used the other 12V lead for the TCC lockup.

My next adventure was checking the TCC lockup's vacuum switch. When I plugged the Mity-Vac into the line off the carb, it wouldn't hold vacuum. Turned out the distributor vacuum advance module had failed. I checked the damn thing before I installed it, but it would appear that use has torn the diaphram. No biggie, I didn't really need it anyway. I recurved the distributor based on results from an engine simulator. I pulled the line off and just hosed the timed port to the TCC lockup vacuum switch.

Lo and behold, the car performs much better now. Much peppier at the low end. Still a little sluggish on the top, but I think the carb is too small. TCC Lockup works now, but only with the engine almost at idle. Seems that the cam isn't generating enough vacuum at part throttle (the switch needs to see 10" to close). I'll pull the switch off tonight and set it closer to 5".

Where's my decoder ring?

2007-02-11T14:18:00.000-05:00

Since it was Sunday, I had nothing better to do, and it was cold so I wasn't going outside, I decided to sit down and decode all the Regular Production Option (RPO) codes on the trunk sticker of this car.

Amazingly, there were not a whole lot of surprises. The car is actually a high-optioned grannymobile. There were a few codes I couldn't find any information on, but the important stuff was all there.

Notable exemptions? Well, this car was optioned with a THM 200 transmission (RPO MV9). I pulled a THM 350C out of it, so the transmission has been replaced.

It was also optioned with an AM/FM Auto Reverse Cassette (RPO UK5), but when I got it, it just had an AM/FM radio. I thought it odd at the time that a Brougham with the gauge cluster, A/C, and Cruise would not have had a tape, and that oddity has been confirmed. Somebody ganked it.

The ratty 2.29 rear gear ratio has been confirmed again, and the VIN decodes properly.

I really want it to warm up. I need to get this new rear end installed... and fix the cruise control... and find out why the torque converter isn't locking...

On the road again...

2007-02-05T13:00:00.000-05:00

or finally, rather.

Drove it to work today. Had a good weekend with it. Drove it to sleeves Ric's party Saturday. It did OK. Well, no, it ran like crap. No fourth gear still, idle all fucked up. I pulled over at a gas station on the way home and adjusted the TV cable again. Voila! Fourth gear.

When I got home, I went to work on the carb. Set the mixture and fixed the low idle. Started it stone cold Monday morning and fixed the high idle. I also tightened the left upper control arm. It got loose and all the shims fell out. No biggie, alignment appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning, 8am. After the alignment is done, I'll be hitting up an exhaust shop to take care of my two leaks. I have some vibration low in the RPM range, I think it's the exhaust hitting the cross member under the engine, which the exhaust leak fix hopefully will space that tube down away from the oil pan and cross member.

It's really great to be driving around with a radio again. I missed my XM badly.

On the ground again...

2007-02-02T21:25:00.000-05:00

I've just lowered it to the ground, filled the transmission, and started it again. No major leaks, ticking is reduced more, but not gone.

Tomorrow I go to get my new rear end. Maybe, if I'm crazy, I'll actually try to install it in the frigid weather we're going to get this weekend.

Fixy, fixy

2007-01-31T02:07:00.000-05:00

Well, went outside again tonight. The outside temperature when I started was 17 degrees fahrenheit, and 14 when I stopped. Temperature inside the garage was somewhere in the low 40s.

However, it was productive. I found the loose rocker arm that was ticking. I found out what was shifting in the front (brake pad was missing a shim, found said shim on the floor), and installed my TCI Torque Convertor Lockup Kit.

Only thing stopping me from filling the transmission and starting the car was a vacuum line, or rather my lack of one. I need about five feet of 3/16" vacuum line to run from the carb down to a vacuum switch that clicks off the TCC when you mash the gas.

I also need to find a switched 12V lead under the hood to run to the transmission, and splice a second line into the brake switch. This picture is the valvebody on the transmission after installing the TCI kit. I know I said no more camera phone pictures, but I didn't have the good camera on me, so you're going to have to live with it.

Huzzah!

2007-01-29T23:58:00.000-05:00

Scored a new rear end. 3.73 Positrac from an '88 Monte Carlo. $350, running up to Bloomington, Indiana, to grab it Saturday.

Yay me.

It's done, sort of

2007-01-28T14:45:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is. Hood back on, slightly rinsed. Finished up yesterday. I've put about 30 miles on it, and the list of shit left to fix is decently small, but still frustrating.

There's something shifting in the front left when you step on the brakes, I think the UCA is a little loose. There's a tick coming from the passenger side of the engine, I'm hoping it's just a loose rocker. There are exhaust leaks where both headers meet the exhaust, it won't shift into fourth, and it's still a dog. A quick check of the RPO codes on the trunk sticker shows a rear axle ratio of 2.29, which explains the dogginess. The search for a 3.42 starts now.

It's too cold today to work on it. I've managed to change some light bulbs and clean my kitchen floor. The Z is back in the garage where it belongs. Once this cold snap passes, I'll start knocking out the small suff.

Success!

2007-01-26T22:08:00.000-05:00

What you are looking at here is an engine. However, it's not just any engine. It's MY engine, and it's done. You may think this looks just like previous pictures of the engine, but with the addition of a shiney air cleaner. You will be partly right. Look up along the cowel. What do you see, or rather, what don't you see?

That's right (if you got it right), all the wires are gone. You'll see some nice black split tubing into which all the wires necessary to run this car went. A lot of wires ended up on the floor, as well. mostly the engine side of the ECU harness. Since there's no ECU anymore, that stuff was just in the way.

What's next? Well, tomorrow I need to crawl under the thing and shim the starter. It binds up on the flexplate some of the time. After that, I call a friend over and put the hood back on. Then, I get to drive it somewhere. Don't know exactly where, but somewhere. Not far, though. It needs a front end alignment. I eyeballed it while the car was in the air, so it's way off I'm sure.

What I've been up too..

2007-01-24T00:22:00.000-05:00

Busy couple of weeks for the 'ol GP:

This is my new steering linkage, on the right, next to the old stuff, on the left. Notice a difference? I managed to get all that on last Saturday.

Yes folks, it's on the ground, resting on its own new tires.

In the driveway, and it got there under its own power. I finished the cam run-in, backed it back into the garage, and changed the oil. It idles fine, a small lope. Really need to get a set of Flowmasters for it, though. The stock-style single exhaust isn't letting the nice noises through.

Next items on the agenda are to finish ripping out the computer harness, and then get the hood on and get the front end aligned. After that, I'll put 1000 miles on it with the 500cfm carb to finish the engine break-in, then swap the 600cfm from the truck onto it. Then the fun begins.

Bouncy Things

2007-01-11T21:47:00.000-05:00

It was warm today, mid 50s, so when I got home, I ate bowl of cereal and headed out to the garage. The end result is pictured here. This is the front driver side suspension, all new. Lower control arms were powdercoated black, new Moog 5660 springs, new swaybar links, and nifty tubular upper control arms with Moog ball joints.

Why the nifty tubular arms? What performance enhancement do they provide? None. They look cool and have steel bushings instead of rubber. That's it.

So, about that fire...

2007-01-11T12:39:00.000-05:00

I've been asked to explain the fire from my January 6th comment, so here it is:

I had just hooked up the fuel line to the carb, and carefully filled the bowl through the vent tubes. There was 4 gallons of BP Premium 93 octane gasoline in the tank, oil in the engine, and a freshly charged battery.

So, I climbed in the car, put the key in the ignition, pumped the gas pedal once, and turned it.

BAM! It started. Just like that. I immediately ran it up above 2000 rpm, and began slowly cycling it from 2000 to 3000. Break-in instructions for the camshaft stated to do that for 30 minutes, so I had a CD in the CD player and a plastic tube on the exhaust pipe leading outside so I didn't gas myself.

You're thinking to yourself, "well, that plastic tube must have gotten hot and caught fire," aren't you? Well, you're wrong. It did melt though.

No, the fire was in the engine compartment. I was watching the oil pressure, which was excellent at 80psi. Water temp was coming up quickly, which was good. Then smoke started coming out of the engine bay. "No biggie," I thought to myself. "That's just the engine and header paint baking."

Well, the smoke got worse. Then there were flames. Ooops. I shut the engine off and got out of the garage. The flames went out quickly, and the smoke stopped. I walked back in. I noticed moisture on the hose end going into my fuel filter. I touched it, and gas started flowing out of the filter, down onto the valve cover, and then drained onto the header, where it ignited. There was a monster crack in the plastic filter housing.

So, thirty minutes and $2.99 at O'Reilly later, I had a new filter in place. Started it again, no problems. I got ten minutes into the cam break-in before I had to shut it down again and evacuate the garage because of the fumes. I have the car parked ass end into the garage. I'll get the suspension back on and roll it outside to finish the run-in.

Dashboard fun

2007-01-07T14:38:00.000-05:00

Well, with the engine running, now I can turn to more mundane aspects of this car. Here you see the speedometer and tach cluster. What you can't see is the back of the tach, which I forgot to photograph before I put it back together.

The tach is a GM model from a Grand Prix, but in an amazing stroke of foresight, GM put jumpers on it so that it can be used on 4, 6 or 8 cylinder engines. In its rush to save money, it made that selection jumper very, very cheap. It rattled around, and when it lost contact, the tach would switch to 6 cylinder mode, and read 1/3 higher than it should. It was annoying. I soldered a wire to the contacts. Shouldn't have that problem any more. I also washed the clear face while I had it apart.