228 replies to this topic

[M44K TS]

Been reading up a lot about the carb that's on currently, (Edelbrock Performer 750cfm with electric choke) basically, I've come to realise it's probably a bit overkill for a mild Chevy 350, it's over fuelling like a ******* and it's proving difficult to adjust the idle correctly so it runs smooth from cold, so, been browsing ebay and bought a calibration kit, hopefully I can re-jet it so it runs a little less rich. I probably should start searching for a 600cfm but going to see how I get on with the re-jetting first.

Luckily, Edelbrock's website has quite a comprehensive video guide for installing a performer carb and handily, this... guides you through changing the metering rods and jets, surely I couldn't balls that up, could I?

Suppose only time will tell!

Also, my mechanic mate a couple of units along from us said he would patch the floor panel in his spare time too, well, use it to let his apprentice practice his welding! Hopefully I'll get that back soon in a reasonable state lol

[KieranB]

Alright M44K TS

Love your taste in cars, If i had the space I would happily have an old american brute, something that completely stands out from the crowd.

Good work your doing on it, you got plans to go to any shows with it? Any respray plans in the pipeline?

Kieran

[M44K TS]

Cheers mate, no respray on the cards, it's got a far too honest amount of patina if you know what I mean, I think it'd lose a lot of it's appeal if it was resprayed. I like how I can climb over the bonnet to get in if it's parked too close to the wall in our unit and not car if I scratch it lol Plus it looks cool!

I'll hopefully take it to a couple of shows this year, mainly just want to drive it though, there's a local American & classic meet every month through the summer so want to take it there as much as possible.

[rids]

Cheers mate, no respray on the cards, it's got a far too honest amount of patina if you know what I mean, I think it'd lose a lot of it's appeal if it was resprayed. I like how I can climb over the bonnet to get in if it's parked too close to the wall in our unit and not car if I scratch it lol Plus it looks cool!

I'll hopefully take it to a couple of shows this year, mainly just want to drive it though, there's a local American & classic meet every month through the summer so want to take it there as much as possible.

is that the metro centre 1? hopefully i'll see it there

[M44K TS]

Yeeh mate, that's the one, 2nd Wed of every month.

[M44K TS]

Tonight's efforts, not much happened really, had another go at setting the ignition timing as it was still out a bit, I tried some different settings as recommended someone off another forum who is running a virtually identical set up to me, idles and runs a lot smoother, just needs the idle speed set a tad higher as it was ticking over at about 500 rpm!

Got the floor panel back off Chris, he ended up cutting out the old and welding in another section, fits perfect, just needs the welds dressed but I said I would do that. It's not pretty, but it's going to be covered in chassis black paint then undersealed on the outside, then chassis black paint, sound deadening and carpeted on the inside.


Floor looks terrible in this shot, I can assure you, it's just dirt & rust dust!


Had a look at my biiiiiig box of parts, found the door sill seals and retaining strips, as you can see, they're just bare metal so need protecting before they get ruined. So out with the thinners and a tack cloth to clean them up, and a decent coat of acid etch primer, (still nasty stuff!) I also trimmed the rubber seals to the right length.

This is what gets screwed to the cab

with the seal in place

It'll sit on the edge of the sill like this and will neatly cover the edges of the carpet which saves having to stitch leather binding to the edge of the carpet all the way along



Makeshift paint booth,,,,,

Primed, ready for flatting back and painting gloss black




And just because I can, gratuitous engine shot (The earth sleeving is only there as the HT lead was starting to get a bit warm as it was resting on the exhaust manifold when I was doing the ignition timing!)



Going to try and clean up the rest of the floor tomorrow night then get a first coat of chassis black with a bit of luck.

[minimaxie]

Looking great as always! Genuinely would love to see this down a classic car show one day, I bet it turns heads all the time

[M44K TS]

Thanks, you wouldn't believe the amount of heads it turns, almost had a car of 5 lads crash on the motorway because they were all looking at the truck and didn't see the traffic slowing in front of them!

[M44K TS]

Again, not much happened tonight, ended up round my mates unit for about 2 hours, only called in for 5 mins! I wanted to see if he could patch the floor where it needs some welding, like the man from Del Monte, he say yes! He did say if I can get repair panels, it would be a much better job, I'll try and source them from the UK if I can, I can't be bothered with the hassle of a 3 week wait, import duty and added VAT & handling fees when I order stuff from the states.

So, tonight, dressed the welds on the floor panel, bought some rust removal gel and gave it a liberal coating, smells a bit weird but did the trick.


All the pitted rust turned black, that's a good sign.


Gave it a hose down to remove the gel, caused a huge ice rink outside our unit, well, it was -3c outside and all the snow that had turned to slush had frozen so using a hose pipe wasn't ideal. Sat it in front of our diesel space heater for a few minutes to dry it off then gave it a quick coat of acid etch then black hammerite. I'll do the underside tomorrow, that will be getting an additional coat of some snazzy under body coat stuff.


And just because I can, I hoovered the gearbox.

[M44K TS]

I've never really been keen on the thermostatic fan switch that came with the truck, the probe that sits in the top radiator hose means that there's sometimes a little bit of coolant weeping out, so I bought the fan controller add on unit for my gauges, it takes it's temperature reading direct from the gauge control box so is a bit more accurate. Decided to crack on with the wiring for it and the gauges as they had only been wired as a temporary measure ready for the carpet to go in.

So, control module for the gauges out and all the wiring labeled


Drilled a couple of holes on the underside of the dash lip for the info screen buttons for the gauges, you can use them to cycle through the digital info read outs on the gauges for things like, 0-60, 1/4 mile times, trip counters, digital speedo, digital rev counter etc. I didn't really want them on show, but needed them close to hand.


Nice and discreet when fitted


They needed one side of each switch earthed, so, fitted a pair of earth terminals up behind the dash, one terminal is the switches, the other will be for the earth connection for the gauges and fan control moodules


Both modules and the 70 Amp fan relay tucked up behind the dash out of the way


Turned my attention to wiring them up, I got the wiring the right length so set about neatening them up with some braided sleeving, I just need to cable tie them into shape then that'll be another job ticked off the list.


I still need to route the engine sensor & speedo signal wiring and shorten some of them down, that'll be a job for tomorrow, it got too cold in the unit despite blasting the diesel space heater on and off all night, well, the tank became empty and I couldn't be bothered to fill it back up!

There's a diagnostic mode on the controller so you can check the various settings, you can test the fan by turning the potentiometer to mimic the rise in engine temp, mainly to check the fan will cut in and out at the correct temperatures.
Fan controller test. - YouTube

Also added some spiral sleeving to the horn and fan wiring to neaten it up as you can sometimes see it through the grille.


Finally, when I replaced the valve covers with the Edelbrock ones, I didn't replace the gaskets as I had forgot to buy some so ordered some a few months back, I finally got round to fitting them as they were leaking oil a bit, especially at the back of the passenger bank where it was dripping oil onto the manifold. You can see why, the originals were way past it. The new ones were twice the thickness, I haven't fired it up yet to check for leaks, but I'm fairly confident that they will be leak free.

[M44K TS]

Cracked on tonight and tried to tidy up the wiring loom under the dash, it hasn't really been installed all that well, as it's a pre-wired fuse box kit with fused outputs for things like electric windows, air con etc, there's loads of unused wiring just tucked up behind the dash. The rest of the loom was quite untidy so sorted through what could be re-routed and what could be covered over ready for the carpet to go in.



First thing I sorted was the headlight dip switch, Whoever wired in the switch had left about a foot of extra cable & just looped the excess over and stuffed it up behind the rest of the wiring loom. So, shortened it down and added new terminals to the original wiring plug then secured it so it would be as flat as possible when the carpet goes in.


Next thing that needed doing was the engine sensor wiring for the water temp. and the oil pressure senders to the gauge control box, previously, I had just fed them through a grommet in the bulkhead just as a temporary measure to test the gauges. This is the new route I've taken them, they're tucked up against the bulkhead out of the way where they'll be covered by the sound proofing so won't get damaged, plus, in the engine bay, you won't really see them.


Also found a handy place to hold the soldering iron, solo-soldering sucks so this makes it a bit easier.


The other cabling to route was the speedo pulse generator wiring, again, through the floor and up the bulkhead.


Control boxes wired, that's as tidy as I could get the cabling, but, I'll be making a frame with a removable section so it'll be hidden when carpeted but still accessible


Added some split convoluted tubing to the rest of the wiring harness so it'll be a bit less noticeable.


That should hopefully be it until I have to wire in the heated seats, electric headrests and lumbar ready for the seats going in, I think I have a spare live feed under the dash so that shouldn't be a major problem, the headrests and lumbar support only need 1 live wire and an earth as all of the switch gear is in the seat base and the back rest just plugs in. The heated seats will need about 6 wires ran from each switch which will be under each side of the dash so that will go out from the bulkhead behind the dash then up through the floor directly under the seats. That may just be the next thing to do so the carpet can go straight in.

[M44K TS]

Tiny update tonight, I decided to do some rough measuring up for the seat frame, I'm going to go and have a word with the fabricators and try and get some proper measurments finalised and some sketches drawn up, handily, they're about 50 yards from our unit so easy to pull the truck round to show them the set up etc. I did some rough measurements and a very rough sketch of how I *think* the frame could be made up, obviously I'll let the fabricators decide what will be best.

This is the position the seat needs to be at to make it comfortable, the seat base sits slightly further forward to allow clearance for the top of the seat back against the rear of the cab than the other bench seats but that's not a problem, it'll be a better driving position. The whole seat will be about 15cm off the floor with the frame on too.


Also, forgot I coated the carpet edge/door sill seal retainers in primer, gave them a couple of coats of gloss black, (still tacky in the pics, I'll flatten them back once they're fully dry) I'll do the other side tomorrow nigh then a liberal dowsing of clear coat on them at the weekend, that should protect them a bit and hopefully make them pretty durable, there's always the option of covering them with the paint protection film that some cars have so they don't get scratched easily.

[M44K TS]

Gave the sill seal trims another coat, they've starting to look good.

Was waiting for the paint to dry so decided to remove the rear cab glass, cab corners came out fine...


Then, went to remove the back window, just started cutting the seal with a stanley kife, keeping a little bit of pressure on the glass, then, crack! It's still in one piece as it's laminated. Probably ok to still use but I'd prefer an un-cracked one. That's something else to add to the list of parts.




Looks strange with no glass in.

[M44K TS]

Lets see how badly I can bugger my carb up!

[M44K TS]

So, it turns out, it was easy to do, just like the video said.

As it started.


First things, remove the metering rods, they're hidden behind these metal plates. (One each side|)




Removed


Linkages off next. They're held on with some tiny clips, bit fiddly and I was sure I was going to lose at least one. The video only showed the throttle and one side of the choke, there was a linkage that needed removed on the other side too before I could separate the carb.

Throttle


Choke


8 x T25 Torx bolts removed from the top of the carb, the whole top just lifts off.


Leaving the main body, notice how the 2 float chambers are still full of fuel?


Had to remove the fuel to gain access to the main jets.


Found a load of sediment in the bottom of the chambers too, so it's a good job I cleaned them out as I don't want the jets getting blocked.


Old metering rods


New ones, they're hard to identify due to the tiny numbers stamped on and a lack of magnifying glass



Ready to go back in


New main jets


Old ones


All back together


Went to crank it over to fill the chambers up with fuel ready for starting, but then realised the battery was just about flat. So had to wait half an hour to get enough charge in the battery to crank it over, once the float chambers were full, it fired instantly.

It also did something it hasn't ever done.............

Ran smooth from cold!!!!!!