Working Man's Burbon

[Ol Blue K20]

That sucks, hopefully the parents do what's right.

[Average Joe]

That sucks!

I hate parking lots. Idiots driving too fast and not paying attention. Grrrrr! My wifes van got hit 4 months after we purchased it, in a parking lot. Of course it was a hit and run with no witnesses. The insurance covered the repair less the $300 deductible. Still crappy though. Good luck!

[04ls1gto]

Man that sucks, you put alot of work into something And someone not paying attention wrecks it

[pwdcougar]

I can't believe that the family can't be held responsible for this. Their insurance wont pay? It just boggles my mind.

[HO455]

I'm sure their insurance would pay if they had any.

[pwdcougar]

Originally Posted by HO455

I'm sure their insurance would pay if they had any.

I just looked up the penalty in NJ for driving without insurance. It's pretty strict.

$300-$1,000 fine
$250 surcharge assessment for three years ($750)
Driving Privilege Driver's license suspended for a full year
Possible vehicle impoundment in case proof of insurance was not presented within 24 hours of citation.
It takes an additional $100 fee to retrieve the impounded car.

This is for the first offense!

[HO455]

The family was cited for:
Leaving the scene of an accident.
Driving without insurance.
Driving without a valid license.
I don't know what their punishment is or will be.
If I was a betting man my money would be on them leaving the area and never paying a dime.

I could take them to civil court and try to get a judgment, but that will drag this out over six months or more.
I could claim it on my insurance and pay for it for the rest of my driving life.

What I am going to do is spend a couple of days repairing the damage and then pay someone to respray the quarter panel and be done with it all.

I appreciate all the comments, but I need to move past this mostly mental setback and the best way is to not reminded of it every time I get in the truck so it will fade out of my consciousness, and I can focus on why the transmission has started leaking.

[Nick_R_23]

File a civil suit against them with the local DA.

[crakarjax]

I don't think a UM claim will affect your rates: http://ryanhiltslaw.com/common-quest...-motorist-law/ but you could probably verify with your agent easily enough. Of course you have to do whatever makes the most sense for your situation.

[richard2717]

Glad to see it coming back together.

[PAWS 72]

That is what the uninsured motorist part of your insurance is for according to my agent said.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by PAWS 72

That is what the uninsured motorist part of your insurance is for according to my agent said.

Unfortunately if they pay you, you will pay them back (with interest) Cheaper in the long run just to fix this myself.

And speaking of fixed. The WMB is back from paint!!!

[HO455]

I also installed my junkyard score! A tail light lens. First photo is the junkyard find and the second is the twin to the one I replaced.
I should get the bumper reinstalled tomorrow.

[HO455]

Well with a couple hundred miles on the new springs I am happy with the decision to replace the bags. Not once have I slammed into the bump stops jarring the truck. I did miss the ability to drop the truck when I washed. But such are the trade offs.
I still need to get the correct bump stops installed. I may also cut 1/2 a coil off the springs once I'm sure they are done breaking in.
The shocks have become more noticeably inadequate. I don't know if it is from the damage to the one side or if the air bags worked better with these shocks than the springs do.
Another thing I noticed is the truck leans a bit more in corners than before. After some thinking have decided that is because when I modified the old lower control arms I moved the sway bar end mounts about 1 inch closer to the front. Which in essence shortened the lever arm of the sway bar. Cheap sway bar upgrade. Woo hoo!

At first I wanted to move the mounts forward to regain that stiffer bar response, but I would like to find a 1980's Trans am or IROC rear sway bar for the rear axle. So after that is done it would be better time to decide if I still should move the mounts.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

Well with a couple hundred miles on the new springs I am happy with the decision to replace the bags. Not once have I slammed into the bump stops jarring the truck. I did miss the ability to drop the truck when I washed. But such are the trade offs.
I still need to get the correct bump stops installed. I may also cut 1/2 a coil off the springs once I'm sure they are done breaking in.
The shocks have become more noticeably inadequate. I don't know if it is from the damage to the one side or if the air bags worked better with these shocks than the springs do.
Another thing I noticed is the truck leans a bit more in corners than before. After some thinking have decided that is because when I modified the old lower control arms I moved the sway bar end mounts about 1 inch closer to the front. Which in essence shortened the lever arm of the sway bar. Cheap sway bar upgrade. Woo hoo!

At first I wanted to move the mounts forward to regain that stiffer bar response, but I would like to find a 1980's Trans am or IROC rear sway bar for the rear axle. So after that is done it would be better time to decide if I still should move the mounts.

What size is your front bar. You might have already mentioned it and I missed it. I have never tried a rear bar but I'm sure it would make a lot of difference. Especially on a Burb.

LockDoc

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LockDoc

What size is your front bar. You might have already mentioned it and I missed it. I have never tried a rear bar but I'm sure it would make a lot of difference. Especially on a Burb.

LockDoc

I have a 1-1/4" factory bar.
Having looked back at the fabrication photos my original statement of the sway bar mounts moving 1 inch was wrong. From the pictures it looks like 1/2" is a more accurate dimension. I find it interesting that only a half inch was that immediately noticeable.
Until now I hadn't considered that when I did the caster modification to the lower control arm shafts I moved the mount forward on the bar about 3/4". A 2 for 1 modification more caster and a stiffer sway bar!

[Ol Blue K20]

Looks good......insurance is basically a loan shark....

[pwdcougar]

Looks great!

[HO455]

Thanks everyone for all of your support. Time to get some other things done on the WMB. Its out with the old carb and in with an even older carburetor. Something I've been wanting to do for a while now. We pulled the Edelbrock 1406 and installed a Qjet my buddy Karl rebuilt. It's a 78 truck carb we believe is off a 400. After installing it and checking for leaks. It fired right up but idled high. Although the mixture screws responded well the idle would not come down. The vacuum guage showed 20 inches of vacuum so we didn't suspect a vacuum leak.
After checking the timing and finding it to be ok, we were still unable to get the idle to come down below 850 in gear. We pulled the carb and checked the idle air bleed sizes in the base plate. They measured a whopping .120, a size more appropriate to a big engine with a lot of overlap in the cam, and not my little stocker. Took and tapped the holes and plugged them with set screws then drilled a .052 hole in each set screw. That got the idle down to 780 with good response from the idle mixture screws.
So off the carb came and a more complete examination of the idle circuit. After pulling the idle mixture tubes they were found to be .036's. Karl replaced them with a pair of .033's out of his magic box of spares. Once again more appropriate for a stock 350. Flipping the carb body over the idle bypass holes were tapped and plugged with set screws. They were not drilled out at this time but maybe later as things get more dialed in.
After reassembly and installation the idle was now around 700. Went for a little test drive and came back grinning. The throttle response was great, but I had no secondarys. Checking the secondary flapper spring found it to be quite tight. Loosening it up allowed the secondarys to open. For the first time since I have owned the truck I can tell when the secondarys open. Who hoo!
Time to put some miles on the truck and discover any other shortcomings or areas of improvement (like a choke). The choke stove we had didn't fit the 72 intake I had installed. From the size of the idle circuits the donor carb may have been a high altitude due to the large amount of air by passing the idle circuits. The carburetor number came out to a 78 350/400 which is right in the middle of the smog years when the manufacturers were struggling to pass emissions. It had to run enough to pass emissions, but running good wasn't as much of a concern.

The primary jets are 64's
The primary rods are B32's
The secondary rods are AR's

We noticed some irregularities in the timing at idle so a quick look at the idle weights reveled little except a well worn rotor center contact. A slightly used rotor seemed to solve the problem. Another thing we noted is with the timing set at 12* initial I am only getting 24 degrees total advance. We bumped it up to 14* to get a little better MPG, but distributor changes are required to get more advance.

[HO455]

I took a trip to Richland WA over Memorial Day weekend to see some friends at the Tigers on the Columbia event. It was a nice trip (about 500 miles) went up on Saturday and came back on Sunday. The WMB ran good. I went up on Highway 14 on the Washington side and came back on Interstate 84 on the Oregon side. The Washington side is more fun to drive but my mileage was only 12.3 MPG. On the Oregon side it was 14.8 MPG. Going east is uphill and Highway 14 has a lot of elevation changes.
The park looks pretty empty in the photos but I forgot to take pictures until things were almost over. Fortunately the Gassers were still around when I got the camera out. The Judge was absolutely perfect. There were at least 75 cars in the park when I got there.

[Average Joe]

Beautiful rides!

Thanks for sharing your results on the qjet. I love hearing about real world results. I have a couple qjets in my stash that i wanna play with but the 1406 I swapped on last year runs really well. I picked up over 1.5 mpg from the 625 afb i had been running. Im sure it was just leaner jetting but it was still a win and didnt cost anything as I already owned the Edelbrock.

Will it take any more initial without starter kickback?

[HO455]

No problems with starting, but I have noticed some slight pinging at low speeds when accelerating that wasn't there before. It will take some investigation to find out if things are too lean or it is the intial timing is just too much. Either way I will post the progress.

[crakarjax]

I tried to do a regulator bypass recently and bailed because I found that my alternator would constantly put out max voltage. I did not add a resistor as you described. Do you think that could have caused the overvoltage?

[HO455]

I would need more information. What model of alternator did you use? How did you convert the wiring? A wiring diagram would help a lot. Some photos of the installation too.
Then for best results I suggest doing a post in the electrical section to get more brains ( and bigger ones than mine) on your problem. I'm confident that the solution can be found.
If you post in the electrical section drop me a line and I will drop over there and help out.

[richard2717]

Looking good. I don't have that kind of patience any longer lol. As I said before no rush on this end at all take all the time needed. I was just glad to find something remotely close.