Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

The fold down seats have taken a back seat for now. It became apparent that the carrier bearing was no longer happy. It looked as if it could have been the original. I was able move the drive shaft up and down about 3/8" and that seemed like a bad thing. (Photo 1) So I pulled it out and had it converted to a urethane billet style with a slider on the back half. Having heard lots of people complain about the billet style having a short life span I asked the shop about this problem. Their explanation is that the factory style was designed to move forward and aft as the axle moved up and down. The billet style isn't designed to move forward and aft. By putting a splined slider between it and the axle the carrier bearing no longer has to move forward and aft. So the carrier doesn't fail from being side loaded. Sounds logical to me. Now the new drive line is installed it is much smoother accelerating from a start and the odd vibration at 55 mph hasn't returned. But there is more noise from the rear end and when coasting down hills at 40 or more mph there is a definite new vibration in the truck. I hope that some of that will fade as things break in.

[HO455]

Driveshaft installed photo and the box from the new U-joint straps which I replaced. They were mismatched and one had taken a couple of hits from a hammer. Plus the threads on the bolts were showing their age. The strap part number is good for the half ton 1310 U-joint. One photo of the WMB on the stands where it spent the week. After getting the new drive line installed I replaced the rubber hose the factory used to hook the front fuel line to the rear fuel line. I cut the ends off of the hard lines and using Aeroquip compression fittings connected a piece of 5/16" hard line where the hose was. These are easy to install just do good prep work, cleaning and deburing the tubing. No more worries about a pressurized fuel hose next to the muffler. I forgot to get a before photo showing the hose.

[HO455]

A local gendarme took time out of his busy night to stop and ask me about my lack of a license plate light. My response was that the PO had removed it and the pieces that mounted it and I hadn't located replacements yet. He kindly suggested I make more of an effort to find one and sent me on my way. What the PO had done was install a hidden hitch and then used what looks to me to be a license plate bracket off of a 67-72 A-body and mounted it upside down on two pieces of angle iron without the spring so it would swing up when the stinger was in the receiver. Which is a pretty good idea but with no spring it is always rattling. So I replaced the two pieces of angle with one larger piece ( 2" instead of 1 1/2"). Now I had a place to mount a light and set the plate deeper into the bumper like the factory did. I found this perfect little LED light with a shield at Potter Webster (the place that made the drive line for me. They are a heavy truck supply store.). After rehabbing the plate mount (It had led a hard life was lucky to still be around) I found a spring and mounted it to hold the plate down and keep it from rattling all the time.

[HO455]

The old mounting compared to the new.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Looks like your camera is doing just fine. Good pictures of the rig out and about. Good luck with the fold-down seat.

Thanks! The truth be told its more a operator issue.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work on the prop shaft. The spline for for and aft movement makes sense in reducing support bearing lateral load. What shop fabbed it up?

The plate light and mounting came out well.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Nice work on the prop shaft. The spline for for and aft movement makes sense in reducing support bearing lateral load. What shop fabbed it up?

The plate light and mounting came out well.

Thanks again. The Potter Webster Company's "Driveline Express" shop rebuilt the shaft. The foreman Brian said they do quite a few of them. Mostly early Impalas and such. They had another pickup one at the same time mine was there getting converted and it was also getting upgraded to 1325 U-joints.

[HO455]

Two steps back and one forward this last week. First off I noticed the first chip in the paint! Arrrrrrrgggg!
The engine in the WMB never has had what I would call good oil pressure. Always around zero at idle when warm and just below the first mark at cruise. On Monday after having to get on it, in order to get on highway 30, it started idling 2-300 RPM lower and wanting to die. Plus it started squaling and squealing from time to time. I headed straight home and parked it, happy to have made it home. I'm pretty sure it has spun a main bearing. Two steps back.
Now I have to decide if I want to get a cheap engine to get me by for a little while and build the engine I want later or leave it broke and build something that probably won't be what I really want now.

On the up side I have been looking for a 2004r core (or a good one) for a while and located one on Craigslist. The seller ended up being a friend I hadn't seen in ten or more years from back my drag racing days. It was a perfect Thanksgiving morning. One step forward.

[Spf79]

Originally Posted by HO455

Two steps back and one forward this last week. First off I noticed the first chip in the paint! Arrrrrrrgggg!
The engine in the WMB never has had what I would call good oil pressure. Always around zero at idle when warm and just below the first mark at cruise. On Monday after having to get on it, in order to get on highway 30, it started idling 2-300 RPM lower and wanting to die. Plus it started squaling and squealing from time to time. I headed straight home and parked it, happy to have made it home. I'm pretty sure it has spun a main bearing. Two steps back.
Now I have to decide if I want to get a cheap engine to get me by for a little while and build the engine I want later or leave it broke and build something that probably won't be what I really want now.

On the up side I have been looking for a 2004r core (or a good one) for a while and located one on Craigslist. The seller ended up being a friend I hadn't seen in ten or more years from back my drag racing days. It was a perfect Thanksgiving morning. One step forward.

That is horrible, sorry man.
Let me know if you meed a motor, I have had one on a stand in the shop for a while that needs to go away. I'm in the couve.

Happy new year!
-Shon

[HO455]

Yes it is. That paint chip is just killing me. I touched it up to keep the metal dry but it may have to back to the paint shop.
Thanks for the reply and
Happy New Year!

[crakarjax]

Wow nice find! Makes me wanna tear through my truck!

[HO455]

I'm pretty stoked to find out it is a local (fifty miles) truck and the dealership is still exists. Although it has moved.

[HO455]

Its been months since any noticeable progress has happened on the WMB. I had to get the final inspection on my house signed off and that involved building the banisters on the stairs of the house. Which for me was a large project that took a lot of time. But it is done with exception for some more coats of clear finish. When I could get away I was on the hunt for a used engine but after a bunch of calls and trips to look at used engines I gave up and ended up getting a low dollar rebuild from a local shop. It is a stock rebuild long block with the 67 300 HP 327 cam. Today I got most of the dead engine's connections removed or loosened up. After pulling the radiator I decided that it must be replaced. It looks as if it had been repaired at least once in the past and was not at all pretty on the inside.
Also up for replacement is the intake manifold. I had originally thought it was a single plane dominator but it is one of those terrible partially open plenum manifolds with divided runners that wants to be a dual plane and a single plane but ends up being neither.
The lower radiator rubber saddles were bad, one hard as a rock and the other one had been exposed to oil and was soft and spongy (probably from a tranny cooler line leak in the past as there is no sign of a leak now). So since I need new saddles and a radiator it is a good time to up my cooling game and go to the bigger four core size. I got new saddles at Dan's Classic, which is up for sale and downsizing and may end up closing, much to my dismay. The up side of this that everything is twenty percent off new parts and they are making deals on used parts. So I got a factory non EGR manifold and a good looking Qjet for $50. The manifold's threads all looked good but the surface where thermostat housing was little rough. I clamped it down on my little mill and cleaned the surface up. It interesting part is the factory machining was no longer flat. The area around the bolts was about .012-.014 higher than the front and back surfaces. (High spots circled in photo). Which makes me wonder how many I times I have cussed the thermostat housing for leaking and maybe the problem was the actually the manifold surface. The last photo is of a washer that is stuck under the intake manifold. I tried to pry it out but it is clamped down hard by the intake. Wasn't going to pull the intake off the engine when I returned the core, but now I just have to see if there was an vacuum leak around that washer.

[HO455]

Got the old engine out and the new unit in place. A couple photos for the record. The arrival of the engine. Draining of the oil. Notice the metallic flecks on the surface. After removing the pulleys from the balancer found the rubber was out of position possibly from all the heavy hammer blows it was given during its installation. REALLY A HAMMER!!! (I heated the new up to 180 degrees and it stucked it into place with the bolt.) I decided to leave it on the core and get a new one and a new timing cover. In addition I found the valve covers had the lip that holds the gasket in place had been ground off so now there is no rigidity to the gasket surface. I threw them on to keep the dirt out for now. Looks like I will have all new sheet metal on this engine. I had already installed a new Milodon oil pan. In other news one of the motor mount bolts was cross threaded and so the passenger side mount wasn't tight against the stand. Still waiting on a new radiator to arrive and some more time away from the salt mine to finish the odds and ends.

[HO455]

I just noticed that over 25,000 views have been counted at my little project. Wow!! Thank you all for looking and all of your comments.

[HO455]

At last years swap meet I bought a new battery tray as I knew the one in the WMB wasn't in very good condition. As the radiator is out I dug the new tray out of the mess-0-stuff in the garage and took advantage of the timing. When I went to remove the battery I saw that it wasn't bolted in which was odd as I am big on that. However once I lifted the battery clear it was obvious why it was loose. The tray was now broken in two. After removing the six bolts (that were barely snug) the tray came out in two pieces. Once again another PO modificaion was evident. They cut the side on the fender end and bent it down flat. Probably to allow a bigger battery to fit and to allow me the pleasure of cutting my finger on the jagged edge they left from the sawsall. I will have to do a little rejigging of the one mount for the overflow tank but nothing to major. Unfortunately I ran out of daylight and just after the photos got taken the dry weather ended, so the new one didn't get installed today. But I am happy that the new tray is the correct one. I bought it on memory and faith the guy selling it was correct as to what it fit.

[HO455]

Got a day to wrench on the WMB. The new battery tray when in along with my fresh from the swap meet Camper Special 7 bladed clutch fan. Out with the old 4 blade fixed. Then attractively arranged around it is my perfect $8 junk yard score shroud! SWEET! The radiator has been installed. Contrary to the previous post I ended up going with a copper four row core from Canada with a plate cooler in factory tanks. If I have to spend $700 bucks to get a drop in unit want one that has a quality core, a real warranty, is repairable and I supported a local business. Plus they had the core in stock and the radiator was ready the next afternoon. I took my old hoses to NAPA to get replacements. They lower one was not really a problem, but none of the ones they had were anything like the old upper I removed. So I guessed (wrong) and went to see what I could make work. The lower needed about 3/4" cut off of the radiator end and 1/2" off the pump end to fit. Amazingly the hose no longer rubs the frame. Hurrah! The upper one ended up looking like the correct hose if you had a center pointed water neck. (NAPA # 7315 if you have that style housing ). I ran back and got a #7459 which I believe is the listing for a 72 C10 with a 350. It's bends are more pronounced to clear the alternator. I'm sure if I had searched the board I would have saved having to return one. At this point I'd bet the old upper was off the 305's donor car.
It doesn't sound like a lot got done for 7 hours work, but the mounts for the overflow tank had to be reworked and then the battery tray drilled to bolt them on. And the heater return had to rerouted to the radiator instead of the pump. Which turned out to be fortuitous as the steel hose connector in the pump had lots of deep pits and looked like it was ready to start leaking anytime. And then there was some watching of paint drying. And then the whole search for three of the shroud bolts that I had last week, but this week were nowhere to be found. Still!!
But now it's thirty.

[HO455]

More hose photos showing the difference between the two uppers styles I had.
One of the delays in getting the WMB back on the road was getting the home stereo back on line this winter. New wall mount speakers took wwwaaaaayyyyyyy too much time to complete, but they Fracken Rock. Tonights posting was to the Beat Farmers!

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=...Z97gDwQnd_bGsP

Enjoy.

[HO455]

Some more info on the radiator installation The new core was slightly taller than the old one and as a result the upper brackets are slightly angle up which means the shroud mounting holes no longer lined up. I took the brackets clamped them in a vice with some 5/8" bar stock and massaged them so the holes were lower and lined up with the shroud. Basically I bent the tab with the speed nut out and the pushed the top down flat. I also had to shorten the two bolts so they didn't bottom out before they tightened down on the shroud. Before and after photos.

[HO455]

I have about 200 miles on the new engine and all is well with it (No leaks yet!). It has much better off idle torque than the old 305. One thing that has become apparent is there is a much more pronounced vibration at highway speeds than before. When we were dropping the new engine in I discovered that one of the motor mounts had been cross threaded when it was last installed. (I couldn't have checked it before hand, that would've been smart so I did it the hard way, with lots of cursing to make it easier.). So my thinking is the new motor mounts made the engine sit higher in front and may have put the drive shaft angles out of spec.
First thing was to put the rear end on jack stands and set the rear ride height. (I had cut down a 2x4 when I when to the alignment shop to check all four corners for height before they aligned it.). Using this board to set the height I squirmed under the truck with my trusty angle finder. The first angle to check is the transmission. I prefer to measure the angle off of the end of the u-joint cap. But the one at the transmission is the spring clip style which I would rather not have to remove. Fortunately the transmission yolk is machined pretty well and I am fairly happy with it being true to the output shaft centerline. (You can verify the surface by reading the angle finder on the bottom and then rotate the shaft and get the reading with it on the top. They should be the same if the surface is true.). Measure the angle of the first drive shaft, the second shaft and then the pinon angle of the rear end. The photos show the finder hanging by the magnet. I didn't use the magnet when taking the readings . I use the V-block side as it is a more positive way of locating the finder. I was able to mimic the readings with the magnet side to take the pictures. I was not happy with the yolk surfaces on the rear end so I used a socket to take a reading off of the u-joint cap.
The readings ended up being 3.5* down on the transmission
0* on the front drive shaft
2* down (down at the rear) on the rear drive shaft
2* up on the pinon.
It looks like I have some work to do. The front u-joint should be in the 1 to 1.5 degree range not 3.5 degrees. I will go out in the morning and raise the rear of the transmission. I think that if I can get the tranny to 2* then the forward drive shaft will move to about the same and then most likely I will have to shim the pinon to finish the alignment. More to come.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

I have about 200 miles on the new engine and all is well with it (No leaks yet!). It has much better off idle torque than the old 305. One thing that has become apparent is there is a much more pronounced vibration at highway speeds than before. When we were dropping the new engine in I discovered that one of the motor mounts had been cross threaded when it was last installed. (I couldn't have checked it before hand, that would've been smart so I did it the hard way, with lots of cursing to make it easier.). So my thinking is the new motor mounts made the engine sit higher in front and may have put the drive shaft angles out of spec.
First thing was to put the rear end on jack stands and set the rear ride height. (I had cut down a 2x4 when I when to the alignment shop to check all four corners for height before they aligned it.). Using this board to set the height I squirmed under the truck with my trusty angle finder. The first angle to check is the transmission. I prefer to measure the angle off of the end of the u-joint cap. But the one at the transmission is the spring clip style which I would rather not have to remove. Fortunately the transmission yolk is machined pretty well and I am fairly happy with it being true to the output shaft centerline. (You can verify the surface by reading the angle finder on the bottom and then rotate the shaft and get the reading with it on the top. They should be the same if the surface is true.). Measure the angle of the first drive shaft, the second shaft and then the pinon angle of the rear end. The photos show the finder hanging by the magnet. I didn't use the magnet when taking the readings . I use the V-block side as it is a more positive way of locating the finder. I was able to mimic the readings with the magnet side to take the pictures. I was not happy with the yolk surfaces on the rear end so I used a socket to take a reading off of the u-joint cap.
The readings ended up being 3.5* down on the transmission
0* on the front drive shaft
2* down (down at the rear) on the rear drive shaft
2* up on the pinon.
It looks like I have some work to do. The front u-joint should be in the 1 to 1.5 degree range not 3.5 degrees. I will go out in the morning and raise the rear of the transmission. I think that if I can get the tranny to 2* then the forward drive shaft will move to about the same and then most likely I will have to shim the pinon to finish the alignment. More to come.

It seems like there is always something to throw a monkey wrench in the works..... Hope you get it sorted out.

LockDoc

[HO455]

First oil change time now I have 500 miles on it. It came out well. No bad things in the oil pan or filter. I did discover that the nice Milodon oil pan I put on it has a draw back. The drain plug has a built in magnet. A super strong cobalt magnet that I'm sure grabs any iron even remotely near it. The down side Is the when removing it from hot oil pan the plug won't drop clear but the magnet sticks in the hole and the hot oil goes everywhere but in the catch pan. And while on the subject of catch pans I am advising against buying the oil drain pan in the photo. It is good idea poorly executed. The pour cap will not seal and it leaks oil. I tried to exchange it but none of the ones on the shelf were any different. Photos of the drain plug and the iron filings on the magnet. No pieces of any concern were present on it, or in the drain pan. I cut the filter open and it looked good too.

[HO455]

I scored some stuff off of a 67 Burban at 205 Auto Wrecking. One of them was an early thermostat housing spacer with the bypass hose. With some help from some friendsI removed the bypass hose fitting and modified a 3/4" to 1/2" bushing to maximize the amount the sensor would protrude into the water flow. Then I installed my existing sender on it and put the sender I got from the wrecking yard in the water neck. I can now compare the difference between the senders below the thermostat and above it. And after a couple of days of switching back and forth I find the sender below the thermostat reads noticeably lower than the one above. Admittedly the lower sender is not in the middle of the water flow but it isn't shrouded by the housing. But even in stop and go traffic it never gets anywhere near the same reading as the upper sender. (The same sender used to read higher when it was installed above the thermostat before I put the spacer in.) The upper sender stays low until the thermostat opens then it jumps up and stays pretty much steady after that. The last photo is of the before set up on the old motor.

[HO455]

Here are the different sender gauge readings.

[HO455]

Thanks! And for anyone who was wondering about the 3:73 ring and pinon I ended up replacing the 3:07's with here is the information from the box. This is a thick ring gear meant to be installed on a 3 series carrier that was designed to use 2:76 to 3:42 ratio gear sets.
And the Posi chatter issue is getting better.