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Was able to get out this weekend and check a couple of things with a little help. Funny story: I listed an old grill on Craigslist and who should respond but FTE's jowilker. I told him he could take the grill home for free if he'd bring his truck over for a few comparisons and help me do a compression test.
We checked the alignment on mine by basically just eyeballing between the two and did not see anything egregious. We took mine out for a drive and then his and there is no question his steers a bit better but we had three possible reasons
(1) he had brand new front tires that are about 2 inches more narrow than mine
(2) my front tires are very worn on the inside
(3) my steering wheel is 13" compared to his 15" and it feels like driving a go-kart
For now I am going to look for a 15" wheel and also rotate up the back tires which look brand new and see if it drives any different.
We checked a few other odds and ends, door hinges, hood hinges, hood latch.
Anyone know the "washer trick" for aligning the hood better? John mentioned it but wasn't sure what exactly it entailed.
On to the compression test. During the process, John noticed a "hitting" sound when the starter was engaged. It was rythmic, almost like a thud once every revolution. It was coming from the rear of the engine so there was a moment where we wondered if the last cylinder would be in bad shape but all were basically fine.
It's a 289 and the 8 cylinders were 140, 140, 143, 140, 140, 138, 140, 130. That looks petty good to me but if anyone thinks otherwise I'd be happy to hear why.
So now the issue is this thud/hitting sound when the starter is engaged. We didn't hear it when the engine was running, only when trying to start/turning it over for the compression test. Any ideas???
John emailed me this morning and he chatted with some folks and the suspected culprit is missing teeth in the flexplate. I tried to check this but could not get the flexplate to turn to see all of the teeth through the inspection plate. Anything I should do besides putting it in N?
I have a video I can post of the starter sound if that would help in a diagnosis.
I have power steering and still i can tell a difference with small front wheels. I switched from 15x8 to 20x8.5 to 17x7. The 17x7 wheels made a huge difference
I have power steering and still i can tell a difference with small front wheels. I switched from 15x8 to 20x8.5 to 17x7. The 17x7 wheels made a huge difference
So those are the wheel sizes? What width tire were you running? I believe my wheels are 15x8 but the tires on them are almost 11" wide whereas John's were also 15x8 but were only a bit over 9" wide.
Well the culprit of the starter "thud" has been identified.
One missing tooth and a somewhat chewed up second. What's the worst that can happen if I just let it go? Eventually chew up the starter and have to replace both? I figure I would do that anyway when putting in a new flex plate so is there harm in letting it go for awhile?
Also I have a leaky transmission. Significant leak that drips down the linkage. Drips right off the bottom in the picture below. Any suggestions on this? It's a C4.
More reconnaissance this weekend. I had cleaned up the transmission last week but it never leaked. Fluid was low so I filled again and drove around and my leak appeared. I think it is coming from the kickdown o-ring which is an easier fix and does not necessitate taking off the pan and valve body. Part ordered.
Looked over the suspension too.
Scraping off grime showed PO had already done radius arm bushing with polyurethane.
Pivot bushing not done. Can pull that bit of rubber back with fingers. I've read these are a bit of a pain to replace.
Can mount metal is good but bushings are cracksed. Passenger side is worse.
The bushings on this sway bar link are cracked and the whole thing can easily be wiggled with fingers on the driver side. Bolt also appears to be through the bracket on the Ibeam at an angle.
Your on the right track, slowly but surely identify what needs fixed and what you can do or need help with, I'm looking forward to watching your progress, Good luck with your project
Well I started tackling the cut out crossmember yesterday. What a PITA. Getting out the rivets on the radius arm shackle was not too bad and the bolts up top were fine but the one rivet still attached to the frame was a nightmare. I couldn't get anything straight on it as it was up inside the frame rail and crossmember and the transmission support crossmember was also in the way further limiting access.
I finally beat it out of there. Whoever cut this piece our should be shot. It would have taken less time to remove the entire engine to get the trans out than this one rivet.
I did not put the new one in yet. Will figure out the right bolt size and hopefully get to it in another week or three.
The rivets location.
Rivets. Top left is the one I had to beat out and chip away at with chisels and awkwardly angled drills.
After I got those crossmember remnants our on Labor Day last year, I took a break for a month and then went to put in the new crossmember. Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of problems. Obviously, putting the crossmember in from underneath with the whole truck together is not how it is meant to be done. I took off the exhaust on both sides to try and get some room to wrangle it in there but there was no way it was going to get up inside the frame rails.
At this point, I was wondering why I was spending my spare time on this thing and I thought of selling it. My wife was all for that idea. :-p
It looked like I had two options. Either remove all of the rivets holding the radius arms and everything else to the frame so as to push everything out of the way and hopefully get enough room or come up with a plan B. I went for plan B.
While not a perfect solution, I decided to cut the new cross member in half and put each half in separately and use plate steal running the length of the crossmember to tie everything back together. I ran this buy my father-in-law and stepfather, both of whom have engineering backgrounds and got the thumbs up. As they said, way better than having no crossmember at all.
Hard to see here, but it's in.
Those are the bolts holding it in you can see there.
With that done, it has made a huge improvement in driveability. The sloppiness is significantly reduced and in general it is much easier to corner and keep things in line. Happy with my decision here.
Another small task was replacing the old go-kart sized steering wheel with a larger 15" period wooden wheel. Still tons needed on the interior, but this is a small improvement AND it improved the handling feel.
Next up on improving steering was to actually bolt the column to the firewall. The PO had never bolted it in and had just left the rubber flange hanging there. Now it is secured and once again, an increase in steering response. This made a big difference in cornering as before the column would move when coming back to center before the truck actually turned, leading me to usually turn too much.
When I bought the truck 2 years ago, the passenger vent window was shattered and I lived with a taped in piece of cardboard until this spring when I finally bought and installed a replacement.
Old orange duct taped window.
New smoky gray glass, albeit with some tape residue.
Lastly, my truck came with some of the Custom Cab trim but not all. I decided I didn't really want to keep it on the flareside so I removed what I had and will sell it. One day, I randomly decided to start taking care of the holes even though I am a ways away from painting and such. I've done the driver's side and while it's not perfect, they are mostly taken care of. I hit it with some rattle can primer and paint to see what I need to keep smoothing out. It's hard to see in this pic but in the right light, you can see some imperfections around the trim holes that I need to put some more glaze on.
No hole!
So that's my 11 month update. My family is out of town this week so I have all of the evenings to myself and plan to do my last few bits of suspension improvements by replacing the bolts and bushings on the aftermarket anti-sway bar + end-links and NEW SHOCKS all around. The front end oscillates about 10 times after a good shove.
- anti-sway bar just needed to be tightened up all around, no new bushings needed
- installed shocks all around, was PITA to press in those rear ones
- ripped out the old headliner foam that was flaking off (no headliner fabric there)
- replaced valve cover gaskets. This took quite awhile as the old cork gaskets were RTVd to the block and had to be scraped off over a couple of hours.
Unfortunately, I did not get to take it out and test the shocks as my brake light wire shorted and essentially vaporized itself in a puff of smoke. Will have to replace before I can take it back out on the road.
A few pics:
Driver front shock.
Rear shocks
Can't see the new gaskets but the covers are nice and shiny
My family is back tonight so not much progress will be made in the next couple of weeks. My main goal is rewire the brakes so I can take it out and enjoy my new shocks.
Pivot bushing not done. Can pull that bit of rubber back with fingers. I've read these are a bit of a pain to replace.
Looks like the other side is mostly gone....can you put a pry bar in there and make the axle wiggle around on this end? If so, then, yep, the pivot bushings are ready for replacement.......
Can't see the new gaskets but the covers are nice and shiny
PM,
You made good progress, Buddy! The shocks and rocker arm cover gaskets are not glamorous, but will be noticable good improvements to you in ride and engine cleanliness!
By the way - I'd suggest you invest in a can of this: Gibbs Brand Lubricant at GIBBSBRANDLUBRICANT.COM ....then spray it on the outside of your crusty Edelbrock carb. It will make your carb look 200% better. I couldn't find it locally and had to order it off the internet, & yeah, it was a bit pricey, but no regrets. I'm not one to promote products UNLESS I truly think they deserve it. This is one that does. Has anyone else here used GIBBS BRAND spray?
BarnieTrk - Thanks for the idea to check the pivot bushing. I'll do that the next time I can get under there.
Re: the Gibbs, so just spraying that on will clean up the crust on the carb? I will give it a try. I've read about that stuff before as being great for protecting bare metal if it will be that way for awhile before being painted. I'll get a can.
07-12-2015, 08:11 PM
