I did my first real fix on the truck today. Last week coming home from a show with a bed full of sound gear I hit the first stop light and the brake pedal went to the floor, nothing. Not my idea of a good time in SF at 3am.

I knew the brakes weren't great, but I wasn't expecting that.

So I got it home with compression braking and the e-brake, parked it and threw the keys on the "Don't Grab" hook.

Spent the week in pittsburgh so I didn't need it anyway. Called the green mafia when I got back to CA and got a new vacuum booster and master cylinder ordered up. Apparently I have the "greater than 8500 GVWR" brakes. What's the difference between the lower weight versions and the heavy setup?

Out with the old.


Shiny and new.


The fitting for the hardline to the rear axle was a pain, but after a little pb blaster and some heat I got it off. There's a T fitting on the rear output of the master that feeds a hardline for the trailer brake controller.


The fiance helped me bleed the whole thing, ran a bottle and a half through it to get all the old crap out of the lines. Once it was all done I took it for a drive and wow, I wish I'd done that when I got it. Pedal feels better than any of the other vehicles.

 

While I was under the hood I got off my lazy *** and pulled the air cleaner so I could get to the carb. I worked over the connector for the choke with my pocket knife in hopes of getting it to work. Removed the contacts from the housing and rebent them and then reinstalled.

And now I have a choke!

It's such a weird feeling having the truck start correctly, I'm so used to having to pump the gas to keep it running and then letting it warm up before driving it in the morning. No more!

Also noticed a few loose tubes that I'm not sure about.

The front and back of the carb has a tube coming out that's capped with rubber. When I bumped the front one the rubber cap disintegrated. I tried capping/uncapping with my finger while it was running and didn't notice any change, what are these tubes for? How important is it that they're capped?


Also an uncapped and a capped vacuum line near the carb, where should these be going?

 

The lines out of the carb are vents, and should be going to the vapor recovery container below the battery.

As for the other two, I don't know. But, you should be able to figure it out by a process of elimination using the vacuum diagram just ahead of the radiator. Or, maybe someone else will recognize them.

 

Well I've got a stalling problem that I'm hoping is related the piece of cap that fell off the carb vent. Its new trick is stalling out of gear when it's warmed up. Not really an issue overall, but annoying since it mostly occurs when I drop into neutral for an offramp. I've gotten rather good at clutch starting it.

I also dropped $1k on having my mechanic revive the factory AC. We did a new drier for an r134 conversion and then did a new compressor cause the original one squealed like the pig it is.

I now have AC, and it's awesome.

Pulling into the green mafia for jeep parts the other day I got out and heard *hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*

Is that coming from my truck?


Yes.

So I got back in the truck and went down a block to the America's Tire, guy comes out and looks at it and goes "those are almost new, why couldn't this happen to a civic".

My thoughts exactly, but he talked me out of getting two tires, bought one and they let me buy the replacement certs for the other three as well so if this happens again it's no dimes out of my pocket. Which will be nice since the Michelin LTX M/S2 ain't cheap.

I walked back to o'reillys and got the parts I needed and got picked up so I could get some work done. Went back at the end of the day to get the truck and asked the manager if I could keep the debris from the tire.

SO he went back into the work area and fought with the sucker for 5 solid minutes to get it out of the tire. I thanked him and was on my way.

Eep!

 

That's one ugly file!

On the stalling, you'll have to provide a few more clues on what fell off for us to help.

 

Yeah, I was amazed once he got it out of the tire!

The part that fell off was the cap on the front vent tube for the carb. You can see it missing in this picture:


A few minutes before that picture was taken both caps (you can see the rear one) looked identical.

 

Capping vents causes problems as the bowl area needs the vent to stay at atmospheric pressure. When you cap the vent it pulls a vacuum on the bowl when the engine is running, and that changes the air/fuel mix.

So, if your carb was tuned for the vents being plugged, which would only work at one engine load, and then you lose the cap the air/fuel mix will change. I think it would make the mix richer, but I don't remember which way it goes. In any event, I'd plug it and see if the problem goes away.

 

4180's still vent through the 'straws' into the air cleaner like any other Holley.

Those vents are solely for evaporative emission control.

 

My bad. I forgot the "straws". I'll stick to Edelbrocks.

 

Ok, I got a cap kit to cap them in either case.

AFAIK the original/previous carb was determined to be crap and the shop played reman roulette until they got one that worked well enough and didn't really tune the thing.

I'll have to check but I assume I don't have an evap system as the truck is not originally a CA vehicle? Maybe I'm just being hopeful.

 

All of the trucks came with an evap canister to catch the fumes when the engine is off. That's what those vents would normally be plumbed into.

 

Well damn, I was hoping I had lucked out and somebody hadn't removed emissions equipment.

Ah well, I'll check if there's a canister under the battery still or not, and that will probably be the major factor in deciding what to do next. I know the truck smogs, and honestly at that, so it's not an immediate concern.

 

Post a pic of your vacuum routing sticker on the radiator support.
This will show us what equipment the truck was supposed to have.
If you need a bunch of vacuum valves and stuff to satisfy the visual inspection I may be able to help.

"Over 8600#" models had no Cats and wider brake drums in the rear.
Mine is a later truck with a Sterling 10.25" axle, so I don't have to deal with removing shafts to pull the drums.
Not certain which shoes and wheel cylinders yours takes.

If you want lower low the guts from a 4x4 460 T-19 will swap right in.
Before the Zf swap, my truck had 6.32:1 first (that still doesn't net you overdrive though)
Check the Novak site for sidebar info on the 4x4 460 T-19 gear set.

 

Thanks for the info on the 8600# models. That makes sense as to why I have not cat and CA is ok with that.

I was thinking I would keep my eyes out for a 4x4 t19 and do a guts swap when I do the rebuild, thanks for confirming it's possible.

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I don't see anything under my hood that looks like an evap canister, and I don't see any reference to it on the sticker, but maybe I'm missing something?

 

That's not a file,....That's a shank!