I think I got it
2 are in parts in the box. 1 runs but has a broken vacuum can. the other dose not run but has a good vacuum can.
You want the good can on the good dist. and have a working dist.
Only thing I dont like is you guys pulled them both apart so I hope between you guys and what I see when I see them in person we can get it working.

I also under stand a new can is on its way for the dist. that is in the truck.
I should know by tomorrow if I have to work Sunday or not and if not then hope I can get a look at them to make a good working dist.
Are the 2 in the box at your house or Andre's? Guess I will find out when I see you guys tomorrow at the show.
Dave ----

 

So Dave I have been meaning to tell you but kept forgetting, the new parts arrived and instead of a new distributor, just sent a new vacuum can. So this will just be the "extra" distributor to stick on a shelf until needed, but would you be able to assist one more time, to put a new vacuum cam on an otherwise good distributor?

 

Dont see why I can't.
Who has the distributor and new can?
With this cold snap and HOS (hours of service) lifted i dont know when i can get to it?
If I can get it by new years weekend I think I can do it new years day.

They wanted me to work Saturday but I had the eye needle Friday and the storm front coming thru my eye hurt and was tearing all day Saturday.
We also lost power for 3 hours Saturday morning.
Got down to 62° in the house as I was working on the gas fireplace to get a little heat.

It should be warmer new years weekend most likely work Saturday so Sunday I can do the swap.
Dave ----

 

We were lucky with the power, just a 10 minute hit around 9am. My son who lives on the other side of Four Oaks down 701 was without power for 6 hours.

Next Sunday works for me as far as the distributor goes, but let me reiterate that there is no hurry as this will be the "extra" one to just save pending the next failure. lol. Thank you for helping out with that. I have all the parts in a box in the back of my car.

 

Merry Christmas guys. I haven't posted what I've been up to for yall while my 300 has been in the process of a DIY rebuild and the floor pans get fit. Christmas presents have been in the cab for the last 2 months though so I haven't gotten to that.

Instead, I've been helping a friend out with his fitting of his 426 Hemi into his custom Dodge RT that a custom shop job that went bad. Let me tell you those things are BIG. wow. Working with only an inch or two ALL around. Good times though. Looking forward to getting back into my garage once it warms up in the new year.

 

John I understand on the no rust but I may forget if I put it off to long.

Steve they don't call them elephant motors for nothing
What is that Chevy doing in there with all them MOPARS ?

When you get going on your truck post up pictures we love pictures.
Dave ----

 

My friend has a late 50's-era 392 Hemi on an engine stand in his shop, it's been there as long as I have known him (15+ years). He thinks it's worth it's weight in gold so he'll never get rid of it! Is that the same block as the 426? I always thought an early T-Bucket with that 392 would an awesome street rod. It has an intake for six 2-barrel carbs (or maybe they are 1-barrel carbs?)

 

I see the Hemi has a Vortex magneto - needs no power to make spark.
Just spin it and it makes spark. Some of or off road team members ran them.

I dont know if that older Hemi is the same as the one they are putting in the RT?
Then you have the new ones they put in the Chargers.
Dave ----

 

I never knew that, sounds pretty awesome. Why did the Vortex fall out of favor?

 

This post is mostly directed at FuzzFace, but I welcome any comments or suggestions from everybody else as well.

So let me catch you up on some of the efforts that was going on Andre's before the holidays. You remember how bad his Cutlass was running that day in my driveway, where it was idling high, would not settle down, but we could never find any vacuum leak?

Well Mike gifted him an Edelbrock 500 carb, apparently he had purchased it for his own car but soon realized that a 500 cfm carb will not properly feed his 455 engine, so he upgraded to a 750 cfm and put this one back in the box. It's the perfect size for Andre's 307 and is a nice upgrade over the 35 year old quadrajet.

So the first thing I was try to label everything, because in addition to the carb swap Andre wanted to try & delete all the emissions stuff and unnecessary sensors and wires. But to my dismay I found that Andre had already tackled some of this himself, in his very caveman sort of way. He even hacked off the wiring for the cruise control, which he said worked fine, he just didn't see himself as ever needing it or using it, so CHOP - it's gone. And all the open wires just hiding inside the corrugated wire loom hopefully not touching anything else.

I deleted his EGR for him, just removed it and created a flat plate out of 1/4 inch steel. Wayne said we should not need a spacer to mount the square bore Edelbrock to the spread bore Quadrajet manifold, but it looked kinda sketch to me and I had a square-to-spread adapter in my carburetor parts box, so we used it. We would have needed it anyway because the carburetor mount is so low that the throttle arm would be touching the base of the intake and not be able to move. The EGR plate I made was too close to the TV cable attachment for the trans and was touching, so we had to clearance it with a dremel. See picture.


After clearancing this with a dremel, we got full movement on the arm with the throttle valve cable attached.

At the same time as the carburetor replacement, we did a distributor swap as well. The original one did not have a vacuum advance and was controlled by the early computer, which appeared to not be operational anymore (when you turn the key on, there are 8 dashboard lights that should come on to tell you the computer is working, and none of them come on except the ALT light which is likely wired independent of the computer). The carburetor was what they called a "feedback carburetor" and the computer got information about the throttle position and other things from 2 connectors going to the carb. So bottom line, the original distributor would not work correctly with this setup, so Andre ordered a "ready to run HEI" that came with 8mm plug wires as well, so the ignition system would be brand new. Doing a distributor swap on a GM really makes you appreciate a Ford, as reaching that crap in the back of the motor by the firewall is a real pain, and honestly I could only get the socket on the hold-down by feel, not by sight. I think if I could really get up on the fender I could probably see but I was about to give Andre a heart attack every time my belt touched the fender, so I made sure to stay back.

It fired up on the first try, so kudos to us for getting everything hooked up correctly. Generally speaking I would not like to swap 2 things at once, but in this case we didn't seem to have much choice. I could not find the timing pointer on his engine at all, and a google search turned up a tip that most GM engines of this era had a plastic timing pointer and over the years a lot of them get brittle and break off so I can only assume this must be the case with his motor as well. So we did the timing by trial and error, slowly moved it to where it had the fastest idle, then reduced it by about 100 rpm. Went for a test drive and had some pinging under acceleration, so we came back and reduced it a little bit more and it seemed to be a sweet spot where the engine started easily and ran well under all the conditions we put it through.

But the carburetor is another matter. Even with the idle adjustment all the way out, so far out you can fit a flat tip screwdriver blade between the adjustment screw and the arm, it still idles too fast. This was a problem on the old Q-Jet as well so it got me to thinking that there must be a vacuum leak somewhere. I disconnected all vacuum lines on the manifold & carb and put caps over them to seal them, tried again and got the same result. Wayne put a rag in his hand and held it stuffed over the air horn of the carb and the engine sputtered to die out, so he said that indicates the air is coming through the carb, not through a vacuum leak. I was thinking even if the air is getting in somewhere else, if you choke off the carb and rob it of fuel you will have the same result, so I am not 100% sure his method is correct, but since I can't hear or find any leak I will assume for now that's the case. He said sometimes on those small Edelbrocks they will modify them to let more air through, but I don't know how to tell if that is the case. I did happen to take a pic of the bottom of the carb before install and in looking at it afterwards, I noticed these "channels" for lack of a better word in each of the throttle bores, that look like the throttle blades even when fully closed will not be able to seal. It looks like it was made that way and I don't know if it is something to be worried about or not. One thing for sure, working on this has reaffirmed my preference as a "Holley guy" over Edelbrock. See picture, I've the circled the ones most visible.


I guess it's right but it sure looks strange. Edelbrock 500 cfm

Another problem we encountered, the shift points on the transmission are not right. The correct way to set the TV cable is to press a detent button on the cable housing which lets it slide in or out, then pull the throttle all the way to fully open. At that point release the detent, and the trans cable will be pulled fully out whenever the carburetor is at WOT. But the trans will shift ok from 1-2 then shifts late from 2-3, and would not upshift 3-4 unless we were going about 60-65. At idle, there is a LOT of slack in the cable, so I know its not getting any signal from the throttle to the trans until you are about half throttle. I know in dealing with the Ford AOD, the geometry was way off and I think that is the case here as well. I found a bracket that says "TV Geometry corrector for Edelbrock with TH200R4 and TH700R4 transmissions", so I told Andre to order that. It only cost $16 and seems well worth it if it will solve that problem. Meanwhile, the trans clunks pretty hard when you put it in gear. I think that is probably due to the idle speed (the lowest we can get is about 1050 rpm), so I think if we can figure that out and get the car to idle at 700 or so, it will go into D more smoothly.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, or want to come tinker with it, we can try for Sat or Sun, I know Andre will appreciate it, and I will appreciate any assistance also. Wayne was good but it was obvious he was not back to feeling 100% yet. Another set of eyes might be exactly what is needed.

 

I just read this now at work, crazy hours and all.
I will hook up with you guys late Saturday when i get out of work been here since 2am so hope i can think straight LOL
Dave ----

 

I dont know if Vortex is still around or not but is mostly a race only item because of the size, see how tall it is?
And not many places have a cap & rotor if you would need one.

Unlike the normal dist. that needs battery power to work and if the batter is low the spark is weak.
The Vortex is a magneto, think lawn mower, no battery to run.

For the street now with all the different "HEI" systems out there is another reason you dont see many.

See you at the show today
Dave ----

 

Deer seasons out so I might actually work on the truck some now...

Last weekend I put the new rocker arms on the baby 435, got valves set and tightened down the stuf girdles.




Yesterday I changed the oil in the Superduty and in and the Supercrew. While under the 150 I noticed I had apparently lost a slide pin and bolt on the drives idea front wheel. Guess that's the little rattle picked up towards end of hunting season. Picked up slide pins last night probably toss them in today.

 

Hey Larry those rocker stud girdles look pretty tough!

 

First 2 day off weekend I have had off this year and being it was some what warm I had stuff to do in the garage, sorry none of it on the Ford PU, that is where I spent my time.

A head light went out on my 02 Durango a few days ago and I wanted to replace the lens assy. 1 was broken and 21 years old and turning yellow again for the 4th time. So a few days ago I ordered new lenses and fog lights in the bumper for the yellow thing also from LMC.
After the weekly trash run using the PU, 15 min talk at the dump about the truck, I hit the auto parts store for new bulbs, more talking about the PU I was able to get on the job.
I thought the lenses did not come with any of the bulbs, head or turn signal, but it did. I bought better head light bulbs so they went in the lens and the assy into the truck. Went in easier than coming out.

I looked at the fog lights, I have HID projector after market ones in place and 1 is not working so going back to factory.
Thing is it was going to take more work than I wanted to get the HIDs out, rusted bolts, and I did not have the screws needed to install the replacements so left for another day LOL.

Close to a month ago I pulled the mirrors off my bike to replace with new, they would move when riding so was time to put it back together.
The mirrors and windshield screws go into half round nut type things that work like crap but it is the only thing that will work where they have to go. To get to the nuts I had to pull the speakers and to do that the front turn signal lights had to come off.

1 of the mirror screws on each mirror would not tighten from when I got the bike. Looking it over I could now see the screws, 3 different sets that I got with different mirrors, were all to short for this 1 nut on each? Off to the hardware store for longer SS screws, talked about the truck again and now had screws that should work. Had to run a tap thru the nuts as the screws would not go all the way thru but we got the windshield & mirrors mounted.

Before putting the turn lights back in I could see a rats nest under the radio and I also bought a hidden antenna, one that came with the bike (not installed) was a tall metal one, as it would only get 2 local stations.
Had to pull the radio get the wiring cleaned up and start looking how to plug in the new ant. well the radio uses a wire for ant. no wonder it only gets 2 stations! The wire was also run down low that also did not help.
I tried to running it up in the faring but I dont think that is going to work much better?
By this time it was dinner time and closed up shop.

I did look up what I might be able to do to make the ant. better but all of the posts were for indoor radios.
Say to use 6 foot of wire and run it around the room or attach to pipes, cant do that on a bike so will need to try a few things to see what works.

Sorry John I did not get to the dist. yet. Hope to get to it next weekend as I want to not work it because of the St. Jude's dinner Saturday or the next weekend as I get the eye needle or the following wife has surgery on a knee so taking it off as well. So if I can next 3 weekends are off from work I hope.
Dave ----