Well a new month so started a new posting.

John I dont know if you heard but the jack on the club trailer did not work Sunday and I had to work it by hand.
I did not know if my truck would charge the battery that supplies the jack, my truck is wired to do that, but when I got back home to disconnect I still had to do it by hand.

I got to get my butt out there and
1) charge the battery and
2) look into maybe rewiring the trailer light plug to charge the battery from what ever pulls it like my 2 trucks.
I also dont think the "break a way" electric brake battery is any good that is mounted on the outside rail and it is not being charged either.
Why have 2 batteries when 1 will do the job?

Plan is to remove the outside battery and tie the break a way switch into the battery inside and wire the inside battery so it charges when hooked to something.
All the travel trailers I have dealt with used the inside battery for the break a way switch and was charged when towing so cant see why this would not work on this trailer too.
Dave ----

 

I didn't know you had to manually do it, and I didn't know it had stopped working. I'm not familiar with the more modern multi-prong trailer plugs, I've only ever had the 4-pin style. But I agree if it's wired correctly it should be able to keep the battery charged, assuming the battery is good.

I worked on Mac's squarebody Chevy today, he wanted to some help replacing his passenger side window motor. It was not fun, my hands and forearms are both scratched up from the sheet metal openings in the door where you have to put your hands through to work. The design is that the motor mounts to the track, and the track has to be removed in order to replace it. Very difficult to get out, and even more difficult to get back in, get all 3 rollers in their tracks, and get the bracket lined up correctly on all 4 mounting bolts. It did not work, and his old switch was damaged. But even so it should work from the drivers side switch. Replaced it with a new switch, barely any juice. We could get the motor to spin without being installed and we can get it to go down, but it does not have the strength to go up. I think it's just not getting enough power, maybe old wiring, maybe the connector is corroded. But once we got the motor and track installed and the window in the down position, can NOT get it go back up! And with the window down, you don't have room to get your hands in there to do anything. I cringe at this (and definitely did not take a pic of my shame) but Mac suggested so I went with it - cut a square hole in his door for access, just so I could fix the wiring connector which had gotten squeezed out of place during the install. He has a lower trim panel that covers it, so he was unconcerned. But I hated to cut up a 40 year old classic truck. By 5:30pm we had both given up on it and he left, said will leave it down for the parade tomorrow and then park it inside his garage, and bring to another buddy that does electrical work with the hopes that he can figure it out. I tried to jumper from 12v using the only thing I had, which was a test lead from my multimeter, and the wiring started smoking and melted. Tiny gauge lead could not provide the amps needed to move the motor.

Did you have any luck finding your AC leak? You want to ride together when we go to Kurt's to take part in the "first fire up"?! I'm excited, have not done this in many years.

 

I dont know what shape the battery is in as Andre said he always put a trickle charger on it.
So I wonder if it is on its last legs?

Also the jack has a light on it I guess for hooking up in the dark? that is not vary bright.
I and son have found it on at times and we think the cover blowing around flips the switch that is on the front of the jack?
I have since tied off the cover so it dose not blow around and have not seen the light on so maybe that was it.
I also dont know how long the light might have been on so that could have drained the battery down to a point the jack will not work but the light will?

I just know there is a better way it can and will be set up. I also may look into mounting some outside battery connections like used on race cars.
Right now you have to get inside and you cant open the door all the way when in the covering and I seen stuff was on top of where the battery is.
Then we got all them tires also in the way I just got to get out there and do what I got to do.

Was that a new motor, rebuilt or a junk yard for the window?
I would say if it was not a new motor it was pulling too much amps as I dont think 12 or even 16 gauge wire would of smoked other wise.
Replacing motors and regulators is not fun in anything working thru little holes.
Well the good thing is Mac is taking it to someone else and it is their problem now But going to say if not a new motor it is a motor thing and not wiring.

My son bought a HF sniffer and think tried it on his car or truck and said if has to be pointing at a good size leak, that you can see, for it to sound.
He said the box showed 2021 date so maybe the batteries are low? Told him to try new batteries and if it dont work send it back.
Reading the reviews some also had the same problem, only sounds when pointed at a leak you can see. So I wait and see what he finds.

Right now I left the cap off the low side as I think that is where the leak was. It was the only place I seen fresh dye.
I seen posted the caps can sometimes push in on the valve and cause a leak and why I left the cap off.

As for Kurt's First Fire Up we can go together but I have the large fan, timing light and other tools he said he needed.
I need to see if I have a 1/2" drill for priming the oil. He did not ask for a starter button but going to bring mine and a test light and meter just in case.
I figured I would throw everything in the back of the pick up maybe the day before as it is parked in the house garage and would be ready to go.
You can ride with me if you want and if dont go breaking the door handle again
Dave ----

 

I bet that is exactly what has happened, the light switch being flicked on by the cover flapping around, and then running the battery down to the point that it won't stay charged now.

The new power window motor was brand new, and the wiring that smoked was my multimeter lead, that is very thin wire, probably 24 gauge. Mac went to another friends to look at, his friend had a connector for Chevy power window, plugged his pigtail in and used a battery and the window goes up and down with no effort. But looking at the wiring and checking, his friend said he thinks maybe it is a ground issue. But for sure not showing 12v at the motor when Mac pushes the up or down button. Being the holiday he didn't do any more on it but said he will get his friend to help him with the wiring more next week,

I offered to bring some 1:4 mix race gas but not sure he wants to use that or not. He said he will drain and refill with 93 octane. But if there is still old gas left in his tank that race mix might "kick it up a notch"!

I also have a timing light and a vacuum gauge, he did not mention needing anyone to bring that so maybe he already has them, if not I can grab mine.

I was worried about batteries in my temp gun going bad, but it looks like the real problem to worry about was dirt dobbers building a nest in it! Oh well, I have a new one on the way


D'oh!

 

IF Mac's truck has a bad ground it may show low volts like it did.
Remember it is a full path and if any of that path has a restriction it will show up in other places.
Look at I40, traffic could be back up at 306 but you run into it at 312, same with electrical & fluid.

I know Kurt asked for a timing light & the IR gun but good call on the vacuum gauge.
I would say if you think he might need it but did not say so to bring it.
That is why I am going to bring my remote start button and anything else I think he could use.
Best to have and not need than need it and not have.

I should check my IR gun as it just sits on the shelf.

I dont know how much of the EFI system controls things (timing?) but I think we are all there for eyes & ears mostly.
If he drains the gas tank and then puts 10 gallons of high octane he will be ok.
If you was trying to start off and run on really old gas he may have issues but he will be good.
Dave ----

 

I will bring the vacuum gauge in case needed, I know it is handy when tuning a carburetor engine so I am not sure how much use it will be on an EFI motor, but the worst that can happen is that it sits in my box all day

My IR temp gun came in the mail, meanwhile I figured out what was wrong with my old one. After I had cleaned out the dirt dobber mess I still was getting no laser out of it, but it turns out all I needed to do was press the "mode" button.

When I see Mac Thursday evening at the meeting I will ask him if there is any resolution on his power window issue. I would think it grounds through the mounting frame and therefore the door hinges, but with an older vehicle with some rust here and there who knows. The motor has 2 leads, so it has to be either + and - (with poltarity change depending on which direction you want the motor to spin, for up or down) or one lead for up and another lead for down, with the body & frame & etc providing the - ground.

 

Kurt can use the vacuum gauge to set timing if he wants to but cant hurt to bring it.

Bring both of the guns and I will bring mine as I want to see how close all 3 are.
I dont think I have really used mine for anything but I did check it the other day and it was displaying numbers so the batteries are still some what good LOL


For Mac it must be a ground issue as I cant think it would be anything else.
The plan is to take Mary out for dinner Thru., yep GC LOL so should see you there.
Dave ----

 

I tell you those temp guns are handy to track down overheating issues, looking at temp at the thermostat outet vs top of radiator vs bottom of radiator vs water pump inlet, will help segment the cooling system. Also I hear that people with a misfire use it to look at temp of the exhaust manifold at each port, and whichever one is coolest is the one that isn't firing.

I'm ready to eat, and I know Doug was just saying how he's looking forward to steak night

 

Did you hear Kurt got the motor to turn over with the key?
Found a bunch of wires behind the Ebrake pedal. Mat was right there just did not turn his head enough

Kurt Text me when food shopping at 8am wanted to know what the timing was set to.
Told him 12 to 14 BTDC at idle as a start and may need to be adjusted for ping.

Then asked what Mat and I came to on the ATF level before phase 2 of break in and told him it was just on the tip and Mat was happy as it had enough for the pump to pump and not run dry but not so much it would leak out the tail house till the gasket is looked at.

So I guess he is plugging away at things
Dave ----

 

I saw that in the email thread, lucky he noticed and it jogged his memory. I had a memory problem today, was looking for Studebaker suspension parts that I had purchased a couple of years ago. Went through every cabinet and storage place in the garage and the workshop, multiple times, and could not find it. Then at the last minute I had an epiphany - check the trunk! Sure enough that's where I had stored everything.

I mounted an electric push-fan on Andre's radiator last week (maybe the week before?), and I thought we were good to go, but he called me today and said he turned it on and got nothing. I remember I was skeptical about the trigger wire, both of them were yellow so I just ran one to 12v switched and the other to ground. I told him I can come over with my volt meter and see if we can figure it out, but he texted me a few minutes later and said he tried a different switch and it was working fine now. The switch he had was one of those that lights up when its in the on position, but I guess it didn't like that, or only had a such a small signal through the high impedance ohm circuit that it wasn't registering properly? But a regular plain old click on click off and seems to be ok now.


Good times at Kurt's - researching a notebook full of wiring diagrams

Methinks Kurt has a vacuum issue and that that is what is affecting his "hard to start, don't want to idle" issue.

 

After reading the post I had the same issue with a part I bought but could not find, the motor side cross shaft pivot for the pickup when it broke the last time.
Dont remember where I found it but think it was in the truck behind the seat or something like that.
It wil be fun (NOT) with the Javelin as it has been apart for way to long and I also moved so who knows where stuff is

On the fan for Andre is he using a relay or just the switch to turn it on?
Hope a relay or that switch will not last long LOL

Kurt has sent emails, text and called me as him & Jim have been playing with it trying to get it to start / run when below 160* as that is the temp it switches to open loop and will some what run.
I dont know if he sent you a video but Matt thinks it stalled because it ran out of fuel.
Cant wait till Kurt gets the parts to hook up a fuel PSI gauge so we know what that is and maybe check that off the list of a cause.

He was also going to try when below 160* turning off learning and see if it would idle and adjust so it would idle.
He also was going to set the idle to like 1100 - 1200 RPM where a choke would have cold RPM and see if that dose anything when above 160*

I also asked Kurt about hooking a laptop up to the system to see if it would give more information and adjustments than the hand held unit.
I cant believe there is no way to make adjustments in the closed loop side at all and thinking the lap top may?
I also wonder if Kurt was running a dist. how you adjust the timing curve? Can it be done with the hand held or lap top?

I also asked if there was some info the IAC like voltage range it works in and a way to check it?
So far any idle speed adjustments have been with the screw and none from the IAC so wonder if it is working?
Dave ----

 

The unit Kurt has does not control the timing at all, it does get a reference from the distributor just so that it knows what the RPM is but it can't change the timing curve. Just mechanical advance and vacuum advance.

I am curious too about the fuel pressure, but since he can keep it running by holding the accelerator I think it probably has enough fuel. It's just giving the richer mixture maybe when cold, or not enough from the IAC. I saw the email thread and tried to read them all, someone (maybe Kurt?) mentioned there is a way to sync the IAC by turning the throttle adjustment until you reach a certain point of ohms on the meter, and telling the system that that is your "zero".

I did wire up Andre's fan with a relay, I always use relays. You got the full power hot, which I stole from the battery side of the solenoid, and then to trigger it on you need a power and a ground. So I stole the keyed power off the I terminal on the solenoid, figure it does not use enough power to affect anything. Then I ran the negative side inside the car up to a switch on dash. It was one of those plastic switches that lights up. He wanted it lit, and if he had told me that before I would have run the power wire inside instead of the ground wire. I said I can't see how that would light up since we're triggering with the negative side, but it actually did have a very dim light inside. So whatever voltage gets through the high ohm resistor inside the relay. Couldn't be more than a couple of volts. But sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. After he put a regular heavy duty switch in, turns on and off fine. I can't quite figure it out unless maybe the little light inside the switch uses just enough power that the relay still sees it as open. I can say the relay I used is rated for 2-24v so it should have come on, in my mind.

I did a little bit with the trailer wheels yesterday, the aluminum wheels I had wouldn't fit because the snout is too small. So I opened it up!


Next I wanted to make some headway on the Studebaker suspension which has been sitting untouched for a year or more. The last thing that happened (months ago) was that Wayne pressed in the bearings for me and said "all you gotta do is get it reamed to fit so that it doesn't bind" and there it sat. I was trying to think of where I could bring it to get it reamed, so I texted Dave to ask for opinion. He said did not like the guy that worked on his king pin for the F100 but has his own reamer which I could try.

But the sizes were different so it wouldn't work, but Dave says "it's so close I wonder if a brake hone would do it" so he tried that, and sure enough after a few passes it went together nicely.


When I took it apart so long ago, it only had 2 shims, one above the bearing and one below. But the new kit came with 12 shims so I split them up; 6 for each side. But I decided to only use 4 here - 2 on top and 2 below.


Everything went together easily and smoothly, after fully assembled it is firm but doesn't bind. I goobered everything with grease before assembly, but once I get it on the car will need to hit it with a grease gun to completely fill it.



This wheel was on the trailer when I bought it, one of the trailer tires was bad with belt showing, so I guess the previous just looked around the yard and found one that fit & bolted it on. So I only have the one, not a set, and with the offset I didn't care to use it anyway. It appears to be a Ford Ranger wheel from around 2000-ish. I tried degreaser, and I tried that "wheel cleaner guaranteed to eat baked on brake dust and road grime" along with my pressure washer, but nothing was working to get this wheel to look decent.



So I figured the only thing I had NOT tried yet was elbow grease! I got a brillo pad and went at it, what do you know it's a nice looking wheel. Maybe somebody on marketplace wants it, I have no use for it.

 

The wheel turned out great
I know someone that has 4 Alum. wheels on a pickup that could use a little elbow grease

If I know someone was going to take pictures in my garage I would have done a little cleaning
It did turn out an easy job to hone the bushing for it to fit.
When I did my pickup and the shims I made mine way to tight. So with bushings being tight I also made it worst with the shims.
I can say it has gotten easier to turn with miles on the truck and why I did not want to go too loose on your bushing.

On Andre's car dose it run hot or he did the fan just in case?
It sound like the switch was not wired right for the relay but good to hear it is working.

I have not herd from Kurt but maybe taking the day off after working in that heat yesterday.
There is something funky going on when it is in closed loop (below 160*) but with the hand held it will not say what is going on till up to temp.
That is why I asked about the laptop if it might give more info?
Kurt did say with the laptop he can get logs and most likely support would want logs so he will need to get that part working.
I still like to know what the fuel PSI is to the unit even if it runs with throttle.
Time will tell
Dave ----

 

It had a simple 4 pin connector I think going to the handheld, I bet it probably has a similar cable with a USB on the other end to connect to a laptop, and then Holley has an app to load on it that can read the data and save it.

I got a video from Kurt this morning showing it idling fine, he said once it gets up to temp it is dialed in correctly. So he is waiting for it to cool down to see about tackling the cold start meanwhile he said his fuel pressure gauge came in so he plans to install that today.

Andre's bird generally does not run hot, but if it is hot outside and he finds himself sitting in stop & go traffic or at a long red light, it starts to creep up. So it's peace of mind to have to be able to reach down and click that fan on.

Regarding those aluminum rims on "someones" pickup - those look like they've be very difficult to polish up, with all the ridges & valleys.

 

After the weekly trash run I hit the hardware store and ran into Tony L.
Being it was cooler I wanted to get on the trailer and rewire it and needed some supplies.

In looking it over and hooking up the battery to charge it I found the break away battery dead. It is one of them emergency light dry cell battery.
My thought is to use the battery for the jack to also work the break away.

I mounted a box under the trailer on the inside frame rail and made all connections inside it.
Should be protected where it is and I used plugs where the wires feed in to help seal it.
I removed think 6 wire taps and only used 1 as I forgot to put the break away power feed wire in the crimp when I made it.
It was also the last connection and I was wet & beat when done.

Son had to put the tools away that I had in the trailer of the garden tractor so I would not need to walk to / from garage that I still had to do.
Just need to wire in a 30 amp breaker for the charge wire from the puller to the battery will charge when pulling it to shows as trailer was not wired for that.
Both my trucks are wired to charge trailer batteries and think most that are wired for a 7 pin light plug is also.

And everything worked when I was done so guess I did it right LOL
I do want to check / adjust the breaks as I dont think they work as I think they should but going to leave it for another day
Dave ----