My Johnny Cash engine (all dressed in black) is back in VJO. Below is a picture of it. My neighbor is towing my truck to his shop tomorrow. I hope it will be done by Saturday.


My next question. How hard is it to install a tachometer? Can you recommend a good one?

Thanks,
Karl

 

It is easy - just follow the directions on the box. Generally, there will be a switch some where you will have to set to tell the unit you are mounting it on a V8, and a trigger wire - if your distributor is close to stock there will be a "tach" wire out of the distributor.

Most aftermarket ignitions have a "tach" output you can use. Worse comes to worst, tie it to the wire that runs between the coil and the points.

There will also be a power wire and a ground. Make sure your power wire is connected to a circuit that is switched off by the key.

Your engine looks good!

 

Cool, looks great! Wish I could get down there to help with the install. Saturday would be the earliest I could make it so let me know how the progress is on Friday night. Or Thursday night, and maybe I could come down Friday after work...

 

Thanks Dan, I'll let you know how Mike (my neighbor) is doing with it.

 

Glad to hear it made it back OK. Good luck with the install !!!

 

Awesome! I'm tied up this weekend or I'd offer some support.

 

UPDATE: Engine is in the truck. The mechanic is still hooking up all the special stuff to it. I hope they can get to start her up tomorrow.

 

Minor setback... my neighbor was short a mechanic today. That means I need to wait until Monday for them to finish putting it together and do the run in. Since I am in no great hurry for my truck, I am ok with waiting the weekend for it. (Really, I wanted it in my drive way tonight, but you know what they say about "wish in one hand, s@#t in the other and see which fills up first.")

I posted a question in the Delo oil thread in this forum. Please answer it if you get a chance.

Anyway, I set up an appointment with the DMV for Thursday to get it all legal. I checked and I will probably have to weigh it, but the limit now is 6000lbs and I know my truck is south of 5500.

Have a great weekend. I guess I will do yard work, fix a few things on the house, and do things that I will "forget" to do once I have my truck back.

 

Sounds like a good plan - and better to wait for the shop to do the run in. But you are more patient than I ever would be!

 

I agree about letting them do it. They are going to hook it up to a dyno and check the tail pipe gasses.

The guy who rebuilt the engine (twice) said it looked the carb was running way too rich by looking at the pistons. He is wondering if there was too much gas and that thinned the oil. That would hurt the parts at the top front the most. The carb is a brand new Holley 2bbl 500cfm. He is not sure if that was the reason for the failure.

Even if that was the fault, he is proudly standing behind his warranty. He just wants to make sure the carb is tuned right and the jets are good when we get Johnny going again. So that is the long explanation why I want them to do the run in on the dyno with the tail pipe sniffer going.