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Post by spanks79 on Apr 7, 2015 15:28:46 GMT -5
Wow these seats do look a lot like the brochure. The look is growing on me a bit. it is a lot less noticeable with the seats in the car. Not much to look at these days in terms of progress. Been working on lots of little issues now that it is up and running. Nothing I like more than going back and replacing perfectly good parts that are new, but got old just sitting around while working on the project. The valve cover gaskets were leaking so those were replaced, had a coolant leak that looked like a heater core but I think it was just the heater hoses. I had used 3/4 and 5/8 hoses, they really should be 5/8 and 1/2" hoses. Replaced with the smaller size, seems better now. The amp gauge was not working, or didn't appear to be. It was a 74 gauge but I basically have a 76 harness and charging system. I found an old post of Arthur's on BBC and he found the 76-77 gauges to be more sensitive than the 74-75 gauges. So I took the dash apart and swapped the 74 gauge for a 76. While I was in there I fixed a couple back light bulbs and removed the "Hot" and "oil" light bulbs. The bulbs were interfering with the gauges. I'm not sure the 76 gauge operates any better but its in there. The brakes have been problematic this whole time. Got sick of bleeding and bleeding. Ended up replacing the master cylinder I bought in 11/2012 with a new one. That brought it around, brakes are much better now. Might need to bleed again but its well on its way. Adjusted the brake light switch. Going to do the alignment tonight and try and button up a few other loose ends. Ill try and get a vid of the engine running and exhaust soon.
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Post by Ghostbluesman (Ghostsoldier) on Apr 7, 2015 15:49:53 GMT -5
*sqeeeeeeee!!!* Rob
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 8, 2015 11:53:21 GMT -5
Got the alignment done That required a bit of messing around. Got the ride height set first. The front was about 1" too low. I have the BIG torsion bars in it from Firm Feel, so even with the 440 and cast exhaust manifolds it didn't take a whole lot of turns on the adjuster bolts to bring it up. From there it was just caster, camber and toe. Caster and camber was pretty easy. The upper A arms are in slots so you can put it where ever you want, unlike modern cars, plus everything is clean and new so no fighting seized or rusted bolts. Set the camber straight up, 0 deg and the caster a shade over 1 deg positive. Toe ended up being a bit of a pain because I used the Firm Feel heavy duty tie rod assemblies. They are nice pieces but just a tad too long. I got the toe set with both tie rod assemblies set too just about 1 turn longer than the shortest setting but then the steering wheel was off center. I ended up having to cut 1/4' off of the left inner tie rod end and some off the sleeve itself to be able to center the wheel and get toe to spec. Ended up at .3 deg toe in which is factory spec. Alignment can be a pain in the ass but I have to admit I am kind of an alignment nerd, I like the geometry involved. I have been doing alignments for a long time, probably one of the first things I ever did professionally on cars, plus it helps that I have my own alignment machine! Still need to take it out and drive it. Messing around the shop we have racked up about 6 tenths of a mile on it. It will be hitting the road soon. Here is a video of the engine running and exhaust as promised. I am pretty happy with it. Nice and quiet under the hood and from the front but has a nice rumble out back, almost a bit too much but I like it. It does have a slight tinny noise to it, sounds almost like an exhaust leak but its not. Some have asked about the mufflers. I'm not exactly sure what kind they are but they are nothing fancy, they might be Walker quiet flow. I know the exhaust guy got them locally.
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Post by Ghostbluesman (Ghostsoldier) on Apr 8, 2015 13:50:03 GMT -5
She sounds great, Matt! Rob
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 16, 2015 8:49:01 GMT -5
Well the car is now legally mine! Actually drove it to the BMV to get an out of state inspection and get the title in my name. Almost 3 years exactly from the day I drug this home. Should of seen the guys face at the title office when he asked what the odometer reading was. I said it didn't have one. It does now but not when I bought it! The car now has 12 miles on it. Got to drive it to the BMV. Brakes were still squishy and it still wasn't running quite right but it drove and handled great. Lots of work to do still but the list is getting shorter. Remember I have my first "gig" with the car on May 3rd during the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon at a Blues Brother themed water stop. Apparently word has been spreading among the Marathon planners as i was asked yesterday if the car could be present at the Marathon expo and events being held on the Friday and Saturday before the big race as well. Nothing like a little pressure! Thats two weeks away!! So the two biggest problems I have had are the ones I thought would be the easiest. Brakes and engine tuning. The brakes suck, they stop the car good but I have a ton of pedal travel. This is a completely new brake system, Master cylinder, lines, hoses calipers, wheel cylinders. The only parts carried over from the old car were the proportioning valve and booster assembly. We bled these things in every way imaginable. Conventional bleeding, Pressure bleeding, vacuum bleeding, even used a Phenoix Injection reverse pressure bleeder. Literally gallons of fluid. Even put on a second new master cylinder. Yesterday I think I finally found the problem. There is a factory adjustable master cylinder push rod coming out of the booster. I didnt take a pic but it looks like this. In that Picture it is adjusted out about 1/2" mine was about 1/4". I lengthened the rod about 6 turns. It mad a world of difference. I started looking for this because I found that the brake pedal would move almost 2" before anything happened hydraulically. I could actually hear the rod contacting the back of the master cylinder about an inch after even the brake lights came on. Im calling that done for now until she gets some more miles on her. The other big issue has been drivablity. The Holley 770 street Avenger just seemed way off. Terrible off the line acceleration, poor idle quality, just all around not good. Ive had some bad running cars but in my experience, hollys run pretty decent out of the box. Ive done my fair share of tweaking jets, power valves, and accelerator pumps but this just seemed out of the ball park all together. We tried setting the timing in different setting but had no luck. Mind you, this was a "new" card I purchased off of Craigslist a couple years ago. I started thinking I didn't have the full story on this carb. Finally after messing with it, disassembling and checking everything with no change, my buddy pulled the 750 off of his mustang and bolted it onto the 440. It is worlds better, still needs some tuning but man, its actually driveable. I honestly think I bought someone else's bastard carb. So now I have a new 750 Holley on the way and we will see how it goes. Anyone want to buy a 770 Street Avenger? Cheap!! Ill finish this post off with some eye candy. Seat update! New proper head rest installed. I think it looks much better. Growing on me. Before After A/C lines came in! Detailed exhaust pics! I love the tail pipes! Mufflers used for those who asked.
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Post by cynot on Apr 16, 2015 11:29:54 GMT -5
Looks gorgeous Spanks! Glad your getting it all worked out.
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 17, 2015 8:41:04 GMT -5
Holy shit. I was just getting ready to post a nice long update with seat belt and carburetor progress but the board or my browser took a shit and lost it all. Cant stomach a redo at the moment, . Oh well, progress being made.................
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Post by AZBlues on Apr 17, 2015 13:15:25 GMT -5
I hate it when that happens.
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Post by Steam McQueen on Apr 17, 2015 17:57:54 GMT -5
Here is a video of the engine running and exhaust as promised. Beauty!!
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 17, 2015 23:40:27 GMT -5
I hate it when that happens. Its happened way too many times!
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 19, 2015 0:23:31 GMT -5
Ok, I guess I am ready to try again. Its been a busy week. We got a lot done. The main priority has been to get the car running better. The main problem was that during hard acceleration, even just a snap acceleration from idle in neutral, the engine would choke and cough and backfire out the carb. I had originally thought that the issue was my 770 holley street avenger that I got off of craigslist. I bought a new Holey 750 and it helped a bunch, but still not great. I could tell that it wasn't getting enough fuel from the accelerator pump. Further investigation of the two carbs revealed the following info. 770 Street Avenger, comes with a .025" accelerator pump nozzle and a "black" accelerator pump cam (smallest). Cam info here www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/images/b/b0/Holley_pump_cam_info.jpg750 Holley comes with a .031" accelerator pump nozzle and a "green" accelerator pump cam (middle) This explains why the new 750 ran better than the "new" 770 straight out of the box on a thirsty 440 It actually seems kind of silly to me that the 770 is set up so conservatively. Must be for those small block chevy guys that just insist on having a 770 carb on their engine so they can brag about it. Since the jump in accelerator pump size helped so much I wanted to go more. Holley makes all kinds of nozzles but they all have to be ordered and I am impatient these days. My buddy came up with an extra .031 nozzle out of his fathers collection of Holley parts, so I took a needle drill bit and opened it up to .038 plus I found a "blue" (biggest standard cam) pump cam in a box of holley stuff I had. The combination of the two changes helped tremendously. Eliminated the lean backfire and greatly improved the drivablity. At this point I am pretty satisfied with the carb set up. My next move is to "re curve" the distributor. The engine likes timing. Right now it is set at 10 deg BTDC with vacuum adv disconnected. with the advance connected, total advance at 2800 rpm is 40 deg and I get no ping with premium fuel. It seems that the engine would like around 16 deg BTDC at idle but if I do the it puts my total up to 46 and it starts to ping. To "re curve" the distributor I want to limit the movement of the centrifugal weights in the distributor by welding up the slots in the advance plate. see this article for more info. www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/mopp-0301-mopar-electronic-ignition-system/Basically this will let me set base timing to 16 but still keep total timing under 40 deg total. I'm going to try and do this this week. After that I hope it will be running pretty damn good. I am also tossing the idea around of buying a good stall converter for it, I really think that will liven it up a bunch. I am glad to have figured out what was going on with it, I was worried I had some kind of internal engine issue. Its too bad I bought a new carb because i bet the 770 would have worked just as well with the proper accelerator pump circuit mods. Oh well, t least now I can sell the 770.
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 19, 2015 0:58:48 GMT -5
Got some of the seat belts in as well. For those that are following along, if you remember I sent all of this out to Snake oyl products for restoration. This is what I got back Basically what they did was re web and dye black the maroon set of 76 belts but use the front retrators from the black 74 set of belts. They look good but honestly for what I paid I was expecting a bit more. I am honestly worried about how these are going to hold up. Already showing signs of chipping Also the seat belt material is a lot thinner I didn't think this would be a problem but it actually causes a pretty significant problem. The lock mechanism on the rear outer retractors is released when the belt is allowed to retract fully into the retractor. This releases the lock and allows the belt to be pulled out again. The release mechanism is actually activated by the belt material winding up on the spindle and "growing" in diameter. Once the belt builds up enough it hits the release bar and allows the belt to be pulled out again. Well with the rear retractors mounted and trim installed the thinner material doesn't build up enough to release the lock even when the buckle is all the way against the trim and it gets jammed there. Like in this picture. Cant pull it out because its locked and it cant go in because it wedged against the trim. Kind of shitty. I should send them back but what i did was pull the belt all the way out of the retractor and then took a small piece of scrap black seat belt material from the old belts and wound it about one complete wrap of the retractor spool this effectively makes the overall diameter of the wound belt large enough to activate the release. Problem solved for now. Overall it looks good. Another slightly disappointing issue has been the air cleaner housing. The damn duplicolor Hemi orange will not dry. We sprayed it weeks ago! It is dry but still "soft". As a result my engine is no longer a 440 but rather a fur furty I installed the hood pad to protect the air cleaner lid from scratching the hood during normal vibrations but now the hood pad is even turning orange. This is getting re done. Less than 2 weeks to go!
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Post by countrybunker on Apr 19, 2015 16:58:55 GMT -5
Car is really coming along! Glad to see you getting all the little rough spots smoothed over.
I would be extramely pissed over those belts man. Knowing what you spent, and what I see on here is just bullshit. It wasn't a lie, just bullshit.
Does she have a lot more "pep" now after the carb work?
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Post by spanks79 on Apr 19, 2015 20:29:04 GMT -5
Car is really coming along! Glad to see you getting all the little rough spots smoothed over. I would be extramely pissed over those belts man. Knowing what you spent, and what I see on here is just bullshit. It wasn't a lie, just bullshit. Does she have a lot more "pep" now after the carb work? Its runs a lot better, Id say good enough to make a road trip with it, but "pep" is not a word I would use to describe it. For what it is, its honestly a little wimpy off the line. Hoping a bit more timing and tuning will help but honestly I am currently shopping for torque converters. I think my cam needs the help down low, once its up and rolling it pulls like crazy. As far as the belts, I am disappointed but honestly I try not to have high expectations on work I farm out. It is so hard to find people who actually care about the product they produce. Honestly, I don't know what else they could have done. There are only so many ways to turn maroon parts black. I should have just taken my $$$$ (yes 4 digits!) and bought a car that had black or tan belts and swapped my maroon belts into it and resold the car.
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Post by Elwood on Apr 20, 2015 0:52:51 GMT -5
Not to pile on here, but from a safety standpoint (in regards to their actual purpose) are those belts... safe?
The car looks GREAT, btw.
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