What I can afford, when I can afford it... 70 Chevy LWB

[KSWes]

I'm in the throws of redoing the master bedroom and bathroom, but the birthday came and went and put a few extra dollars in my pocket so had to go spend them at Harbor Frieght!

From what I've read, there are a few mods I can do to this and have a really sweet blast cabinet! It was on sale for 209, and with a 20% off coupon got it for 167! Good times. Back to work on the master bed and bath so I can get back to the truck about the time the weather starts to cool off hopefully!

[ZouchaR]

Originally Posted by KSWes

I'm in the throws of redoing the master bedroom and bathroom, but the birthday came and went and put a few extra dollars in my pocket so had to go spend them at Harbor Frieght!

From what I've read, there are a few mods I can do to this and have a really sweet blast cabinet! It was on sale for 209, and with a 20% off coupon got it for 167! Good times. Back to work on the master bed and bath so I can get back to the truck about the time the weather starts to cool off hopefully!

Couple of tricks that I learned with my blasting cabinet.

#1, take the grate out and cover it with aluminum window screen. This allows the media to fall through to the bottom and keeps your media MUCH cleaner and it last longer between clogs.

#2, get a small light with a bright bulb with a spring clamp hanger to put inside the cabinet, the light inside is terrible.

#3, if you can get them, classifier screens that are used for gold prospecting work PERFECT for cleaning your media. They fit into a five gallon bucket and allow you to pour your dirty media into them and it classifies the large junk out.

[KSWes]

Originally Posted by ZouchaR

Couple of tricks that I learned with my blasting cabinet.

#1, take the grate out and cover it with aluminum window screen. This allows the media to fall through to the bottom and keeps your media MUCH cleaner and it last longer between clogs.

#2, get a small light with a bright bulb with a spring clamp hanger to put inside the cabinet, the light inside is terrible.

#3, if you can get them, classifier screens that are used for gold prospecting work PERFECT for cleaning your media. They fit into a five gallon bucket and allow you to pour your dirty media into them and it classifies the large junk out.

Good suggestions! I haven't done this yet but I found this (Link) it's an upgrade kit for the Harbor Frieght blast cabinet. The kit comes with a better gun and better pickup up tube (american made) and you can order the replacement parts easily. I haven't bought it yet but it's on my Christmas wish list. The best thing I did to ensure a good running cabinet was to keep the air pressure high and keep a water separator on the air line.

[ZouchaR]

The aluminum screen will save you SO MUCH time... it really is a must..

What I did, took the screen and just wrapped it around the grate and overlapped it on the back side and used sheet metal screw to hold it together. Worked great. Then punch a hole in the screen where ever you want your media siphon to go through.

[KSWes]

Had the trim rings for the wheels and I hadn't decided to put them on. Had a little nudging from my brother and I'm glad I did. The trim rings bump up the appearance a bit.

Also have to add one more little thing to the overdrive set up on the truck. Since I kinda pieced my lockup kit from what was already in the transmission and some switches and relays. It works great other than the TC wants to lock up right on top of the 4 gear shift. So if you're still accelerating it'll bog down the motor. So I found this little gem on ebay for 30 bucks. Adjustable vacuum switch.

I haven't installed it yet, but basically you can wire it as normally closed or normally open. Since my torque coverter lockup circuit is energized normally, I'll wire normally closed. I have a switch for towing so I can turn off the lock up circuit and it's what I've been using other than when I'm just cruising down the highway, since it hasn't been working like I'd initially hoped. The only time it will lock up is when the 4th gear pressure switch inside the transmission has pressure, and now with this new switch if I'm still accelerating when it shifts to fourth the low vacuum will keep it from locking up the TC. Additionally I have it wired through the Normally Closed side of the brake switch so stepping on the brake will unlock the torque converter also. Waiting until it's not 20 degrees outside to get it installed. It'll be a quick fix. Just clip the lockup wire attach the terminals in line plug them in and run a vacuum line from manifold vacuum. Should make it much smoother operation on the highway.

[KSWes]

So after a little road time there are a couple of things that needed to be addressed. And the first one was the truck running rich and very poor fuel economy. Talking to several folks and spending a little time tuning the carburetor, the 770 Street Avenger is too much carb for my intended purpose with this truck. Which is a highway cruiser/round town occasionally hauling a camper trailer. I'm sure that there are ways to jet down the Holley to get the desired result, but probably not without several hours on a dyno and paying someone who is good with carbs to get it dialed in. I'm not complaining about the Holley, it ran good and when you hit the throttle it wants to go fast. Faster than this truck will ever go.

So I decided to go with the new street avenger 625 cfm which promises good fuel economy, outstanding drivability and easy tuning, they just released the black ceramic painted version which is just a little more than the ball burnished one. I decided to go for it since I have more black under the hood than shiny bits.

Installed pretty quickly. The Holley Throttle bracket even works on this carb. It's a tight squeeze but it does clear the linkage. It was getting late so I could only do a quick fire up to make sure there were no leaks and it was going to run. After priming the carb I no more than hit the key and it was running almost zero cranking. Install was very simple and quick, initial start up was better than expected. Idle was very smooth with no adjustment yet, I'll hook a vacuum gauge to it this weekend and make sure the idle air is where it needs to be, from how it was idling it's gotta be really close and I'll get it out on the road if the weather holds up. I sure hope it lives up the hype, so far so good. Going to put some new plugs in also as a good measure.