Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

Found a box of parts the shop put in under the back seat in the WMB from the bad carrier. Man I was certainty living on borrowed time.

[HO455]

I've been AWOL as of late. I just finished a 96 day run at work with no days off. With the exception of the rear end work nothing got done on the WMB. I drove it to work every day (except the days it was at Six States for rear end recovery. About 83 days) until the 5th of August. When I fired it up to go to work that morning I looked down and saw smoke wafting out from under the dash! OH #$%&3! Quickly tuned the ignition off and laid on the floor to see if I could see anything. Nothing to see but I could feel some warm wires. So I pulled the negative lead on the battery and hopped in the Blazer and went to work.
Foward to today. I took my old school hand amp meter along with my trusty voltmeter and started looking around. When I turned the key to run the factory amp meter went to 25 or so amps and seconds later the smoke started leaking again. Having a flashlight this time and already being on my back on the floor I could see the smoke coming out of the switch. With further investigation I noticed the purple lead on the ignition switch was warm. The purple lead is the solenoid power and should not be hot when the switch is in the run position. The purple wires run to the neutral safety switch from the ignition switch so I unplugged the neutral switch and checked the wire at the ignition switch to ground and found it ungrounded. Then I checked the purple from the ignition switch to ground for voltage in the run position and found about 8 volts. Not good. I then pulled the ignition switch being pretty confident that it was the problem. Looking at the back of the switch I could see the plastic had definitely been hot and had bulged up. (Photo 1) Checking for continuity between the ACC post and the SOL post I found less than 20 ohms of resistance where there should be none. (photos 2&3) I took the switch apart just to see what was what. I didn't find anything that had fallen apart, but the plastic between the posts was melted away and they were touching. (Photo 4 lowest contacts in photo) My feeling is this would be caused by cranking the starter for long periods of time overheating the contacts and melting the plastic. My removing the old wiring harness and installing the new one disturbed the switch and caused additional damage to the switch.( At least that is my theory. I've never had to crank the truck for any length of time since I have had it as it has always started easily.) After enough bouncing around as I drove it eventually arced over inside when I was starting it. There was one time in the body shop I thought I saw a wiff of smoke upon start up but I could get it to repeat so I wrote it off as dust.
Any way a quick trip to Dan's Classic Chevrolet got me a new switch. (Photo 5) Then some checks on the bench to verify the old one was definitely bad before installation. Now the amp meter barely moves when the switch is moved to run.
So excited to be back on the road I drove across town and took mom to dinner to celebrate.

Posted to the music of the Poges.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fBCiy6Da96o

[markizme]

Originally Posted by HO455

I've been AWOL as of late. I just finished a 96 day run at work with no days off. With the exception of the rear end work nothing got done on the WMB. I drove it to work every day (except the days it was at Six States for rear end recovery. About 83 days) until the 5th of August. When I fired it up to go to work that morning I looked down and saw smoke wafting out from under the dash! OH #$%&3! Quickly tuned the ignition off and laid on the floor to see if I could see anything. Nothing to see but I could feel some warm wires. So I pulled the negative lead on the battery and hopped in the Blazer and went to work.
Foward to today. I took my old school hand amp meter along with my trusty voltmeter and started looking around. When I turned the key to run the factory amp meter went to 25 or so amps and seconds later the smoke started leaking again. Having a flashlight this time and already being on my back on the floor I could see the smoke coming out of the switch. With further investigation I noticed the purple lead on the ignition switch was warm. The purple lead is the solenoid power and should not be hot when the switch is in the run position. The purple wires run to the neutral safety switch from the ignition switch so I unplugged the neutral switch and checked the wire at the ignition switch to ground and found it ungrounded. Then I checked the purple from the ignition switch to ground for voltage in the run position and found about 8 volts. Not good. I then pulled the ignition switch being pretty confident that it was the problem. Looking at the back of the switch I could see the plastic had definitely been hot and had bulged up. (Photo 1) Checking for continuity between the ACC post and the SOL post I found less than 20 ohms of resistance where there should be none. (photos 2&3) I took the switch apart just to see what was what. I didn't find anything that had fallen apart, but the plastic between the posts was melted away and they were touching. (Photo 4 lowest contacts in photo) My feeling is this would be caused by cranking the starter for long periods of time overheating the contacts and melting the plastic. My removing the old wiring harness and installing the new one disturbed the switch and caused additional damage to the switch.( At least that is my theory. I've never had to crank the truck for any length of time since I have had it as it has always started easily.) After enough bouncing around as I drove it eventually arced over inside when I was starting it. There was one time in the body shop I thought I saw a wiff of smoke upon start up but I could get it to repeat so I wrote it off as dust.
Any way a quick trip to Dan's Classic Chevrolet got me a new switch. (Photo 5) Then some checks on the bench to verify the old one was definitely bad before installation. Now the amp meter barely moves when the switch is moved to run.
So excited to be back on the road I drove across town and took mom to dinner to celebrate.

Posted to the music of the Poges.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fBCiy6Da96o

Soryy for your woes, but thank you for the info. I'm having some similar issues, I now have somewhere to start tomorrow. Your truck is coming along very nicely BTW, I'm sure that you are proud! Thank you again!

[HO455]

I got excited by 68SWB4X4's posting about going to a car show so I washed the WMB and headed off to the Beaches show at PIR this afternoon. I got there and found out it had been canceled at the last minute due to the Indy car races this weekend. They were nice enough to give everyone a $25 gift card for dinner just for showing up. Score! But on the way home I started smelling burning oil and seeing wiffs of smoke. I get home and start looking around and I find the passenger side exhaust pipe is dripping oil and the engine is a quart past the low mark. Popping the hood I can definitely hear valve noise on the passenger side that wasn't there yesterday. #$%$&@$!!!! More heartache to follow. Maybe I can trade the gift card for engine parts.

[HO455]

I tore down the engine today and found a broken push rod, a valve tip with a bad wear pattern and no real indication as to why the engine was smoking. Here are a couple of photos but I started a thread in the engine section asking for help getting to the bottom of what has happened.
Photo 1 is how I found the valve train when I pulled the cover
Photo 2 is how I found the push rod
Photo 3 is damage to rocker stud
Photo 4 is the headers right tube oily left tube is showing a cylinder that is running rich.
Photo 5 is #4 & #6 intake ports on head. No sign of oil being sucked from the valley.

Link to the engine section thread.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=1#post8334115

[HO455]

I took the heads to the shop i got the crate motor from. They are tearing them down and will get back me next week. In the mean time I need to drop the fuel tank and find out where it is leaking from. If I fill it above 3/4 I get a fuel smell and I can see signs of fuel on the side of the tank. I suspect it is the seal for the sender, so I grabbed one on the way home from work a couple of days ago.
Dan's Classic Chevrolet has changed hands and locations. Amazingly they have gotten much more convenient for me. I just hope the rest stays the same. Although they no longer stock any used parts that shouldn't be a problem ( they told me who bought all of it). Not that they had much in the way of Suburban stuff.
Started off by wetting the strap nuts and bolts down with some PB Blaster. Then spreading my carpet under the back of the truck I got comfortable and when to it. The two strap bolts came off easily to my surprise. Maybe they have been off before? Anyway I got the tank on my floor jack and removed the straps. The hoses to the fuel fill came off with out any fuss. Which was expected as I put them on last summer, but the suction hose to the fuel pump did not want to come off and I ended up tearing the hose. It too was new as of last summer but it acted like it was 10 or more years old. The stuff we have to use as fuel now days!
Once that was disconnected I raised the rear end with the bags to full and slid the tank right out. I did end up cutting the ground wire for the guage. After getting the tank on a table to clean and inspect I noticed that my leak seems to be from the suction tube being loose in the sender assembly. (Last two photos) As much as I wanted to get it cleaned up and apart the mosquitos were making it difficult to concentrate. So it waits until tomorrow.

[HO455]

Well this seems really familiar. (Photo 1) Like post 360 all over again.
I hopped in the truck after a nice 13 hour day at work last night and I was more than ready to get home. My trusty truck fired right up, but the starter kept running. Grrrr!
I shut it down and tried to start it again, but no starter action this time. More cursing.
After another couple of mintues I tried it again and it started right up but I could still hear the starter running. I shut it off and while I sat there thinking of my options I noticed a bit of smoke and smelled burnt bakelite. Uggg.
Feeling under the dash I could tell the ignition switch was warm. After trying to get the plug off of the switch with no success I changed tactics and removed the ignition switch. As the tumbler didn't want to come out it took 30 to 40 minutes to finally get the switch out and in the open. Once I got the switch out it was obvious that there has been another switch failure. As to what caused it to fail is yet to be determined, but I did notice the ACC tab was kind of bent. I don't know if that was from my fight to remove the plug from the switch before I removed the switch or from something else.
I was able to cut off some of the plug that was melted (Photo #2) and scrape the terminal and connector enough to get a reasonable electrical connection for the 2 brown wires to reconnect to the ACC tab once the plug was reconnected to the switch..
The purple solenoid wire part of the plug body was too deformed from the heat to reconnect and since it was part of the problem with starter continuing to run I decided to leave it disconnected and to jumper it to start the truck and get home. Fortunately the truck was able to run with the damaged plug and I made it home without further issues.
The switch was new in August of 2018 some 25k miles ago. More troubleshooting to follow.

[LockDoc]

-
Not sure what would cause that, Looks like the terminals were clean. It's usually a corroded spade terminal or loose connection but there may be something else in the mix here. Maybe a bad NSS?... Keep us posted on the outcome.

LockDoc

[Dieselwrencher]

Yeah, that old engine was on borrowed time it looks like. The starter deal is one I ran into before and it sure is a pita. Nice fix. Where did you find the 6" drill bit? I need to get a couple for a project. That radiator looks very nice too!

[HO455]

I got the bits at a local tool supplier as it was close but normally I would have gone to Grainger as they are close to home. I hope the radiator fits as good as it looks!

https://www.grainger.com/category/ex...26sst%3Dsubset

[HO455]

After carefully looking at how the radiator fits I am returning it. The rubber cushions do not fit the radiator tanks correctly. With brand new GM 4 row cushions in the saddles there is 7/16" of slop in the lower saddles and about 3/8" in the uppers. My old 3 row saddles and cushions were no where near large enough to fit either.
I called Cold-Case and talked with Eric about the way it fits. Over the course of two phone calls (and my emailing photos to him) he first said that there were no known issues with the model I have and it is one of their more popular versions, but "some people may have to shim the mounts". Then on the second call he first said I needed new cushions, and when I told him I had a brand new set. He then claimed that some of the after market cushions were not correct to which I responded that mine were brand new from GM. Eric went on by saying that there really would be no problem as " once the hoses were hooked up it would never move." I told him that if they are claiming "Direct Fit" then I shouldn't have to shim the mounts and if I had wanted to fabricate mounts I would have purchased a universal race car radiator for $160 instead. It looks to me that they are trying to use some passenger car tanks as truck tanks and hope no one notices. He did say that if Jegs wouldn't allow me to return it he would allow me to return it to ColdCase directly.
I wanted a drop in no fuss aluminum 2 row radiator with at least 1" tubes. That would work with the factory shroud and fan. But it looks as if that is going to be at least a $7-800 deal.
If it isn't DIRECT FIT then say so! If they had been honest about how it fits then I would have found a way to make it work.

I called Jegs and they have no problem with the return. The gentleman I talked to said he almost spit his soda all over his computer after I told him about the" once the hoses were hooked up it would never move." line ColdCase gave me.

[HO455]

One last photo showing how the top mount fit. (Bolt on the far side is snugged down but not tight)

[Hart_Rod]

Originally Posted by HO455

One last photo showing how the top mount fit. (Bolt on the far side is snugged down but not tight)

Sorry to hear you've had problems with the radiator. I've had good luck with Entropy. Not the cheapest, but great quality and fit. Just make sure you tell him that you have the heavy duty mounts.

[Spf79]

Originally Posted by HO455

After carefully looking at how the radiator fits I am returning it. The rubber cushions do not fit the radiator tanks correctly. With brand new GM 4 row cushions in the saddles there is 7/16" of slop in the lower saddles and about 3/8" in the uppers. My old 3 row saddles and cushions were no where near large enough to fit either.
I called Cold-Case and talked with Eric about the way it fits. Over the course of two phone calls (and my emailing photos to him) he first said that there were no known issues with the model I have and it is one of their more popular versions, but "some people may have to shim the mounts". Then on the second call he first said I needed new cushions, and when I told him I had a brand new set. He then claimed that some of the after market cushions were not correct to which I responded that mine were brand new from GM. Eric went on by saying that there really would be no problem as " once the hoses were hooked up it would never move." I told him that if they are claiming "Direct Fit" then I shouldn't have to shim the mounts and if I had wanted to fabricate mounts I would have purchased a universal race car radiator for $160 instead. It looks to me that they are trying to use some passenger car tanks as truck tanks and hope no one notices. He did say that if Jegs wouldn't allow me to return it he would allow me to return it to ColdCase directly.
I wanted a drop in no fuss aluminum 2 row radiator with at least 1" tubes. That would work with the factory shroud and fan. But it looks as if that is going to be at least a $7-800 deal.
If it isn't DIRECT FIT then say so! If they had been honest about how it fits then I would have found a way to make it work.

I called Jegs and they have no problem with the return. The gentleman I talked to said he almost spit his soda all over his computer after I told him about the" once the hoses were hooked up it would never move." line ColdCase gave me.

I'm glad to see that JEGS is taking care of you on it. !!!

[crakarjax]

I'm using American Eagle (Champion) AE369 -- 2 row, 1" tubes and fits the 3-row mounts (I did shave the sides on my mounts to make sure they don't contact the tank). It has a built in steam port to facilitate LS applications. $200 shipped at Jegs.

http://www.jegs.com/i/Champion-Cooli...AE369/10002/-1

[HO455]

Thanks for the recommendations guys.

[CG]

I like these kind of threads. Always something to learn from them. Keep up the good work on your burb.

[HO455]

Thank you. I've got more projects still to come. So stay tuned while I ramble on.

[Bramante]

very nice

[Killer Bee]

how the heck did I miss this?! subscribed, might take me a while to catch up though

[Average Joe]

Yowza! 96 days straight without a day off?!! I would go nuts!

Glad you got the switch fixed. I just replaced mine in June. I made it home from a camping trip before it completely died on me.

[HO455]

I was lucky to be at home when it went into smoke mode. Saved me from having to a bunch of "field engineering" to get back home.

[HO455]

The WMB started giving a small backfire out of the passenger side exhaust early last week and by the end of the week it was getting loud and extremely annoying. I pulled the plugs on the passenger side and found the #6 plug fouled. I hadn't driven the truck the last couple of days so l couldn't smell fuel on it but my hope is that it is a fuel issue. I have noticed that most of the time my fuel pressure gauge shows zero and I was assuming it had expired.
I cleaned the fouled plug and swapped it with #8 to see if the problem would go away or at least get better. Upon start up it seemed to idle smoother but I noticed the fuel pressure was reading 6.25 PSI. I adjusted it down to 5 PSI and went for a 10 mile test drive. For the most part the backfire went away. I checked the pressure again went I got back home and it was reading zero again. I tapped the regulator a couple of times and it started reading 3.5 PSI. The regulator is the generic Holley style and it is not giving me a happy feeling. It has no name or number on it so I don't think it is worth trying to rebuild, so I'll replace it. I am not sure as to what I need as the fuel pump is a Mallory Comp 140 which is overkill for the engine. So my new regulator will have to be up to a 12-15 PSI input and a non return set up.

[crakarjax]

Is that fuel injection hose that cracked, and did it crack because it was too small for the tube? Makes me worry about the places I've used it if so...

[HO455]

Nope it was regular 5/16" Gates low pressure fuel hose. I couldn't find the number on the pieces I replaced. I still have one more piece to replace and I may get a complete number off of that piece.