Working Man's Burbon

[HO455]

Originally Posted by crakarjax

til that you can reverse a clamp like that! Only took 40 years...

til???

[CG]

TIL=Today I Learned

[HO455]

Originally Posted by CG

TIL=Today I Learned

And today I have learned something!

[pwdcougar]

Glad you got it sorted!

[HO455]

Thanks guys.
Now other things. I just got my new wheels installed and I'm quite happy. As the the tire shop guy said "Out with the 90's and in with the 70's". Did I mention I'm quite happy with them. Never again will I be held hostage by a wheel repair shop.

And continuing with this thread's continuing minor theme (Things the PO did) the right rear wheel would not go on the axle hub. After checking the wheel and the hub with a micrometer it was apparent that the hub had been hit with a hammer some time in the past. The outer edge of the axle hub was just distorted enough the wheel wouldn't go on. Once we dressed the hub with a file and a flapper disk the wheel slid right on.
The old wheels used the plastic center cap to align the wheel on the hub. The inside edge of the plastic was broken and distorted on the front wheels and the front hubs are not damaged. Now I understand why both rear center caps disappeared from the wheels while driving.
US Mag wheels 15x8" with the 4 inch backspacing.

[3757chevy]

Nice wheels.

[Ol Blue K20]

I like them, a lot!

[Beach-Burban]

Wow...the entire project looks great! I have reviewed the work you have done many times while doing things to mine (or even just when thinking about doing something)...I really appreciate the help you have given to all of us!

Woody

[Average Joe]

Originally Posted by Beach-Burban

Wow...the entire project looks great! I have reviewed the work you have done many times while doing things to mine (or even just when thinking about doing something)...I really appreciate the help you have given to all of us!

Woody

100% Agree!

Wheels look freakin great on there! I dare to say that wacky wheel shop did you a favor! I kid, I kid! Lol

[HO455]

Originally Posted by Average Joe

100% Agree!

Wheels look freakin great on there! I dare to say that wacky wheel shop did you a favor! I kid, I kid! Lol

Thank you Joe. There had to be a silver lining in that black cloud

[richard2717]

Liking the new rims

[HO455]

Thanks everyone. I do appreciate the kind words. Most definitely motivating.
I've still got some more things on the to do list. Especially for the interior. Nothing as top shelf as the Beach Burban but, it should spruce things up some.

[pwdcougar]

The rims look great!

[Average Joe]

I’m curious to hear the after results from your blower motor swap. I’ve considered upgrading mine as well. Seams like I read or heard once that the squares (73-87) blower motors were a slight upgrade and a relatively easy swap.

[HO455]

And the results are in! The A/C blower is a significant increase in air movement. Especially over my old one.

I did the blower swap at my buddies house so he could help remove the hood. I had a pair of hood hinges rebuilt by Wilson Antique Car Parts wating to be installed for months. This was the perfect chance to hit 2 birds with 1 stone. New hinges and new blower motor!

The rebuilt hinges work great. Much smoother than the repops that the truck came with. Additionally we were able to get the hood to fit better.

Before the blower was replaced we used my buddy's hand held anemometer to measure the output on the passenger side defroster vent.
The old motor air output registered 7.2 mph.
The new blower motor motor with the unmodified harness registered 9.4 mph. (The photo only shows 9.1 due to me being unable to hold the anemometer and take the photo at the same time.)
And the new blower with the hybrid harness registered 12.7 mph!
The anemometer confirmed what my ears had told me.

During the testing the 10 amp fuse in the fuse box blew so I replaced it with a 15 amp that seems to be holding. I have yet to get a amperage measurement but as soon as I get a new a battery for my multimeter.

In order to mount the relay in the really convenient tab on the heater box (Photo #2) I had to lengthen the wire from the high speed contact on the blower switch to the relay coil.

[LockDoc]

-
That certainly made a lot of difference. Let there be heat!!!...

LockDoc
-

[HO455]

I replaced the front shocks on the WMB yesterday. Quite possibly it was the first time I made flat rate since I started the repairs to it.
New Bilstein shocks replaced the worn out Ranchos. The front end had developed a tendency to bounce after hitting bumps on the highway. Upon removal of the old ones i found the passenger side shock had amost zero resistance to movement.
As expected the Bilsteins made a huge difference in how the truck drives. It would be interesting to compare them against a new pair of Ranchos.

I had installed raised upper shock mounts in the truck back when it was bagged in the front. With the static spring set up the stock replacement shock is the closest shock Bilstein sells. They however come with the upper stud mount installed in the upper eye. I took a chance and ordered them hoping I could remove the stud and through bolt the top to the raised mount. As it turns out it was easy to remove the stud mount. The studs have a washer secured by punching and deforming the end tip on the stud. 30 seconds of grinding on the bench grinder removed the deformed tip and a couple taps with a hammer and the washer pops off. (Photo #3) I did half to come up with some 5/8" to 1/2" sleeves to put inside the rubber bushing of the upper eye. Fortunately I had a pair from some other shocks I installed in the past.
I noticed the rubber bushings on the uppers have a small lip on one side but it didn't cause any difficulty when installing the sleeves. (Photo #4)

Thanks to the folks who recommended Viking shocks but the price and the current lead time to get them made the decision for me. So I compromised and went with the Bilsteins.

Now that I have several hundred miles on the new shocks I will state. They work GREAT!
Better overspeed bumps, better on rough highway and much better over bad potholes. Now I want some for the rear axle.

[HO455]

Four hours of M&R today. The turn signal switch stopped resetting after a right turn. Easy fix I thought. One of the little springs must have broken. A common failure on older switches and with any of the new over the counter replacement springs. I've had such bad luck with the replacement springs, I scrounge every OE one I find at the u-pull-it. I believe the wire stock used to make the replacements is one grade above rebar.

In reality the plastic section that the lever operates was cracked. It was almost completely broken across. (See arrows on photo 1) I pulled it out and used my handy dandy Harbor Freight plastic welder to make it better. I should have gotten some more pictures but, hopefully there are enough to show what I did.

I cut a 3/8" by 3/8" piece of the stainless mesh and folded it 90 degrees corner to corner making 2 triangles. I then laid it over the crack on the top and the inside of the section and melted it into the plastic. (Photo 2)

The outside part of the cracked area wasn't large enough for a piece of mesh so I melted a groove and added some plastic filler and reformed it as close as I could back to normal. No photo here, sorry.

When I reassembled the switch I noticed that I did in fact have a broken spring. In all the previous instances I've had the "no return" problem the spring was broken in two pieces and was easy to spot. This time the spring was more splintered instead of broken. I had to carefully examine it to tell it was defective. My junk yard scrounging paid off today.

Once it was all back together it worked nice and smooth. I also found the base piece of the switch is also cracked near the detent springs. The plastic there is so thin and delicate I didn't want to attempt a weld on it for fear of destroying it.

Things are working nicely for now but, I will order a new switch because I'm sure the bottom piece is going to cause problems at some point.

A quick search shows people are mostly happy with the American Autowire replacement switch so I am leaning to that one at present.

[HO455]

Its been way too long since I did any tweaking on the carburetor. The WMB has been running fine but, it can be improved.
Getting together with my buddy Karl we pulled the carb and looked back at what had been done earlier. Currently the truck will not idle down below 900 rpm in gear. The idle mixture screws will not respond to bring the idle down any farther. The joys of late 70's emissions carburetors.

Previously we had drilled, tapped and installed some plugs in the base plate to remove these massive air bypass passages. (Photo 1) Then Karl plugged two idle air bleeds in the main body (Sorry to say I didn't get pictures of this.) and to replace those air bleeds he drilled two holes in the top plate for air bleeds like a pre-emissions carburetor would have had. (Photo 2) These modifications allowed us to get the idle mixture screws to start responding, whereas before they had no affect on the idle. After a looooong test period we know that the air bleeds needed to be further modified to get the idle mixture screws to operate properly.

This leads us to the work we did this week. Basically an idle circuit is like a straw with a hole in the side of it. You adjust the size of the hole in the straw to make idle air to fuel ratio correct. You also have to have the correct size straw to get the engine the correct amount of fuel for the engine to idle at the desired RPM. To accomplish this the factory drills holes in the carburetor body to allow a certain amount of fuel and air to mix and then be introduced under the primary throttle plates. How much of this mixture is allowed into the engine is controlled by the mixture screws. This mixture of air and fuel is then combined with the rest of the air passing the throttle plates to make the idle mixture complete.

Our previous modifications had allowed us to get some response from the mixture screws but there was still to much fuel passing into the engine. In other words the hole in our straw was too small. In order to get the correct amount of fuel we needed to make further changes to the previous modifications.

To start we removed the plugs we had put in the base plate and installed ones with holes drilled in them. Then Karl reduced the size of the air bleed in the top plate by pressing in small brass tubes in the previously drilled holes. (Look closely at Photo 2 and you can see the tubes) once this was done we reassembled the carburetor and bolted it back on the engine. Now the engine would idle all the way down to 550 RPM in gear and 650 out of gear. Finally I got to use the idle speed set screw!

Not only did the idle speed set screw work but, the idle mixture screws now worked as they should. After a test run to get the truck to operating temperature I was able to set the idle speed in gear at 650 and out of gear it was about 775. The A/F ratio was dialed in to 14.7. Most excellent!

Now on to the next step, dialing in the A/F ratio.

When I am referring to the Air/Fuel ratios they are not an exact number but .3 or .4 above and below the number I state. For example above I said it was 14.7 the reality is the readings were between 14.4 and 15.2.

So back to testing the truck. I found the A/F to be fine in the upper speeds but around 40 mph it had gone to 12.5 and at 25 mph it was at 10.5. Way too rich, especially when driving with the choke on. It was turning my quarter panels black. UGGG! The 90 plus degree weather wasn't helping things either.

Since the higher speeds were okay I decided that larger primary metering rods were needed. Smaller jets would have leaned the A/F mixture too but that would have leaned it out every where instead of just at the lower speeds. Karl recommended that we remove the ATP screw cover to allow more adjustment of the metering rod position.

The ATP adjustment is one advantage of the later emission style Q-jet carburetors. The ATP screw is in the front center of the base plate. It allows you to change the height of the power piston and thus which part of the taper on the metering rod is used at steady state cruise. There is about 1/8" of height adjustment provided by the ATP. The screw in the front moves the small lever on the base plate. (In Photo #3 the red arrow indicates the lever and the green arrow is where the screw is.)

This was a factory adjustment back in the day that was made to adjust individual carburetors to pass emissions, then it was blocked off never to be adjusted again.

There is a staked in plug that must be removed to access the adjustment screw. (Photo #4 shows the plug with a hole drilled in it and the 3 staked areas to be removed.) You have to drill a hole in the plug and then grind the 3 stakes off with a Dremel and then twist a small screw into the hole so you can pull the plug out. And there's the ATP screw. (Photo#5)

Now with the ATP turned all the way out, which drops the power piston to it's lowest point, we installed the larger metering rods. (I will have to post the new rod sizes later. I forgot my notes. ) Then the carburetor was reinstalled and I was off on a test run.

Things were much leaner now. So lean in fact there was a stumble upon acceleration. Just at the point you would expect the accelerator pump shot to have been used up. At that point I could see the A/R ratio jump to 20.0 (which may be the upper limit on the guage). At 20 mph A/F ratio was 15.5, and at 40 mph it was 17.0 and under deceleration there was amount slight back firing from the exhaust.

Back to the shop where we turned the APT screw all the way in which raised the power piston. The higher power piston meant that the part of the metering rod inside the metering jet's orifice was smaller thus allowing more fuel to flow through. And back for another test run.

Much better this time. The 20 mph A/F was 12.8 the 40 mph A/F is 13.5 and at 55 mph it is 14.2. The stumble was gone, as was as the back firing. Most excellent!!

We decided to leave things as they are for a while and get a longer term feeling on the carb's performance. I have noticed the engine starts easier when it is hot and heat soaking would be a concern. I have also backed the choke off as it seems starts better with less choke. Of course we've been having lots of 90 plus degree days lately, so I may end up setting it back when the weather gets cold.

Such a long post! Man I'm tired. Not to mention I had to repost some of it as I somehow lost the photos and some of the text at the 3/4 point.
Any questions? Don't hesitate to ask. I'm good at confusing myself as well as others.

[Average Joe]

Your write ups never cease to amaze me! Thanks for taking the time to post up the results as well. This looks like a great upgrade!

[pontiacvince]

So, putting in an A/C blower motor, increasing the wire size, and a bigger fuse is all??? Sounds like a great mod!

[HO455]

Originally Posted by pontiacvince

So, putting in an A/C blower motor, increasing the wire size, and a bigger fuse is all??? Sounds like a great mod!

That's it (so far) I still need to check the amperage draw on all 3 speeds for peace of mind.
It would be an easy modification to your Burban, judging from the photos in your thread. It's much easier to get under the dash with the front seat removed.

[pontiacvince]

Yes, it would be very easy, as the entire front clip is still off. I have already installed a new non-A/C blower motor, but it would be well worth getting the higher airflow from upgrading. THANKS!

[HO455]

Originally Posted by Average Joe

Your write ups never cease to amaze me! Thanks for taking the time to post up the results as well. This looks like a great upgrade!

Thanks Joe. It was pretty easy as I had the old heater harness so it was just plug and play.

[crakarjax]

Just a thought, but adding a faster blower might be detrimental in some circumstances -- air has only so much capacity to transfer heat in a given time, and so moving the air faster might result in only minimal additional heat transfer. If that's the case, then blowing air harder might be nice in the summer but could result in a colder feeling air coming out of the ducts in the winter!