Working Man's Burbon

[LockDoc]

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Sounds like it is going to work out good. There is an adjustment screw on the back of the tach but I'm not sure how that works. There are a couple of posts about it but I don't remember exactly what they said.

LockDoc

[HO455]

Thanks Doc! I'll do some searching.

[Average Joe]

Congrats on the install. Nice work!

[HO455]

Thanks Joe!
With some more miles driven I have more comments. I have found that leaving the unit in automatic I can turn the overdrive on and off with the foot switch, but I think it will take me some time before I have the muscle memory to do it without thinking. Not that different than driving my S10 Blazer where I only put it in OD when I will be driving above 45 mph for at least 2 or so miles.
I can do regular traffic around town with the OD off and then if conditions are right then switch it into OD. For example morning commute is 8 miles some which about 1/3 of the way is 40 mph and the rest of the trip is faster. So at 0430 when I leave the house I have found that I can stay in OD the whole way. But on the way home at 5:00 pm traffic is such that only first 1/3 of the way home is moving fast enough to be in OD without it shifting in and out a lot.
The other thing I've noticed which probably is restricted to my unit only. Sometimes when in OD and above 55 mph there is a noticeable vibration that goes away if I shift out of OD. It will go away or is much reduced when I shift it back into OD.
I called GV to talk about wiring the lockup into their controller, but their tech guy is off for a medical reason for several weeks. So it may be a while before I get an answer on the vibration and the lock out interrupt feature. I did learn that they use the 2 outside pins on the phone jacks. So with some experimentation I should be able to figure out what they are doing.

Another issue I have discovered is that I need a different bracket for the TH350 kick down cable. The one I have only lets me open the secondary throttle plates about 30%. It's kind of liking driving around with the worn out 305 again.
Looks like a trip to the wrecking yard is in my future.

[pwdcougar]

Originally Posted by HO455

Thanks Joe!
With some more miles driven I have more comments. I have found that leaving the unit in automatic I can turn the overdrive on and off with the foot switch, but I think it will take me some time before I have the muscle memory to do it without thinking. Not that different than driving my S10 Blazer where I only put it in OD when I will be driving above 45 mph for at least 2 or so miles.

With practice you are going to get good at it. A friend who drag raced his 69 Cougar Eliminator (that he bought new in 1968) with a 428 and 4:30 gears installed a Gear Vendors overdrive behind his C6 automatic. He said it made his car a 6 speed at the track!

Paul
Posted via Mobile Device

[HO455]

Originally Posted by pwdcougar

With practice you are going to get good at it. A friend who drag raced his 69 Cougar Eliminator (that he bought new in 1968) with a 428 and 4:30 gears installed a Gear Vendors overdrive behind his C6 automatic. He said it made his car a 6 speed at the track!

Paul
Posted via Mobile Device

Now days it takes me way more practice than it used to.

[pwdcougar]

Originally Posted by HO455

Now days it takes me way more practice than it used to.

Dude I know the feeling! This guy was in his late 60’s though when he installed it though!
Posted via Mobile Device

[HO455]

Update time. The bracket I used for the detent cable (kickdown cable) ended up being wrong. It would not let me get more than about 30% opening of the secondaries. In addition it would want to down shift too often. I spent several hours looking through the interweb I came up with no real information other than folks saying "I used this $Xxxx dollar aftermarket piece". I didn't see a need to go that route as the GM bracket had to be out there. Just trying to keep that "Great GM feeling".
I started a thread looking for more information on the truck side and got a lead from member AussieinNC. So off to the wrecking yard I went an gathered up 4 different brackets and came home. Several hours later I had found a solution that gave me proper shift down and 100% throttle opening.

Here is the basic bracket differences from the thread and some photos:

After spending half a day at the u-pull it yard I came home with 4 different brackets. They came off of 83 GMC Caballero (2), a 1995 Van (3), a 79 C10 (4), and a 77 Oldsmobile Cutlass (5).
The photo also shows the one I had installed on the WMB (1) that was incorrect. The brackets are sort of arranged to show the the difference in the detent cable locations. (Blue lines.) The red arrow indicates the bolt hole that the last bolt on the intake manifold would go through. The #5 bracket only bolts to the carburetor back bolts so I was less accurate in placing it.
I initially went with the #5 bracket as I liked the all in one bracket and it was within the range of adjustment for the detent cable. However after I got it cleaned up, painted, and installed I realized that I could only get 90% opening of the secondaries. The angle to the throttle shaft arm was wrong. 90% was much better than before but I real want 100%. So I ended up pulling it off and using the #2 bracket and my original (Original in that it was on the truck when I bought it.) bracket. Now I have full throttle opening and the transmission shifts down nicely.
The 2nd photo doesn't have the throttle cable bracket installed and the 3rd photo shows the original detent cable bracket. Poor photos are really showing what I would like to show. Hopefully folks get the idea. If not let me know and I can get some clearer pictures.

Here is the complete thread if anyone is interested.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=630289



The next issue is the converter lockup doesn't work internally as I had been led to believe. I was under the belief that the lockup pressure was tied to vehicle speed in 3rd gear i.e. if the vehicle was going 40 mph there would be 40 psi, 50 mph would be 50 psi. The lockup wouldn't lockup until the minimum pressure was met. I was lead to believe that GM had set the minimum pressures to 50 psi so the lock up would not work below 50 psi.
Unfortunately for me the converter locks up as soon as the truck gets into 3rd gear. Which can be as low as 30 mph. So at 35 mph any part throttle acceleration results in pretty serious detonation. By disconnecting the power to the lockup circuit the problem disappears. At this point I will have to go with manual operation of the lock up until I can get quite a bit more sophisticated with my control circuit.

[HO455]

Yesterday was another exciting day with the WMB. After running down to Milwaukee and then up to Vancouver and then home. Well almost home (10 blocks to go.) After pulling off of the freeway and stopping, I started away from the stop sign when there was a loud BAM. Then lots of very depressing grinding sounds. Uhhhggg.....
The truck would not move itself out of the intersection. Fortunately it was on a slope and several young men jumped out to help me push it off to the side of the road. I called my buddy Karl, who luckily was just leaving work and could meet me at my house in 15 minutes. After I hoofed it home and threw some straps in my S10 Blazer we headed off and towed the WMB home. With some manual pushing and pulling we got it into the driveway. I have always been amazed by how easy the WMB is to push. On flat pavement it has always been relatively easily to push around.
Anyway today I put it up in the air so I could get a listen to figure out whether the problem was in the transmission or the GV unit. With things securely on jack stands I fired things up and there was no noise in park, then no noise in neutral which wasn't the case last night. Then into drive and still no noise but the speedometer was showing 25 mph. What the...
So carefully I got out and looked. First thing I noticed is that the rear wheels were not turning. Looking further I see the front drive shaft is spinning ,but the rear one isn't. Bingo! The tail end of the front shaft was stuck in the carrier bearing and just spinning like everything was okay. I literally have a 2 piece drive shaft.
Big sign of relief! This will be so much less expensive than every other scenario I had come up with on the overnight. I've had a large number of transmission failures over the years. Most of them were in my GTO. Use to be I would have to replace/rebuild the transmission in it every 18 to 24 months. So needless to say I was expecting the worst.
I will see what the drive line shop has to say on Monday about why it sheared. I'm pretty sure it wasn't from the monster torque generated from the 350..
There has been a slight vibration at highway speeds for a while. It did become more pronounced after the transmission swap and especially when in overdrive. Maybe there was some bad machining that led to a crack that eventually failed. The old transmission was pretty slushy and the new one shifts firmer and the GV shifts even more firmly which I would consider to be contributing factors in the failure, if in fact there was a crack. I'm certain that all of the full throttle testing I've been doing as of late had nothing to do with it.
I feel lucky in that the drive shaft stayed trapped in the front of the carrier bearing and didn't go flailing around destroying everything in its path. That and it waited to fail until I was close to home and not in Vancouver or worse on the I-5 bridge in traffic. All in all this could have been much worse than it is.

[LockDoc]

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Wow! that sheared off pretty clean. Definitely some stress there somewhere.... Looks like that Billet bearing paid for itself there.

LockDoc

[HO455]

Yes it did. It's now my favorite reason to run a billet carrier.
I talked with my Machinist friend and he said if there was no radius between the angled face and the surface the carrier rides on it you could get this kind of failure.

[crakarjax]

It seems to me that the carrier bearing may be too stiff, causing the failure. If the broken tailshaft naturally wants to spin at an angle and is forced to remain parallel to the bearing mount surface, it would be continuously under stress. The only way to avoid this would be to have the carrier bearing at the same height as the transmission output.

[HO455]

Thanks for the information. The shaft is at the shop now and they said I could talk to the foreman when I pick it up to determine the cause.

[HO455]

The repair of the driveshaft has turned sour on me. I took it back to Potter Webster's Driveline Express. The same place that built it originally and then shortened it. They absolutely denied any responsibility for the failure. They said the only thing that would have caused this kind of failure would be excessive torque and abuse from the engine. Which never happened as my generic 350 doesn't have that kind of power. They dismissed anything I said.
So I had them go ahead and repair the shaft. They called me the next day to pick it up. They said it was $280.00. Ouch I thought, but maybe they had to replace the carrier bearing.
It's on the counter when I walk in and the first thing I see is that it has one of the $35 factory style carrier bearings on it now. I said your kidding right? Why would I go back to that style bearing? He says they use them on lots of vehicles without problems. I said "Remember yesterday when you would not warranty the driveshaft with less than 200 miles on it, as I must have too much horsepower, and now your saying I should use this because it has worked for other people? Why didn't you call and ask if I would be ok with the substitution I told him that I wasn't going to accept the driveline with that carrier bearing. So they said they would get another billet one, but it would be 3 or 4 days.
Uggghh....
So Friday rolls around and they call and say it is ready. As I walk in the guy is carring it out to the counter. By this time they recognize my truck. He says it will be $580. Jaw drops. Uhhh... I told him no how no way, so he goes into the back and talks to someone and 5 minutes later he takes me back to talk to the sales manager. After a couple of minutes of he said, I said, I pointed out that they want to charge me more to build half the drive line now than than they did to build a complete new one 3 years ago. Then it was the old song about how much prices have gone up. (They were charging me $171.xx for the new billet carrier bearing plus shipping. Obviously they haven't heard of Jegs.) But they could give me a $50 break. I thought about it for a moment and said "No I won't pay that. Give me my parts back and I will go elsewhere. Time for his jaw to drop.
So I stood around 30 minutes while 3 of them disassembled it and hunt up the old pieces. Then I asked the manager if he understood why I was this angry? He said "Uhhh you don't like the price." No I told him was pissed because I didn't like the refusal of any kind of responsiblity for the failure, and it was obvious that they had jacked the price the second time to make up for their screw up the first time with the wrong carrier bearing.
So maybe Monday I can find somewhere else to build a shaft.

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by HO455

The repair of the driveshaft has turned sour on me. I took it back to Potter Webster's Driveline Express. The same place that built it originally and then shortened it. They absolutely denied any responsibility for the failure. They said the only thing that would have caused this kind of failure would be excessive torque and abuse from the engine. Which never happened as my generic 350 doesn't have that kind of power. They dismissed anything I said.
So I had them go ahead and repair the shaft. They called me the next day to pick it up. They said it was $280.00. Ouch I thought, but maybe they had to replace the carrier bearing.
It's on the counter when I walk in and the first thing I see is that it has one of the $35 factory style carrier bearings on it now. I said your kidding right? Why would I go back to that style bearing? He says they use them on lots of vehicles without problems. I said "Remember yesterday when you would not warranty the driveshaft with less than 200 miles on it, as I must have too much horsepower, and now your saying I should use this because it has worked for other people? Why didn't you call and ask if I would be ok with the substitution I told him that I wasn't going to accept the driveline with that carrier bearing. So they said they would get another billet one, but it would be 3 or 4 days.
Uggghh....
So Friday rolls around and they call and say it is ready. As I walk in the guy is carring it out to the counter. By this time they recognize my truck. He says it will be $580. Jaw drops. Uhhh... I told him no how no way, so he goes into the back and talks to someone and 5 minutes later he takes me back to talk to the sales manager. After a couple of minutes of he said, I said, I pointed out that they want to charge me more to build half the drive line now than than they did to build a complete new one 3 years ago. Then it was the old song about how much prices have gone up. (They were charging me $171.xx for the new billet carrier bearing plus shipping. Obviously they haven't heard of Jegs.) But they could give me a $50 break. I thought about it for a moment and said "No I won't pay that. Give me my parts back and I will go elsewhere. Time for his jaw to drop.
So I stood around 30 minutes while 3 of them disassembled it and hunt up the old pieces. Then I asked the manager if he understood why I was this angry? He said "Uhhh you don't like the price." No I told him was pissed because I didn't like the refusal of any kind of responsiblity for the failure, and it was obvious that they had jacked the price the second time to make up for their screw up the first time with the wrong carrier bearing.
So maybe Monday I can find somewhere else to build a shaft.

Wow!. I wouldn't have accepted that either. That is insane. You would have thought they would have at least give you a break on it.

LockDoc

[Ol Blue K20]

Wow!!! That shop sounds like they're crazy.

[HO455]

Thanks guys it's good to know I'm not the crazy one for once.

[HO455]

I did some seat spring repairs yesterday. The drivers side bolster spring was only half there. I got some what I call S spring and reconfigured it to sort of match the spring on the passenger side. I had to make new attachment bands as one I tried to remove flew off to never, never be found land. And the other one had gone there long ago. I cut up a Simpson Tie nail on reinforcement plate to make the connection bands.
Rebending the spring wasn't too tough. One needs to be careful though as it is a spring and it will throw the tool your using to bend it across the room. Don't ask!
I used a small vice and probably spent as much time looking for a better tool to bend the spring for each different bend than actually bending the spring.
The first photo is what was left of the broken spring. The 2nd photo is the intact passenger side. The 3rd photo is the S spring I used as a base material. And finally the finished repair.
Hopefully it will pass the test of time.

[Beach-Burban]

Originally Posted by HO455

I did some seat spring repairs yesterday. The drivers side bolster spring was only half there. I got some what I call S spring and reconfigured it to sort of match the spring on the passenger side. I had to make new attachment bands as one I tried to remove flew off to never, never be found land. And the other one had gone there long ago. I cut up a Simpson Tie nail on reinforcement plate to make the connection bands.
Rebending the spring wasn't too tough. One needs to be careful though as it is a spring and it will throw the tool your using to bend it across the room. Don't ask!
I used a small vice and probably spent as much time looking for a better tool to bend the spring for each different bend than actually bending the spring.
The first photo is what was left of the broken spring. The 2nd photo is the intact passenger side. The 3rd photo is the S spring I used as a base material. And finally the finished repair.
Hopefully it will pass the test of time.

Nice job HO455...I had so many broken springs on my front bench that I only thought about fixing it myself for about a half second, then realized that the upholsterer would have everything needed to pull it off. Seeing everything else you have done yourself, I'm not surprised you took on the challenge! Have a happy 4th!


Woody

[HO455]

Thank you sir. You have a good Independence Day yourself and be careful out there.

[HO455]

I can't believe this driveline thing is still ongoing. I took the back half of the driveline to a second shop on the 22nd of last month. Driveline Service of Portland looked at what I had and what I needed and said " typically we charge $600 to $700 to build a complete driveline like yours, so it should be about half of that." They said they were very busy and short handed and it would take 7 to 10 days. 13 days later they called and said it was ready for pickup. The next dayI went to pick it up and they said it was $680! Basically twice the quote. So after some back and forth they admitted to the quote and that they failed to call me and ask if I was okay with the cost being double the quote. I told them I felt that they had bait and switched me and were hoping that I would pay the increased cost just to get the truck back on the road. Since the only thing they do is drivelines I couldn't see any other reason for being so far off of the quote. Once again I left a shop with half a driveline.

After some thought I decided to put the driveline half I had aside and convert to a one piece driveline. With the gearvendors on the back of the Th350 the driveline will be about 21 inches shorter. So I went out and pulled a line from the center of the rear yoke to the center of the yoke from the GV. A couple of small magnets held the string so I could measure to see if a 3 1/2" diameter driveline would fit through the crossmember. From my research for a 57 inch long driveline 3 1/2" diameter tubing is recommended. I measured the clearance with the rear bags aired out and fully inflated. (Photos 2,3, & 4) With the bags full and the shocks at maximum extension it is at the closest point at the bottom (photo 4). I will have to double check the clearance there once the driveline is in place. Worst case I will have modify the bottom of the cutout.
The last photo shows the driveline measurement. So now it is time to shop around for another vendor. Uggg!

[HO455]

I called Tom Woods 4x4 Custom Drivelines last Friday and ordered a drive shaft. It showed up Wednesday. $329 dollars as quoted.
It bolted in as expected, but I noticed that the yoke on the rear end has a damaged tab. I believe is likely one cause of the vibrations I was experiencing. Photo one is the undamaged tab and photo 2 is the damaged tab. I don't know how long the tab has been damaged. It doesn't look like it was recently damaged. To install the U-joint I put a C-clamp on the caps and pushed the U-joint to the good side. I torqued the clamp on the good side down then carefully guessed where the other side would be if the tab was undamaged. By adjusting the C-clamp it was easy to move the other cap into position. Then I tightened the bolts and secured the cap. I am fairly happy with how it came for now but obviously that yoke needs to be replaced.
Clearance wise the closest point is with the bags fully aired up and the shaft is about 5/16" from the bottom of the crossmember cutout. (Photo 3)
The last photos are of the driveline installed.

The driveshaft angles didn't come out so well this time. The front U-joint angle is 2 degrees and the back one is 0 degrees. So I need to get a pair of 2 degree shims to raise the pinion up.

[HO455]

I have been talking about shortening the cups on the bottom of the front air bags for a couple of years now. So since the WMB was OOC I pulled the cups off and chucked them up in my lathe. I used the lathe to make a small groove around the bottom of the cup 1/2" from the bottom. Once marked I used a Porta bandsaw to cut the cup off. I then used the lathe to true up the cut surface so it will sit flat. Getting the cups out was a bit like one of those puzzles made of wire you have to get apart. But after shortening they just dropped in.
The whole idea behind shortening the cups is to have a higher pressure in the bags at ride height. Previously the trucks best ride quality would put the front end too high. I may have to remove another 1/2" or so but I feel better sneaking up on the perfect combination a little bit at a time.

[crakarjax]

I was thinking similarly re: ride quality vs pressure and height. How did you come up with an optimal pressure figure?

[HO455]

In 2 words Freemont Bridge.
I commute across it and it has large expansion joints as well as traffic grooves worn into the surface. Before I cut the cups I would be at 80 psi at ride height. But to comfortably drive across the bridge I needed to raise the pressure about 10 psi. By comfortable I mean without the front end bouncing up and down excessively on each joint. (The shocks are fine I just don't like the 1960's Cadillac kind of ride.) Bumping the pressure up cures the up and down action, but too much pressure and then the truck starts to wander in the grooves. I believe the wandering is from the alignment no longer being correct with the front end raised. That's the reason I didn't remove more than 1/2 " I want to see how it behaves before committing to a full inch.
This is one of the things I never realized about air bags. The range of pressures you can drive on is fairly wide but the pressure where works well is very narrow. In my truck 3 psi off of optimum makes a big difference on how it feels to me. So I feel the trick is to figure out what that optimum pressure is then adjust the bag mounting to get that pressure at the ride height you desire.