Project "Keeper"

[VA72C10]

So, after a few minutes looking over everything I noticed the ps belt was loose. The fluid was a little low when I test drove it so at first I thought that was the issue. Belt wasn't flopping but loose. Spent 5 minutes tightening it up and now we have WONDERFUL power steering. One finger operation on the wheel lock to lock sitting still!

Then, I popped out the a/c fuse and put a new one in and the fan is working. Not cold yet, but I looked over everything and most of it is almost new. All the hoses and the expansion valve are definitely new (LMC stickers still on them) Was texting BMERDOC the other day and he's going to help me get this A/C COOOOLD With all new seals and weatherstrip it should be a pretty comfortable cab once I'm done!

[VA72C10]

Forgot to mention it does have a factory 4 core radiator in it and looks like a new clutch on the fan and has a new alternator with one wire conversion already completed. Also was converted to HEI already. And the tach is a factory tach. I never even paid attention...expecting it to be aftermarket since the SPID didn't show a tach from the factory, but it is a factory tach. Going to work on getting it more accurate or may sell the factory tach and put an aftermarket one in the truck since I'm not a stickler for originality and have three aftermarket tachs right now

[Xeen]

I'm glad to see you are finally gonna get to keep one for a change.
I'm also glad you found a really nice one to start with that you can drive while you improve it.
Subbed.

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by Xeen

I'm glad to see you are finally gonna get to keep one for a change.
I'm also glad you found a really nice one to start with that you can drive while you improve it.
Subbed.

Thanks. Some pics from today. New NOS lens

[VA72C10]

Love iPhone flipping pics

Po had a decent stereo at some point with the dual center speaker, 4" at the corners above the gas tank, a CD player and looks like probably dual 6x9's under the seat. I may pick up a cheap pair of 6x9's to install once I get the stereo working.

[VA72C10]

Speakers

[YBNORML]

Hey Jonathan, in order to fix your iPhone pics.

Select photo, photo will appear upright
Go to edit photo
Rotate photo 90degrees
Save photo
Edit photo again
Rotate photo 270degrees so it's back upright
Save photo

Sounds stupid, but it works.

Oh yeah, nice truck. It's pretty clean, I'm sure you'll make it even nicer.

[VA72C10]

Cool find. Intermittent wipers that work when the wiper switch is off. you flip the switch on this controller and just dial in how much delay you want. Was planning on adding this anyway so this saves me some time and money. The box in the background is the FM modulator for an add-on CD player with the wire running under the sill plate and back to the back of the cab and sitting under the bench seat should I chose to add a CD player...

[VA72C10]

Worst spot on the truck. Two rust areas on the upper cowl area behind the AC box. Will fix this when I do the engine bay refresh.

[VA72C10]

Here's the AC setup with the new parts. Looking forward to getting this working.

[VA72C10]

Picture of the rad. I have plans to dress this up in the future with some parts I have...

[VA72C10]

Don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but the truck has the factory spare setup with all the hardware, a towing hitch with wiring, the big sway bar, and of course is a trailing arm rear truck (reinforced being a 3/4 ton) Truck is definitely growing on me

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by YBNORML

Hey Jonathan, in order to fix your iPhone pics.

Select photo, photo will appear upright
Go to edit photo
Rotate photo 90degrees
Save photo
Edit photo again
Rotate photo 270degrees so it's back upright
Save photo

Sounds stupid, but it works.

Oh yeah, nice truck. It's pretty clean, I'm sure you'll make it even nicer.

Thanks on the truck and thanks for the tip. If I have a pic I really care about being the right way I'll do that

[VA72C10]

Got my other LED taillight this evening so I'll swap those soon. I keep fighting the urge to tear it apart to upgrade a lot at once but I will just wait till I have all the parts and know it won't keep me down for too long. I want to fix the rust on the firewall and clean up the engine bay but I would rather enjoy it for a bit and getting the ac working will help me enjoy it that much more. So I'll get that working with BMERDOC's help and then gather all the parts for the engine bay rehab. I plan to make it look original just cleaner. Been looking at 8 lug wheels and really don't like the options so I will probably stay with the stock wheels and get 3/4 ton caps I can polish and paint blue bowties on.

[VA72C10]

Sick wife and tired out family today so stayed around the house to help if needed. Did sneak out to check out this rad cover . When I redo the under hood I'll paint this satin or gloss black (still deciding) and will install the cover that goes between the grill and rad (for looks and to force more air through the radiator)

[VA72C10]

Tonight was one of those good news bad news nights

Good news is I drove it 45 minutes again on the highway...going 70-75 with traffic the whole way...no issues.

Better news- Nick helped me check the A/C (held good vacuum and no leaks) and charged it up... it's working well. More on that later.

More good news- Made the drive back home in comfort....the local temp was 84 on my phone but it was cool in the cab with the windows up

Bad news-after I got home I went past the house to pick up a late dinner for the family...and promptly broke down...three different times- second time a cop pulled me as I was breaking down

But I'm home safe.....ready to document the evening's festivities after I get some dinner...just had to get everything out first....

[VA72C10]

You know when you're bragging on something and in the back of your mind you know you're making a mistake...had that happen tonight. Was showing Nick (BMERDOC) all the cool options the truck has and noting that the weatherstrip, seat cover, dash pad, headliner, etc all look new. 45 minutes later I'm sitting in a Chick fil A parking lot with the hood open...partially blocking their drive-through

[VA72C10]

I really appreciate the help this evening from BMERDOC. He's a great mechanic and friend. Looking forward to tinkering with this truck some more (no big work...just tinkering right Nick )

So I make the 45 minute drive to Nick's and arrive a little sweaty...it's in the low 90's and the A/C hasn't been fixed yet...
We look over the truck and I run to NAPA for O-rings and conversion adapters while he gets his bay cleared out.

Got it up on a lift for the first time. Thankfullly no big surprises....actually cleaner than I thought. Passenger inner rocker is perfect. Driver's was gone and they installed a new one over it...without removing all the old...will clean that up at some point....maybe

Small tranny leak at the rear seal and PS leak from the low pressure fitting (knew that was leaking but didn't see where from above)

[VA72C10]

Then started working on the A/C...great to have a friend with professional A/C equipment

Went through the testing cycle and then filled it up with 2.6lbs of R134a. Compressor squealed like a pig to start...just needed the belt tightened...only took three of us to do that job..

After tightening the belt and aligning the compressor better with the back bracket- no more sqealing....and we have a result!

[VA72C10]

I saw 56.4 while Nick was slightly revving up the engine. Not bad at all for sitting in the shop. Going to buy a digital temp gauge myself so I can watch it on the interstate...was definitely even cooler at highway speed and totally comfortable on the way home...

Here's a pic of the gauges on the A/C machine...according to what I'd looked up it appears everything is fairly healthy for the A/C. This was our "trial run" so we'll see how it does "for a minute" as Nick says and then discharge, put a new dryer on, and work to make it colder...probably adding some aux "pusher" fans I have to the outside of the condenser and a blower to boost the stock output of the vents.

[VA72C10]

Next Nick checked the timing. He's one for doing things right the first time (which I really appreciate and personally hate double work) so he cleaned up the timing marks on the tab and the mark on the balancer and painted it. Ended up showing 20 degrees without vac advance and 35 all in with advance. A little on the high side w/out advance but the idle is fairly high on the truck so that's part of it. The headers leak badly (more on that later) so I'll be replacing those sooner than later... But the 35 total advance is right around where I like to see it so we'll keep it here for a bit. Will get the carb dialed in next. May eventually upgrade the HEI and Carb (I have new of each) but we will see how these run after some more tinkering...

Nick snuck a peek at the alignment (you knew he would) and noticed lots of shims on the arms so we'll check that out on another trip... Next time we'll check things out with a vacuum gauge and get it all really dialed in...

[BMERDOC]

I was really impressed with the condition of the truck. Its in really nice condition top, bottom, inside and out. It really does only need some "tinkering". There are a couple bigger projects but nothing horrible and wouldn't even need to be addressed if you didnt care too. You never mentioned getting pulled over in texts! Haha! That stinks! We may have to remedy that 1-wire situation. I wasn't aware that it was and am uncomfortable with them for Hard Workers. Really though, all in all its a great truck!

[VA72C10]

Originally Posted by BMERDOC

I was really impressed with the condition of the truck. Its in really nice condition top, bottom, inside and out. It really does only need some "tinkering". There are a couple bigger projects but nothing horrible and wouldn't even need to be addressed if you didnt care too. You never mentioned getting pulled over in texts! Haha! That stinks! We may have to remedy that 1-wire situation. I wasn't aware that it was and am uncomfortable with them for Hard Workers. Really though, all in all its a great truck!

Thanks, it's just a good, honest old truck.... was worried this evening but looks to just have been a charging issue....will test it tomorrow sometime...

I'm going to lean on you to keep me in check

We'll look at the one wire...at least plan to clean up that wiring a bit...

I'll explain the police encounter next...

Here's a pic of the truck up on the shop's really cool in-floor lifts...the only way to lift This was an action shot on the way down...

[VA72C10]

So....I enjoyed the A/C on the ride home. About to the exit on the highway I was accelerating into the lane and it seemed a bit sluggish...a sign of things to come. As I passed my neighborhood it started stumbling a bit when I gave it gas...I'd turned on the lights and that was helping drain the battery...I turned the A/C off at this point to see if that helped the situation (no change)

Pulled in the Chick Fil-A and it was idling okay but I wanted to check it out so I pulled into a spot...nothing looked amiss so I backed out of the spot...then I go to pull forward and it stumbles...and dies before I get a chance to get it in park....

Get it in park and wondering if it's a Neutral safety switch deal or something else...so I push the selector as far as it will go and break off the little white plastic indicator...thankfully I have another one of those already

Try to re-start and NOTHING...nothing at all. So I go out and look under the hood. Nothing looks out of place I can see. Checked all the wiring and noticed the positive cable was a little loose. It's a side post battery so I grab my vice grips and tighten it up... (took vice grips, my ratcheting socket with 1/2 and 9/16 and a breaker bar with an extra belt in case I threw one on the trip)

Now it'll just barely click. Looking back my guess is it wasn't charging with it loose and I drained the battery...I was thinking of any possibilities like the HEI module going bad, bad alt, bad battery, fuse blown (checked all those), broken wire, starter wiring messed up and heat soak on starter, vapor lock, etc...

So I call my wife and she shows up with the girls. I jump start the truck and it fires right up. My mistake here was not giving it any time to charge up with it connected...I only had the cables on to jump it and for a few seconds before taking them off. Said I'd go straight home and my wife went to pick up their dinner...

So...I get on the road (it's almost dark now) and all seems fine at first...but as I go it starts stumbling again. I notice my headlights dimming so I shut them off and it gets better...I'm only 1 mile from home so I attempt to limp it home....next intersection a police offer is there....

So I pull my parking lights on and it gets worse but is running...get to a red light and police officer goes past me and notices no headlights...slows down...lights on and behind me he goes....

My neighborhood is the next light so I get there and turn my lights on and it almost dies so I go back to parking lights...I end up pulling into the neighborhood and stopping there because my house is still several turns away and I don't want the officer to think I'm running

He puts the spotlight on me and comes up and I explain what's happening. He takes my ID and goes to his car (when I remember I haven't registered it yet or transferred the title ) I motion to him to explain that and he said okay and went back to the car...as I'm waiting for my ticket...I'm hoping he doesn't impound the truck.

He comes back to the window and lets me know he was contemplating following me home but he's not allowed so asked me to pull into a bank parking lot opposite my neighborhood entrance and park it until the morning. He says if I do that he won't write me a ticket... so I say Thank you VERY much and pull it over into the bank lot and shut it off....

I call my wife and she suggests getting a battery from Walmart (24hrs) so I disconnect the battery....then as I'm waiting for her to get food (she made a second stop not knowing of my police encounter yet (didn't want to worry her) and then went to the wrong bank on the other side of the neighborhood.

30 minutes later she arrives and she says why don't we try to jump it again....we're very close to home as I mention and the officer is long gone by now so I say okay. I reinstall the battery in the dark and jump the truck...this time letting it charge up for 5 minutes before starting the truck and then charging for another couple minutes while I carefully coordinate our plan to get home w/out a ticket/ third breakdown)

So I take off the charging cables from the van, close her hood and have her back out. I finish taking off the charging cables, shut the hood, throw the cables in the bed and get going behind her. No lights yet. We get to the road and I try the lights- surprisingly bright. And thankfully they never dimmed on the way home....

[VA72C10]

So I'm hoping it's simply the loose cable. Battery says it was new late last year on the sticker (duralast Gold) and alt looks to be newer. Will put my battery charger/tester on it when/if I get time tomorrow and it also can test the Alternator so after I get the battery with a good charge I will test the alternator under a load. Will report the results here when I get time...