Working Man's Burbon

[BigBird05]

I read on here that the correct wiper blades are Tryco 33-150.The guy said he was real happy with them. I don't about them, but good luck.

[HO455]

Thanks for the information. I wish I knew the Trico number for the ones I got. The cross reference says they should fit. But fit and work properly seem to be two different things.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/o...rban/year/1967

[Ol Blue K20]

I went to napa auto part s and got the "classic 15 inch wiper blades" fit nice and work great!!

[HO455]

When I went to NAPA warehouse they told me the don't sell refills anymore.

[Ol Blue K20]

Originally Posted by HO455

When I went to NAPA warehouse they told me the don't sell refills anymore.

Sorry, I got the blades. The fit the arms great and the metal frame looks stock.

[HO455]

I guess I'm showing my age but I hate throwing away perfectly good wiper frames.
My experiences have been that when I replace factory frames, the replacements never seem to work as well. They wear and get sloppy in a short period of time forcing me to by another set.
Just another example of corporate engineering to raise their bottom line at the expense of everyone else.

[LockDoc]

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You should be able to take the blades out of the new frames and put them in the original ones. I have done that a couple of times.

LockDoc

[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]

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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

[HO455]

I'm not sure either. With the first new switch and a new under dash harness all within 3000 miles of each other it should have worked for much longer than it did.
Having made so many changes to the electrical part of the truck since the first switch failed l don't believe there is a common cause for both failures, but good call on the neutral safety switch. I will check it out.
I think I will post a question over on the truck side to see if anyone else has had a premature switch failure. Maybe something helpful will come to light from that.

[HO455]

Spent most of the afternoon with the repair of the ignition switch. First off is picture of the bad switch disassembled. I would like to find a OE switch to disassemble for comparison of the contacts.
I have to say I didn't find a smoking gun that I can point to as the problem. I concentrated on the solenoid wiring to start. Following LockDocs lead I did a ohm meter test on the neutral safety switch by removing the purple connector from the switch and hooking my meter to the switch. By moving the gear selector through the all the positions several dozen times while watching the meter. For the most part the meter would read .05 ohms when in park or neutral, but there was a couple of times the reading would be 4 to 8 ohms. So I removed the switch and disassembled it. The photos (#2 & 3) show some wear on the slider and some arc wear on the contacts for the back up lights. In addition the both of the tabs the backup connector hooks to show some heat discoloration from some past issue.
I filed the slider flat and cleaned and soldered the back up light contacts to remove the arc damaged spots. Those spots are probably all/part of the reason that sometimes I have to jiggle the shifter to get the backup lights to come on. I buffed the all contacts with a brass wire wheel in my Dremel, greased the slider, and reassembled. Testing after reassembly showed consistent readings and smooth operation.
Ohm meter testing of the rest of the solenoid wiring did not revel any other issues.
I then moved to replacing the melted connector body on the harness. I found Napa carries a replacement pigtail for $18.00. (Photo 4) A bit steep as only needed the plastic body but I didn't find any other option. I do plan on saving the leads for other projects. One item of note is the wires that come with the replacement pigtail are noticeably undersized compared to the factory wiring. (Photo 5) The red, purple, and pink factory wires next to the wires from the pigtail leads.
After the connector was reassembled and the switch plugged in I did amp load testing on each lead n the connector. I found the total load on the switch to be about 23/25 amps with everything turned on in run. The large brown lead as about 12/13 amps and the pink lead was 8/10 amps. The solenoid circuit was 12/15 amps.
I forgot to post that the rest of the brown wires all had 5 amps or less.
These readings are not extremely accurate as they are on the lower range of my amp clamp attachment. (It is rated for 4 to 400 amps.) But I am confident that there isn't an overload condition for the switch.
One other thing I looked at was how the Packard connectors fit the tabs on the switch. They all looked good except the one for the solenoid. The part of the connector in the middle had lost its spring tension so I replaced it. The connector showed no sign of overheating or arcing so it may not have been part of the problem.
After the plug was installed on the switch I carefully inspected each of the Packard connectors with a magnifying glass to be sure they have slid over the switch tabs properly. Low and behold one of them has completely missed the tab and is just sittng next to the tab in the connector body. To get all the connectors to install properly I bent each tab slightly so it was biased toward the Packard connector. I was then able to get the connector installed properly. This problem may have contributed to the failure, but I have no proof.

[BigBird05]

Don't forget to check the bulkhead connections for corrosion. They are out in the weather. I have a damaged ignition switch if you want to tear apart a factory one. Let me know and i'll go look for it. I was saving it for the plastic connecter part because I have a good switch that the plastic is broken on.

[HO455]

The bulkhead connection is on the list for today. I ran out of daylight yesterday and it started to drizzle so I decided quit before opening another can of worms.
Thanks for the switch offer. I appreciate it, but since you have a need for part of it I'm sure I can find another one and you can fix your damaged one. If you desire to tear it apart, feel free to post a picture of the contacts for comparison.
Thanks again.

[BigBird05]

You can still have it. I just removed the ignition key cyl from a good switch today. That makes the one I offered to you 3rd in line.

[HO455]

More WMB progress today. The bulkhead connection checked out okay. I know I cleaned it up when I put the dash harness in and it still looked good. (Oh and the whole replacement of the HEI power wire too.) So I just blew out the dust and put a fresh coat of Corrosion Block on the spade connectors and reassembled. Thank goodness no new can of worms there.
However taking the snow tires off and putting the mags back had a bit of a hiccup. As I was turning the passenger front wheel heard it click. More spinnng. Sure enough there was a definite clicking sound. Nothing felt loose but after some recollecting, I'm sure that when the truck was in the shop I only checked and repacked the bearings. So the are one of the last pieces that haven't been replaced. It took going to 2 Napa stores to get inners, outer, and seals. Fortunately it was a straightforward replacement with no other detours. I really wanted to wash the truck too as the weather today was great, but my sister called needing help with a bench she is building.
Oh well maybe tomorrow. At least I'm back on the road.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by BigBird05

You can still have it. I just removed the ignition key cyl from a good switch today. That makes the one I offered to you 3rd in line.

Well then shoot me a PM and we can work out the details.

[HO455]

I've been preparing the parts for the rear swaybar installation. The holes in the frame brackets for the connecting links are no longer round due to the link bolt rubbing the bracket. (Photo 1) I'm not sure why GM didn't drill the holes larger so the bushing's raised index would prevent metal to metal contact like it does on most lower control arms. Not only would a larger hole prevent the wear but the noise that would accompany the bolts rubbing or rattling in brackets.
I drilled the brackets out to 5/8". (2nd photo) I then put a slight chamfer (3rd photo) on both sides of the bracket to get the bushing's raised index to self center in the hole since I didn't have the exact drill bit size. The bushings appear to be a metric size.
Next I need to come up with some 1 inch spacers to go between the brackets and the frame.

[crakarjax]

Was there a rear swaybar stock? I wasn't aware that was an option

[HO455]

You are correct there was no factory rear swaybar available for our trucks.
I had mentioned on the previous page that I picked up a rear swaybar from a 82 Trans Am, but I failed to mention that was where the brackets I was talking about came from.
Dhoo! It was a clear as a bell to me.
I am planning on installing the Trans Am swaybar on the Burban.

[BigBird05]

Originally Posted by HO455

You are correct there was no factory rear swaybar available for our trucks.
I had mentioned on the previous page that I picked up a rear swaybar from a 82 Trans Am, but I failed to mention that was where the brackets I was talking about came from.
Dhoo! It was a clear as a bell to me.
I am planning on installing the Trans Am swaybar on the Burban.

What does the rest of the bracket look like?

[HO455]

The complete photos.

[HO455]

Picking back up on another delayed project. The Gearvendors wiring upgrade.
The supplied wire that comes with a Gear Vendors is not shielded. This makes the sytem susceptible to interference from the ignition system.
The GV installation manual states to keep the wiring clear of all other wires which is not really feasible or reasonable to expect, unless you're looking for a place to lay blame if something doesn't work correctly.
After installing my new Pertronix ignition I had problems with the Gearvendors controller freaking out and causing the unit to jump in and out of overdrive repeatedly. I solved the problem temporarily by wrapping the wires in aluminum foil. (The way some of us keep the guvmnt from reading our brain waves. ) see first photo.
I found it a bit difficult to get some 20 gauge 2 conductor shielded wire in less than 500 foot rolls. Covid was the common reason given. Finally though I got 25 feet to make the new cables. Then I got real lucky and found some melted GV wires. By cutting the phone handset plugs off of the bad set it will be less of a guessing game to get the new cables correct.
Gearvendors isn't very forthcoming with information on their controller and its wiring. All I was able to glean from one of the sales techs (Their actual technical desk wouldn't share any information) was that she thought that they only used the outside pins on the phone plug.
They have all 4 pins wired up. (Photo #2)
They use a 6 conductor unshielded cable with the white and the blue conductors not used. (Photo #3)
I just cut the phone plugs off and soldered them to my new shielded cable. The originals had the black and red conductors paired and color coded to be the positive conductor and the yellow and green paired and color coded to be the negative conductor. (Photo #4)
I don't know why but GV connects the white and blue conductors on the other end of the cables they supply. Last photo.

[HO455]

After soldering and heat shrinking the conductors I soldered a 20 guage black wire to the shield on the end that phone plugs are on. This black lead will get tied to the chassis ground. The shielding wlll intercept the stray voltages before the conductors will. By having one end of the shield hooked to ground the induced voltage has a path back to battery negative. Do not hook both ends of the shield to ground.
This can make the shield a conductor and cause more problems.
The last photo is of the pair of melted cables I got. They are the Yellow and White cables that hook to the speed sender and to the solenoid. The yellow and white cables are the only two I shielded with foil and cured my problem. (Only 2 GV cables I obviously covered more than just those 2 with the foil.)
More to follow once I get these installed.

[HO455]

I did some M&R yesterday. On cold mornings the air compressor had started cycling on and off as it approached the shutdown pressure. This was really messing with the alternator. The lights would go bright, dim, bright dim..... I pulled the compressor relay to make it stop and headed to work. That evening after work I could not get the problem to reoccur. So I crossed my fingers and hoped it was fixed. Since I am old and out of coupons I was sure wasn't the case so I put my test light in the truck. Of course several mornings later it happened again. I jumped out of the truck and did quick check of relay by touching it showed it was cycling with the compressor. So it was an electrical problem.
I put a test light to the coil power to relay and found the voltage was constant. That ruled out the pressure switch as a source of the problem. However when I checked the power to the relay from the battery it was cycling on and off. Definitely peculiar,so I pulled the relay and headed to work.
Today I began by following the circuit back to the battery. The next component was a circuit breaker. I had installed a 20 amp automatic reseting circuit breaker back when the WMB was in the body shop. Since I couldn't get the problem to reoccur I made the assumption the circuit breaker was at fault.
Now to confirm whether the circuit breaker was bad or the compressor was drawing more amperage than before thus causing the breaker to open, meant taking checking the amperage of the compressor.
To get a reasonably accurate amperage reading I put a jumper across the circuit breaker then toggled the power manually while watching my meter. This showed there was nothing amiss with the compressor. The amp draw at starting pressure was around 14 amps and at shut off was 18 amps. To me this meant the circuit breaker was tripping early. I have not confirmed it but, I am assuming the compressor draws a bit more amperage when it is cold. It has been in the mid 40's when I leave for work lately.
I bought a new 30 amp circuit breaker to replace the 20 amp one. (First photo) I would have preferred a 25 amp one but I couldn't locate that size. The original 20 amp one was actually correctly sized for the original compressor that came with the truck. When I replaced the compressor I saw that it would be drawing 18 to 20 amps which is pretty closed to the rating of the breaker. Last photo the green arrow indicates the new relay.
I guess my borrowed time had expired.

[HO455]

Once again my luck ran out on Monday. Short story while sitting at a stop light a car shot out into a lane when he couldn't see traffic and hit an oncoming car. That car then hit me. So now the ordeal begins.
My good friend Robert who own the body shop, where all the work was done previously, died last summer. Since then I haven't made any effort to move forward on other projects that Robert and I had planned. I now have to begin a new relationship with a body shop.
Any help on shops in the Portland area would be appreciated.