Working Man's Burbon

[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
-

[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 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.

[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!

[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!

[HO455]

Originally Posted by 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!

It doesn't seem to be an issue. It's been in the low 40's this week and it takes about 3.5 minutes to get warm air from the vents. That doesn't seem to be noticeably longer than before. Thats with driving about 3/4 mile at 20 mph before hitting the freeway at 55.

Two noticeable plusses are that at the end of my 14 minute commute now I notice it is getting hot in the cab and that never happened before. Like Doc said "Let there be heat!!!"

And the other plus I noticed was yesterday morning. The dew point was high enough that the front windows fogged up immediately after I got in the truck. A minute later 50% of the windshield was clear and most the rest was gone by the 3 minute mark. Markedly improved over the old worn out blower motor.
Now if I could just get the drivers side to clear up first.

[kev2809]

little off topic but how has that little larrys box been holding up? thinking about going that route when putting my air ride back together

[HO455]

Originally Posted by kev2809

little off topic but how has that little larrys box been holding up? thinking about going that route when putting my air ride back together

As all the topics here revolve around trucks (With occasional drifting off into Pontiacs ) you are most certainly on topic!
The Little Larry's valve set operation (outside of the o-ring failure early on) has been flawless. That o-ring may have been defective from the factory.
Whatever the reason for the failure Larry sent me new set of o-rings immediately after we talked about the problem and I had them in a couple of days.
Problem solved.

[HO455]

I had some M&R that I needed to get knocked out this week and fortunately there was one dry day and incredibly I had it off!
First up was fixing the tail lights. Two nights before I was 2 blocks from the house when the dash lights went out. A couple of quick checks revealed I had no taillights or emergency flashers. The fuse looked good so I knew it wasn't going to be a simple fix so I parked the WMB for a couple days.

When I started troubleshooting the problem I assumed the issue was going to be with the light switch. Lately when I turned on the high beams the headlights would go out. If I pushed and pulled the head light switch the high beams would come on. So I pulled the switch out and tested it with an ohmmeter and found poor conductivity through the dash light circuit of the switch. I thought I was on the the problem. However...

I disassembled the switch and cleaned all the contacts and reassembled the switch. Now I had good conductivity through the switch but, when I plugged it in and tested it, the lights still refused to light. After another 30 minutes of troubleshooting I decided to pull the fuse and check it and bingo! The fuse was bad. Visibly it looked good but, no conductivity. Grrrrrrr! I installed a new fuse and everything was good again. There is no indication of why the fuse failed.

This time there was an upside to making a bad assumption. And it was, now the high beams work every time and the dash lights seem a bit brighter.

Next up was fixing the leak in the power steering pump. Ever since I installed the CS130 alternator I have had very little adjustment range in the alternator drive belt. This comes from the alternator hitting the aftermarket valve covers. So a couple weeks ago I decided to do some slight modifications to the alternator mounts to gain some more adjustment range. By now I imagine you're asking what does the alternator belt have to do with a leaking power steering pump?

During the imagineering part I managed to drop the alternator and it hit the pump and deformed the edge of the fluid tank. At the time I was only bummed since my new pump now looked quite used but, the reality was that the tank now leaked. It was a pretty bad leak that left a 6 or 7 inch oil spot every time I parked the truck. The fix required that I pull the pump out and remove the pump housing from the tank. Once that was accomplished I carefully tapped the dent out of the tank and reassembled the pump with some sealant on the O-rings to be sure of getting a good seal. That seems to cured the leak. (Knock on wood)

Last on the work list was to replace the driver's door hinge pins. Since getting the WMB on the road I've had to re-adjust the upper hinge 3 times. Over time I would start feeling the door dragging on the latch, so I would move the upper hinge to get things back in line.

Thanks to all the folks who posted the how to replace the pins this task was pretty straightforward. Fortunately the pins in my hinges were not fused in place. So the actual time to replace the pins was about 10 minutes per hinge.

The time consuming part of the job was removing the hinges from the truck. It took a combination of 4 different wrenches to remove them. (Photo #1) The bolts on the cowl side ended being a real pain as they had a fair bit of rust on the ends. Lots of pentrating oil and patience were required. Only an 1/8th of turn at a time on some of them. I supported the door with a cool door support, my buddy Bob turned me on to, while I removed the hinges one at a time. (Photo #2) That really made realigning the door fairly simple once the pins had been replaced.

The hinge pads for the swing control (? I'm not sure that is the right name) weren't worn very much so I just turned them 180 degrees and reassembled the hinge.

[Dave]

Where did you get the padded support cradle for the door? That technique seems immensely easier than using wood 2x4s

[kev2809]

Originally Posted by Dave

Where did you get the padded support cradle for the door? That technique seems immensely easier than using wood 2x4s

found this one on Amazon

Steck Manufacturing 21870 E-Z Rest Door Hanger https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GBLZCU...PJDX75SW8Z5KY0

looks a lot easier than using 2x4s for sure

[Dave]

Originally Posted by kev2809

found this one on Amazon

Steck Manufacturing 21870 E-Z Rest Door Hanger https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GBLZCU...PJDX75SW8Z5KY0

looks a lot easier than using 2x4s for sure

Thank you sir!

[HO455]

Originally Posted by kev2809

found this one on Amazon

Steck Manufacturing 21870 E-Z Rest Door Hanger https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GBLZCU...PJDX75SW8Z5KY0

looks a lot easier than using 2x4s for sure

Good thing kev2809 knew as I got it from my buddy Bob. Your are correct, it is so much nicer than using 2 bys, especially with 2nd gen F-body doors.

[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.

[CG]

Weird they call it a plastic welder. When I was in the copier/printer business we had these sort of cracking issues with different types of plastics. I kept a few old broken pieces in my tool kit and used a normal soldering iron, just like whats pictured but it had a pointy tip. Melt out a deep a grove as possible, melt a chunk of my broken piece (same material) into the grove, and smooth it out with the tip. If need be use a razor blade to smooth it down even more.

All this time I was a welder haha!

[HO455]

I've had an old wood burning set when I was a kid that ended up being mostly used for plastic melting over the years. When it died I used soldering irons but, getting good solder joints after melting plastic usually meant filing the tip back to bare metal and retinning, so when I saw the Harbor Freight sets for $10.00 I picked one up.
The stainless mess it came with has been very handy for door panel repairs on late model cars. As is typical with Harbor Freight tools the metal in the tip is low quality so so the tip bends quite easily.

[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.

[CG]

So much work on your carb to get it working the way you want. I have no idea on fine tuning a carb like that. I would have to find someone to trust to do it for me. Becoming a lost art these days.

[HO455]

Originally Posted by CG

So much work on your carb to get it working the way you want. I have no idea on fine tuning a carb like that. I would have to find someone to trust to do it for me. Becoming a lost art these days.

Having the correct carburetor for your vehicle does help avoid a lot of this. My friend Karl has been doing this for a living most of his life and I've been hanging around him since the 1980's. We both used to race GTO's and we've learned a lot the hard way. Maybe by sharing some of this someone will be inspired to pick up the mantle and become a carburetor craftsman.

[HO455]

Also on this weeks work list was installing a 2nd speed sender in my speedometer cable. I have been waiting for what seems like forever for 1/2 of a two piece adapter to allow me to have 2 senders in the cable. See arrows in photo below.

I got the wiring run from the sender but, my better half decided we needed another raised bed planter in the front yard so I didn't get the rest of the modification installed. Member PJmoreland has been waiting most patiently for me to get this one done for a while now.

[pjmoreland]

Haha. No pressure whatsoever. It might be possible to mount the second speed sensor to the speedometer up under the dash. I looked at doing it that way, but it was going to require me to shorten the square drive rod, so I chickened out.