What did you get done? Christmas edition.

[N2TRUX]

Since I was a good boy this year and did all my Christmas shopping early I had a chance to relax a bit this weekend. Even though I am on call I still got a few things done.

Friday evening my family came over for Christmas. We ate and played cards while the kids opened presents.

Saturday morning I washed and detailed the daily drivers, then took my daughter to a volleyball private lesson. On the way home I stopped and bought new wipers for the 03 Denali XL and a new hatch strut for the 84 Z-28.
Today I remembered I had to buy an SD memory card for my daughters new digi-cam so I went to Best Buy and scored a 2 gig card for 29.99.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the Z-28. I put the new oil filter on and poured oil in the valve covers on both sides of the motor so it could pick up fresh oil quickly. I added fresh gas and a couple of bottles of rubbing alcohol to the tank to absorb any moisture that might have collected.

I set the new battery in, squirted starting fluid down the carb and turned her over a couple times. Once I felt everything sounded good I gave her a try and she busted to life....then died.

I repeated this procedure about 20 times. She will start and run on starter fluid or a shot of gas down the carb then dies. I pulled the fuel lines at the pump and blew air through the lines and they seem to be clear.

I decided to have my wife try to start it while I kept it running with the gas can. Of course it popped and caught the gas can on fire. I slung a little gas as I reached for a rag to put the can out and set the car, a blanket, and a box on fire.

Meanwhile flames are shooting out of the carb and I'm telling my wife to turn it over. She freakin but finally does what I say and kills the carb fire. A few quick swats with a rag put the other small fires out. My wife leaves after that. She has no sense of adventure at all.

With all the fires out I am still scratching my head. I don't know why it won't prime the pump. I tried letting the front of the car down a little thinking maybe I had too much angle and the fuel wouldn't reach the pick up. That didn't help.

It would start and run just fine before it sat for the past few years so everything "was" working. Any ideas?


What did you get done?

[78Chevy]

You might could try turning the mixture screws in and out, leaving them a little richer. Then try to start it. I don't really know if this will work on a car, but I just about have to do this every year to my old lawm mower.

I have been working on my 78's ignition curve. The PO didn't do nothing to the dizzy when he installed the "high performance" cam. I think that I have just about got the "all in" point figured out at 2800 rpms. Now it's time to adjust the vac advance. Hopefully I can mess with it tomorrow, when it's not coming a FLOOD!!!

Best of luck

[SCOTI]

Ken.... Replace the fuel pump. The diaphragm is prob dried up & has a pin hole so it won't pull fuel.

I did absolutely nothing truck or car related. Well..... except for getting the oil changed & the front end lubed for the 74.

Like Ken, there's a funny story: I take it by the dealership my lil brother works @ to get the oil changed since I'm out xmas shopping over in his area of town. He of course goes above & beyond the call of duty while performing the oil change for big brother. He whips out a can of carb cleaner & a rag to wipe off any extra gunk. He tops off all the tires w/air..... we BS about our current life status & I'm on my way looking for that elusive gift for the GF.

As I'm getting on the extremely busy highway, I notice the trans doesn't seem to want to shift. I pull over on the shoulder & check fluid levels & retry. No shifting. There's only 1 possibility since it worked fine before the oil change.

Since the truck is so low & I didn't have a jack, I had to be creative. I had a piece of 2x4 scrap steel in the bed & strategically placed it so I could roll up on it & then the curb to get the truck high enough to crawl under. I repeated this balancing act for the front wheel..... shimmied under the truck to replace the disconnected vacuum modulator line & reversed my procedure to get back off the curb. It took a while to get this done but I was grinning ear to ear when I drove off into traffic to continue my quest..... Try doing that w/a computer controlled vehicle.

Have a happy & safe holiday week!

[N2TRUX]

Originally Posted by SCOTI;

Ken.... Replace the fuel pump. The diaphragm is prob dried up & has a pin hole so it won't pull fuel.!

You may be right. I pulled the line at the pump and poured fuel dow in it hoping it would catch prime. Nothing happend. Even though the pump was brand new a 4+ years ago it could be bad.

What's wierd is it also has an in tank electric pump and I can't hear it running. Of course it has to have oil pressure before it kicks on....

[sick69]

absolutly nothing truck related! finished shopping went to the fatherinlaws, took care of some stuff around the house before the motherinlaw and sisterinlaw come over in the morning.

will be working on the truck on tuesday.might sneek out there in the evening after all the holiday stuff is over. hopefully get the doors done.if not tuesday i should be able to finish them up between tuesday and this coming weekend


HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE HERE ON THE BOARD AND BEST WISHES TO ALL.

[Russell]

I worked on my 96 today!

The horn on that truck was pathetic, the low tone wasn't working, so I went ahead and grabbed the horns from my 74 and installed them onto my 96. Now it sounds like a real truck when you honk the horn

Since I was on a roll working on the truck, I tore the dash apart and fixed my brake idiot light so I wouldn't keep driving off with the e-brake engaged. It barely had enough clamping force to hold the truck still on flat ground, forget any incline, but still held enough to burn the brakes up when I took off without disengaging the e-brake, lol. I also took a look at my stereo, to see if I could figure out why my front driver's speaker never works, and pass side is intermittent. I checked out the speakers on a known good head unit, and checked for continuity between it all, and finally decided that the factory head unit has problems. I'll drop in a newer head unit from an S-10 blazer with a CD player instead of tape player if I come across one in the wrecking yard.

I then put my dash back together, and figured I'd midaswell fix my e-brake so it would actually hold the truck still, seeing as it is a standard and all. So I crawled underneith, and managed to get the thing apart, ran the die across the threads, and tap through the nut, and re-assembled it. Managed to get a nice firm e-brake pedal out of it now, so I'll call that good.

Only thing left to do otherwise is to replace my e-brake release handle, so I don't have to reach under the dash to disengage it...

Oh, and maybe do a Vortec 5.7 swap

GMC progress will continue tommorow afternoon

[Liz]

Ken, all im gonna say is .. lol.. sorry darlin I know its wrong to laugh at you .. just can't help it right now the whole "no sense of adventure" thing did it..

[pcmcobra]

Changed plugs in my truck yesterday...some autolites...truck runs a "tad" rich.
Had to get the kids stuff put together last night...all is well.

[n2billet]

Ken, that sounds like business as usual for you!

Scoti, that just a normal mode of operation for you......I know you had your tool bag in the floor board didn't you.....

I started body working my s10 that I bought a week or so ago, it's been awhile since I've body worked so it took me a while to get back in the swing of things but the cab is about ready to prime. I plan on getting the bed body worked and primed early next week and get the whole thing in paint so I can get back on my other projects.

After sitting here and thinking about it Ken, I can hear Lana as the flames are being transferred to one object to the next....... I would tell Kim but then she may go off on me for some reason so I'll just keep it to myself for now!

[Nolowrider]

Santa brought me a nitrous purge kit (hehehe) so I installed and tested it out. She bought the wrong size, but I had some parts laying around the shop and got it installed. Needed -4 fittings and she bought -6. No big deal, she still did a good job getting it from Summit. Godd wife.

[magnethead]

Look what santa brought me....It's not a hillbilly truck anymore..IT HAS WINDOW CRANKS!

oh, and the pedals were a project and a half..talk about universal...NOT...I just looked at it my engineering self and decided how to make it work myself..they aren't going anywhere

[N2TRUX]

Originally Posted by Liz;

.... lol.. sorry darlin I know its wrong to laugh at you .. just can't help it right now the whole "no sense of adventure" thing did it..

What got her upset was I remained totally calm because I knew it would probably happen. She just didn't "appreciate" me telling her to crank it when all she wanted to do was run. I mean it's not like "she" was on fire, just everything around her was

Originally Posted by n2billet;

Ken, that sounds like business as usual for you!

Scoti, that just a normal mode of operation for you......I know you had your tool bag in the floor board didn't you.....

After sitting here and thinking about it Ken, I can hear Lana as the flames are being transferred to one object to the next....... I would tell Kim but then she may go off on me for some reason so I'll just keep it to myself for now!

The good news is now that she told the story to her brothers we can all laugh about it. They thought it was hilarious....

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by n2billet

....I started body working my s10 that I bought a week or so ago, it's been awhile since I've body worked so it took me a while to get back in the swing of things but the cab is about ready to prime. I plan on getting the bed body worked and primed early next week and get the whole thing in paint so I can get back on my other projects.

S10? WTF..... did I miss something or what?

[N2TRUX]

Originally Posted by SCOTI;

S10? WTF..... did I miss something or what?

Actually I think it's an S-15 but that's not important. He will have to tell you the whole story, but this is a case of a good guy helping out a friend in need.

[49studebaker]

S-10? I spent most of Christmas eve underneath a 91 S-10, it's a case of dad helping out "home from college" son. Started out replacing old shocks with KYB Gas shocks, Rusty old nuts twisted the bolts off the mounting brackets. Ended up cutting, grinding, welding, It did get done though. We built this truck 5 years ago, started with a chassis and cab, added a bed, doors, roll pan, cowl induction hood, painted it black. My kid still loves it.

[84 400]

any pics??

[82c10]

well, got the wrong lugnuts ordered to mount the draglites, ordered an adj. clutch cable, FW adjuster, and quadrant, hopefully over the next week i will go get a used nitrous kit, an explorer intake, and some other stuff

[Eyegore]

Sold my 99 tahoe and my 2001 Santa Fe, bought my sons 78 camper speacil

[N2TRUX]

Originally Posted by Eyegore;

Sold my 99 tahoe and my 2001 Santa Fe, bought my sons 78 camper speacil

Cool, where's the pics...

Originally Posted by SCOTI;

S10? WTF..... did I miss something or what?

Here's the pics that Keith sent before he started...

[Eyegore]

Ken here's the 78

[N2TRUX]

Originally Posted by Eyegore;

Ken here's the 78

Looks pretty good...I think...

[Eyegore]

Yeah theres some work to be done it, espically where the old trailer mirrors were at (they don't collapse) put some dumbo ones on instead. And we found a more comfortble seat w/ a center arm rest (wrong color for now but hope to have reupoholstered soon) and still looking for some stock seat belts in the original tan, but I like it, really nice to drive.