Troys Toy 70

He did a really good job, I thought that is what you did, but wanted to make sure. I probably be heading down the same path on my Cutlass.

jensenracing77

When my girl broke her arm I was working on the power steering pump to gear box lines. I had just filled up the pump and was turning it with a drill to work the air out of the system. I had not looked at the car much sence then (late May). Today I go out and uncover it and start looking to see where I left off. I noticed that I have ATF running out of the adjusting nut on the gear box. What a pain in the butt. I had it rebuilt by Power Steering Services in St Louis Mo. http://www.powersteering.com/contact-us/ I will call them and see what they want to do about it. With never even using it I expect them to pay shipping both ways.

jensenracing77

Just starting to get back into the swing of things. Worked on the rag joint today.

jensenracing77

A/C parts boxed up and ready to be shipped to Classic Auto Air. http://www.classicautoair.com/ Has anyone had much experience with them? They are rebuilding my expansion valve, POA valve, Compressor and dash controll. I will also get a set of there hoses. This will be an R-12 system.

Boilerz25

I sent them all of my stuff and they did a great job. The only down side was the turn around time for me was about 3 months. I did send them everything in my system with the exception of the evaporator. I think you will be very happy.

Sean

jensenracing77

Installed the alternator and power steering belts. Installed the U joints, drive shaft and shift linkage for the back drive.

I have the engine harness ordered from Lectric Limited. I plan to fire this engine up soon after i get the harness. I want to put some time on it before I install the body to look for any leaks or bugs. I would like to get 3 to 5 hours on it. Also want to check out my idle. We tried to load it slightly on the dyno at idle to simulate it in gear. We could not get the idle just right like this. I want to iron that out before putting the body on. This carb is built with no primary metering rods and the mixture screws have very little effect because of it. I will likely have to drill a little hole in each of the primary butterflies like the 4 speed carbs had.

jensenracing77

I got the belts from Napa. I had to put them in the blast cabinet to blast the wording off of them. I left the "Made In USA" on them but that is all.

Dave Siltman

I hope you know the Powerball numbers if you plan to use R12!
Glad to hear your daughter is on the mend and you are back on the "DubYa"!

jensenracing77

lol, I have almost 40 lbs of R12. Should last the rest of my life.

Hairy Olds

You might want to take the plastic off the pipes unless you like that burnt sorta glossy look.

jensenracing77

That is the first thing everyone says when they look at it. I plan to wrap the frame up soon. Want to keep it as clean as I can till I set the body on it.

jensenracing77

About ready to fire it up. As soon as the engine harness comes I will have it running. I only want to install the starter one time or I would just make my own wiring to fire it up. My wife thinks I am nuts to do this work just to run it without the body. I guess it comes from my racing days. I want to test everything I can before the next step if possible. I am even going to use my new radiator to be sure it has no leaks. Only thing I am not going to use is the new radiator hoses and no fan. I will use a shop fan (safety reasons).

My goals by doing are...

.check for leaks
.fine tune the idle in gear
.Transmission fluid level
.get hours on it and then check the distributor gear. (We had an issue with the stock distributor gear on the dyno and replaced it)
.replace distributor and reset timing
.check to be sure NOS fuel pump works
.hook up rally pack tachometer and check the accuracy compared to my digital tach.

dfire25

Lol nice engine run stand! Don't forget to remove the plastic off of the exhaust and make sure your trans is in park

Mr Shifty Sidney

Is that 2 X 8 piece of wood NOS??

Don W

jensenracing77

No, Just a real nice used one.

jensenracing77

I have decided to not use the engine harness or battery cable to fire it up. Couple reasons, One is that I will have loose wiring where it is not fastened to the firewall. I don't want to risk burning up the new wire harness. I am sure I would have it tied up good enough but just don't want to risk it. Another reason, I have Saturday off and i was not expecting that. I do not have the wire harness yet but tomorrow will be the last full single day I can spend on it for a while.

Tonight I hooked up a temp battery cable and wire to the starter and installed it. Also made a wire with a toggle switch to go from the coil to the battery. Installed a couple fuel lines, a hose to the overflow on the radiator, and distilled water in the radiator. I am not going to energize the alternator, It will just sit there and spin. I had the local Advance auto parts put it on there tester so i already know it works. I cranked it over for 5 seconds and had the oil pressure come up. Now ready for tomorrow.

In the morning I will strap it to my trailer and get it all set up with a gas can, fan, and battery. I want to bring it up to temp and then change oil first thing. With running a ring brake in time and tuning, it has around 2 maybe 3 hours on the dyno. It had just a little wear on the distributor gear so I know there is a little more metallic than the normal brake in particles.

jensenracing77

A couple little bugs but nothing that big yet. Here are three videos of it running. I could not get my big shop fan mounted safely so I mounted my little shop fan. It does not flow enough air so I had to install the water pump fan. Had a little starter issue. It would not quit running on the third startup so I unhooked the battery. After it cooled down I have not had it do it again. I may send it back to the guy that rebuilt it and see if he knows what happened. On a 45 minute run it never got to 200 degrees.

The videos are jerky so don't get sick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afdi...ature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsbJ...ature=youtu.be

costpenn

Congrats Eric - that was a big milestone - and not getting above 200 deg. is even bigger in avoiding "dem Hot Olds Big Block Blues"

jensenracing77

Found a bug today. Both valve covers are leaking oil. I am a little confused on this. I used RTV black on both sides of the cork gasket to avoid this. looks to be coming from under the heads of the bolts in a couple places. I am wondering if it is possible that I had some oil in the thread holes and it is boiling out? I turned off the shop fan to see how it would do and it got to 210 and did not go over that. With not having a shroud and the fan at 4.5 inches from the radiator (not to mention the shop fan blocking a little of the air flow) I feel like the temp is not going to be an issue. I turned the shop fan back on and it got back down to 200. With getting it to 210 today I am wondering if that is causing the oil to come out of the threads? I tightened the cover bolts and will see if that helps. I am ordering another set of gaskets so I have them if I need them. Sure don't want this issue after it is together and the A/C parts installed.

Yesterday on the first two shutdowns it dieseled on me. I then realized I had low grade gas in the can for my lawn mower. I picked up some premium and never had that happen sense.

Had the temp gauge spring a leak on me so I had to drain the water down and install another one. I like the new gauge much better. It has a 180 mark and a 210 mark.

Next will be to hook my factory tach up and see how it reads compared to my hand held. Would like to do this with my factory temp gauge but don't think I will. I can get an idea on that after it is done by using a temp gun.

jensenracing77

Went back out and hooked my Tach up. It is not even close to correct. At 1000 on my handheld I am at 900 on my tach. At 2500 on the handheld I am at 2000 on the tach. I know these were not accurate but this is way off and the higher it goes the worse it is. I may attempt to adjust it. May also hook up a Sunpro tach I have just to see if my handheld is correct. as long as I know where the real 5500 is on my tack I will be fine. Also the valve covers are still leaking. At least I know now. That would suck to change them after the A/C parts were on and the car was done. This alone was worth the extra trouble of starting it and testing it.

I got the edelbrock .250 thick gaskets the first time. They did not fit that well and I had to trim a couple spots just to get them to fit. They must still be wrong or I trimed to much off. They fit the aluminum covers perfect but not the stock covers. I have a set of Mr. Gasket Ultra-Seal Valve Cover Gaskets 5875 coming this time.

jensenracing77

Another bug! I am SO GLAD I fired this thing up before I finished it. I had a blister in the paint show up on my radiator. It is right where everyone would see it. I thought that maybe I had not cleaned it well enough before i painted it. Today I poped the blister and there was water under it. I have a very small crack in the tank. The radiator shop had to pressure test it but they obviously did not find this. It is such a small leak that maybe they just didn't see it? Now I will have to take it back to them and get it fixed. Now I will likely have to refinish the entire radiator again.

Also pulled the distributor out to check the gear. It looks perfect. At least that is good.

dc2x4drvr

I like your style Eric..
Maybe install the valve cover gaskets 'clean' on the head side?

mrolds69

The valve cover prob is the RTV on both sides. I use like 3M spray adhesive to attach to the cover. Nothing on the head side, sometimes dip my finger in a bit of oil and run it around the edge. Makes it easier to get off (if cork). Everybody has there own way, but everything I've read says RTV is a prob, especially if it doesn't set up. Olds tachs were always on the optimistic side.

jensenracing77

Have I said how glad I am that I fired this up before It was done?

I figured out what the oil leak was from. It was for sure the Edelbrock .250 thick gaskets. I trimmed them because they would not fit the stock valve covers. The little tabs that stick down on the bottom side around the bolt holes were made to big. I had trimmed them to fit better but i did not trim enough. The tab hit the valve cover and made the bolt hole accessible to the oil side of the head. This caused the oil to leak out through the bolt hole. I got the Mr Gasket cork gaskets and they fit perfect. I still used RTV on both sides. I am not worried about removing them so I want them to be permanent. If they have to come off for some reason I will just get another set.

I also decided to fix the radiator myself. Took me about 2 minutes. If i took it back it would have been a trip to Indy and who knows what else. Now I just have to repaint the driver side tank.

Mr Shifty Sidney

Eric,
What paint did you use on your radiator?

Thanks,
Don W

jensenracing77

I painted the entire thing first with either Dupli-color low gloss engine paint or eastwood radiator paint. I can not remember which one. I then painted the tanks with Dupli-color gloss engine paint.

jensenracing77

I took the column apart to rebuild it. This is the first time I ever took one all the way apart. It is not as hard as I thought it would be. Only problem I am having is that I have to much gap between the wheel hub and the column. How much gap should I have. I can't figure out where to shim to get less gap. I think I would have to go between the upper bearing and the snap ring on the bottom side on the shaft but not sure this is correct.

jensenracing77

After looking at my parts cars I see that this gap is normal on the hub to steering column. I just didn't remember it being this wide.

Just got back from the body shop. He has the body in primer and starting to block. Also took him the column and some other interior parts. The darker blue on the interior is turning out much harder to find than I thought. He is going to take one of my kick panels to SEM and see if they can make him some for the plastic parts.

DSCN0898_zpse66f581c.jpg

DSCN0899_zps7a51c404.jpg

Hawghead

Man I wish you would have done a thread on just the column rebuild. I need to do mine, and never having torn a column down before, I'm not even sure where to start. Come on CSM don't let me down now!

Car's looking good so far good luck with it.

Scott

jensenracing77

I looked all over the net to find something but couldn't. I found other style columns but not the same as these. I ended up just tearing into it. It can be a little tricky but just take your time with it. For the most part I just cleaned the old grease out and added new. My bearings were still good. It is a little hard to get grease into the bearings after you clean them.

Hawghead

I don't know if mine needs to be rebuilt but I want everything in the car to be either new or rebuilt, so when it's done I don't have to tear back into it six months down the road.

Thanks,
Scott

jensenracing77

I did not like the pitting on the first booster so I found this one that was pit free. It was also off of a 70 442 with a very close date to my original. 20 days earlier. I like this one much better. Also got the back up light housings done. I will paint the inside and assemble them tomorrow.

mrolds69

It's too much gap at the steering wheel adapter. Is it an original? I've heard of a lot of problems with the repros not seating right. I've never hear of shimming. Column looks great, nice job! I just posted a nice tilt breakdown for somebody else here with an ig lock prob.

jensenracing77

Finished up the backup light housings. Need new gaskets and then these will be done.

jensenracing77

Body guy called and said I need to come over and see if I liked the color of the bottom side. I got there and as far as I know it looks good to me. He said it is not the final coat on the bottom and that he needs to smooth it out and shoot it one more time. It has a little roughness to it but he said that is from being blasted and will be smooth before final coat. He said the body is finished and now prepping for color. He is finished with his last construction job and said this should have color on it in two weeks. I have to go help him line all the parts up on his body cart so he can check the front body lines.

jensenracing77

That is what the former owner was going to do to it.

Hairy Olds

Is this to be a trailer queen over the top resto?

jensenracing77

It is almost turning into that but it is going to be driven around 1000 miles a year. Likely more the first year.

Hairy Olds

Eric if it was mine I would leave the bottom side a little rough making it look more unmassaged if you know what I'm saying.

Koda

I saw the chassis for that monster yesterday; he was telling me about proper washers and things! In addition to selling me a transmission and giving me the tour of his collection, that is. If all restos were this good, the world would be a better place.