King Of Trucks Chapter Three...Serious Bidness...

i am so dumb... i forgot what i was thinking about....

terd dont pinch the lines off because it has seperate plenums.... i forgot about your intake being seperate runners. I am an idiot...

this is the problem with trying to fix a car over the phone ;-)

 

Ok that colt makes my balls tingle....so here's a chromed out 1966 Remington Nylon 66.

 

Colt 70 Series 1911 Government Model. Made in '82 (when I woulda took state if coach woulda put me in). I just traded for it. I haven't had a 1911 in a couple of years and I've had a few over the years. Glad to have another on again. Chrome won't get you home. But it will shoot people in the face.

All that is mostly irrelevant. All good advice, don't get me wrong. But there was an underlying issue disguised as carbs. Turns out we were fighting the coil the entire time.

Shawn, do you remember when we put the timing light on it and it didn't flash like it was supposed to? It wasn't the timing light's fault.

 

Jeremy called me up this afternoon and said he had some time to come down to the shop and help out. So I hauled ass back down there to see what we could do.

We messed around with the carbs for a while. We took the tops off and one float was stuck. We also set the floats correctly as they were a little off. But the good news is the accelerator pump looked brand new and the carbs truly were rebuilt in good shape. We found out the center jet is a 49 and the two outer jets were 54.

Anyway, we (I) was sure we'd be good after that. I mean a stuck float and improper float height would make it run like shit right? Wrong. Still the same deal.

And I should mention, the entire time we are fighting a dying battery. As I mentioned before, the generator doesn't charge at idle. So all the cranking is killing the battery. The constant charging is also slowing us down tremendously as we're constantly waiting to try and start it again after adjustments.

So anyway, when the carb stuff still didn't fix things. We decided it has to be a timing issue. Wrong again. Well sort of. We put the gun on it and it only flashed about half as fast as it should've been flashing. Jeremy is blaming his gun and wondering why it worked fine just a couple of days ago on something else and is now working like shit. And we ran out of gas so we have to crank it (and kill the battery AGAIN) to get fuel back to the carbs. Just a vicious circle.

So I say, you know, it could be that even though that Super Mag is letting it idle, the fact that it is supposed to be Magneto Only may be causing a problem with spark. We found a regular coil, hooked it up and everything is everything. Surprise, nothing is wrong with the timing gun after all. Birds sang, rainbows appeared, high fives were slapped, and et cetera.

The worst part of our evening was that the battery was so fried by then after three days of cranking that we couldn't get it started again to get it on the street for a victory lap! We couldn't even jump it off another car. Very anticlimactic!

So, a little fine tuning on the carbs to get it "just right" is needed. I need to send the Super Mag back to Bubba for a proper coil. And I need to change out my battery for a new one (thank goodness for warranties, lol). I'll make that stuff happen and then its on to tuning the cable that has replaced the tv rod. But we have achieved victory for now.

 

Woooooooooooohooooooooooooooooo!!!! Shake & bake!

 

No. Never again. From now on, its Magic Man and El Diablo.

 

Excellent work Terd. It's always a great feeling when you fix something you've been pulling your hair out over for days.

 

here's a signature for someone.....

 

Thanks! You're right!! Is it stressful when you've got a problem you can't figure out? Yes it is. But I try really hard to see the other side of the bridge. NOTHING is unfix-able. I happen to be lucky enough to know a bunch of really smart dudes. They're all well rounded, but they each have a kind of specialty. My club is like a bunch of hot rod Rain Men. Geniuses, all of them. And then there's the hamb. So I know no matter what I come up against that I've got really good backup and no matter how frustrating a problem may seem, it'll get solved.

 

Dude!!! You're from California, you have no fucking idea how good real banana pudding is. I'm not talking about Jello pudding. I'm tlalking about fresh bananas and nilla wafers. It is a true Southern delicacy. You get you some of that and you'll be like a crackhead.

It's true man you better not get any on your forehead or your tongue will beat the crap out of your entire face trying to get to it. By the way Terd, sweet truck. im eyeballing a '58 for myself.

 

Thanks!

 

Today I took my battery back to exchange it under warranty. Miraculously, it still tested good and they put a full charge on it. Now that this thing is running and presumably driving, I shouldn't have to kill it with excessive cranking from now on. But if it does go dead again, I've still got a year left on the free replacement.

I can't really do anything today as we have birthday activities planned for our oldest daughter. But tomorrow I'm going to be back on it tying up those couple of loose ends in order to start really test driving it.

Here's my updated to do list...
Return Super Mag to GMC Bubba to exchange for proper coil.
Reinstalling battery.
Mounting the expedient coil somewhere til the new Mallory transformer shows up.
Numerous test drives to get the carbs and timing tuned "just so" for instant cracking throttle response and to begin tuning the tv rod (now a cable) setup for excellent shifting.

 

Great news!

 

Thanks tater!! You should've heard it roar to life! Can you tell me what I should be looking for as far as the trans shifting? Like when should it shift when you're on it hard or just cruising? And how hard/soft? I guess I just need to know what normal feels like in this trans. THanks!!

 

Sooooo.......................wheres the YouTube video????

 

these trans shift funky.
1st to 2nd will happen really quickly, like 5-10 mph cruising, it shifts like a normal trans, then 2nd to 3rd is like its slipping, just transferring the fluid to a different drum, then 3rd to 4th is normal again. if your cruising it you 'll get 4th by about 25-35 mph.

did you ever find the year of you block?

 

Thanks for the info ryno! I still don't know definitively the year of the block. The engine block casting numbers suggest '59. Its odd that the other numbers are missing the second spot. I'm going to check today for the serial number on the bottom of the block today and will post results.

 

what ryno said is pretty much spot on.

you do not want these transmissions to shift hard.

 

Thanks tater!

 

Today, Jeremy and I messed around. We mounted the expedient coil on the firewall and removed the transformer. We fiddled with the shifter cable in order to get reverse working.

Then we went about starting and driving to see if reverse worked and if it shifted. We got halfway around the block before it shut off and wouldn't crank. We're still fighting that stupid battery. The parts place wouldn't give me a new one yesterday because it still tested good and would take a charge. I explained to them that it would take a charge but would charge down VERY quickly.

So I gave up for today. I went later to MAKE them give me a new battery, lol. So we'll start fresh tomorrow. We did find out on our short test drive that reverse works as already mentioned. And it shifted into second gear. We couldn't get any real speed up around the short block before it died.

It is still running rich with progressive linkage. I've got to figure out what to do next. Tomorrow.

 

That's awesome man!!! I am stoked to get a ride in it. Glad you're getting down to the nitty and gritty.

You will? C'mon Terd, you know your own personal pocket sized wizard is going to figure that out.

 

Have you run the cable from the engine to the frame yet? Glad to hear you have made progress, Curt's gonna say I told you so on the coil issue!!

 

We grounded the engine to the cab, the engine to frame and the generator to frame. I forgot to put that in the last update. I'm still rich in the carbs though. I started a thread asking for help titled "stromberg ww tripower help".

 

tell jeremy to read his pm, pls.

 

Your battery probably has one dead cell. It will take a surface charge, but something like cranking a motor will pull it down in a hurry. The surface charge is enough to fool the parts monkeys though. Make them do a load test on it for 30 seconds, and stand there and watch them do it. It will fail then.

 

That's what I figured. I forced them to exchange the battery for a new one.

 

From Rikster's Larry Watson photo thread...




Notice how well the purple and pink work together? All white tuck'n'roll interior. I LOVE this color combo and this is similar what I've been dreaming about.

 

Purple with laced pink top?!?!?!

 

we all know i love pink.... Terd whats the progress its been a few days?

 

Dustin brought me an assortment of jets yesterday afternoon. I'm going up to the shop in a half hour to try them out. First priority is to get all three the same size and see how it runs. Then, depending on leanness or richness or stoichiometric, go up or down or stay the same.