Too cold for cooling

When it’s -20 c at night and -8 for a high (0 and 20 for my US friends), any time lost waiting for the truck to warm up so its drivable is very important.  Walking from the back door of the house of the truck is just enough time for the arctic cold to cut through your layers (which are many for me) and chill the bones solidly. Then the act of sitting in the cab and waiting, if you’re running late or scraping the windshield free of ice, will really drive home the chill. This is what it can look like when I start my day and I have no remote starter;

Because the truck has a carburetor, I don’t have the option of these remote starters, since the carb needs a body to step on the gas peddle and activate the choke assembly. This meant a change in cooling system was required. Common to these old beasts is the belt driven cooling fan.  The fan turns on these frosty mornings whether I need it or not because the engine is turning the belts and thereby slows the warm up. To fix this and bring the heat faster to the cab, I installed an electric fan that turns on with a thermostat at a preset temperature.  The real motivation for this was the following photo from last winter;

That -28 C (-20F) was with a windchill too.

I found on a chev forum a way to use a Jeep Cherokee electric fan with my existing fan shroud. 

It took some modifying of the shroud, wiring in of a relay and fuse block and the thermostatic on/off switch but, it was extremely worth it. You can see the fuse block screwed to the firewall between the battery and radiator cap. The relay is on the other side of the rad.

A little further to the left are the relays for the headlight modification I did as well. I love these relays cause they send more power to the device and they ultimately perform better. Ah, I digress though so I’ll detail that one next time.

Here is the thermostatic switch. If you’re thinking of doing this yourself, you can’t tell from the photo but, the thermostat outlet is a billet aluminum custom piece and rotates should you need to make room for the switch as I did. The switch is just to the right and under the rad hose. The stock outlet didn’t allow for the switch in that location. Some guys will put the switch in the head but my rebuilt heads had this location sealed permanently. Don’t be alarmed if the outlet weeps a bit in the beginning, it soon stopped after the o-ring and aluminum took some time to mate.

I have lots of heat and fast now. In 5 minutes tops, the cab is warming up and the windshield is starting to melt any ice. As a bonus, the engine is really quiet now with no mechanical fan turning and I have more horse power since less energy is needed to drive the belts. Awesome.

Now if I could get an electric seat warmer…..uhm, where’s that LMC catalogue?

Clearing the way

I’ve been busy over the last few months working on the 76  chev (money pit) as I had down time over the summer with the GS and its electrical issues. Since the theme for the summer and fall apparently was electrics, I delved into some nagging concerns on the 76.

One particularly annoying issue I’ve had is the lack of intermittent wipers. This relic from 1976 is just a year (77) shy of the introduction of wipers that have a delay switch. I’m not sure how many of you remember this as most modern wiper controls are on the steering column but, these early ones were on the dash just in front of your left knee cap.

Imagine a day with a light rain, but not heavy nor consistent, you can’t see the road lines anymore and the tail lights ahead of you are getting blurry, leaning forward, switching wipers on for a few seconds then off and leaning back. 30 seconds later, lean forward, hold, lean back. 2 minutes later, lean forward and…. repeat. On my average 20 minute commute this gets a little tiresome and even more so with further travel. Some times I was so tired of rocking in the cab that I’d drive for blocks or even miles with water on the windshield. The shear stupidity of that action doesn’t reflect well on a man my maturity. I had to get off my arse and do something about it.

So, I cabbaged a wiper motor from a 78 truck and cut all the wires out it for transplant into the 76.  Here is said switch.

Sounds simple enough you might be thinking. It wasn’t.

I found out that the wiring harness I had didn’t include all the wires that a 78 model had nor did it include the female connector to the male at the right of this photo. That meant a trip to the recyclers.

Oh and adding to the fun, when the wires come through the firewall from the engine bay and out of the fuse panel, they change color. This is not always represented in the electrical diagrams neither. I had 4 different versions and finally found the one closest to my configuration off the internet but it still will require some analysis and repair as my wipers will wipe for no apparent reason some times. I think it is a grounding issue which might be caused by a loose wire crimp. I tend to rush through the details of things like this and the down side to that I’m going to have to back and check all my wire connections again in the spring.

The dash required modifying slightly to make the new switch fit. Using a small 1/8 drill and a reciprocating saw worked great.  I wouldn’t use your construction size saw in this case. I started that way and the dash was starting to deform with each stroke of the saw. You’ll need something a bit more gentle.

My gauges are custom and that meant modifying my dash panel (another post), but you’ll need to pull what you got up and out to access the wiper switch.

Here is the switch in place. Fits rather well actually and I’m thrilled to be sitting back and enjoying the view rather than thumbing my switch.