Clearing the way- how to

A few months back I put in a 78 wiper motor and wiring so I could have the intermittent  function. In that process I had a problem with the wipers wiping for no apparent reason. Here is where I investigate and show you how to do the same and do it right the first time.

I started this conversion off the 73-87 chev message board. Others have done this as well, but this is the post and pic of 67-76 wiper wiring I used to get going.

After a little more reading I got to this 78 version.

Eventually, with some help from the chev forum I noted above, I found this helpful pic. I don’t seem to have the post anymore or the guys name that posted it but it was a great starting point.

Why so many pics of wiring diagrams you ask? This conversion is all about the wiring in my opinion. I have one more for you- the final one used in my 76 with a wiper motor and wires/ connectors from a 78 gmc.

If you compare the above two photos, you’ll see that wire number 91,94,93,92 & 93 can be different colors. I traced my out and buzzed them with a volt meter to make sure the color I had at the switch and cab side of the firewall was indeed what I had in the engine bay beyond the firewall.

You’ll also notice that the #97 wire needs to be added as pre-78 trucks did not have it as a seperate wire in the harness for the park operation.

Here is a pic of what I had at my harness. If you look above the red crimped butt connectors, you’ll see my colors that correspond with the final wiring photo.

From here I bought the switch from Napa and delay unit with pigtail from a wrecker (wrong). You can read about that install here.  Mounting the 78 motor wasn’t difficult. Take pictures when you pull it apart so you can remember how it goes back together. Here’s some of mine in progress;

The problem I mentioned above about the odd and varied intermittent wipe is now called the “phantom wipe”. Found here at the fountain of all things square body. Great bunch of guys there with experience in all kinds of issues. I digress. The problem is the “pulse wiper controller” or delay module. It has died somehow. I’m not sure how to test for it, but I ordered one from Rock Auto for $86 CDN to fix my problem. It’s the last item on the bottom of the page. Many thanks to 406 Q-ship in the forum for the heads up.

Trimming the tree

I’m really not sure why I made this modification other than the fact that my steering column was acting up such that sometimes I couldn’t get my truck into gear in the mornings. It turned out to be better and easier to convert to a floor shifter than pull the column completely apart and rebuild it. That seems to be the impetus of change for most things in my life- them breaking down. Good thing. I’d really dislike ending up in a rut. I guess in a way that’s part of the reason I buy old stuff- keeps me on my toes. I think I’d fall asleep at the wheel behind any new car except one like this.

Ever heard of ‘3 on the tree’ or ‘4 on the floor’? It’s an old metaphor for the 3 speeds available on the column (tree) or 4 speeds with a floor or console shifter. I pulled my column shifter handle out, took off the linkage on the firewall that connected to the transmission and wired up the shift lever on the column itself in the engine bay.

Earlier in my modifications, I re-did my instrument cluster with custom gauges and  I had to gut the internals and the housing that held the shifter indicator assembly.

Above you can see the white housing that originally held a circuit board of electronics but this had to be opened up to make room for the new gauges. That change was well worth it. I can see my gauge lights at night where the factory originals were so dim it was difficult to discern anything in the cluster. The new gauges;

I digress though. Above you can see the shifter on the column and the bench seat in place. Okay if you like it that way. But this is what I’m going for and its better in my opinion and that’s what counts isn’t it?

I had to pull the remaining carpet to access the transmission tunnel for mounting the new B&M truck shifter. A short stint in the seat to determine where I wanted it and then I drilled holes. The difficult part here is not having long enough arms to hold the bolt in the cab while placing the nuts under the cab above the transmission. A brick delicately placed with dabs of antiseize compound allowed me to kind of ‘stick’ the flat washer and the lock washer in place while I fumbled for the nut and threaded it in place. The brick also held the bolt enough to get the nuts snugged up to the floor pan. I had my wife put a wrench on it to torque them in place. Nice woman, puts up with allot, including hoards of mosquitos in the cab.

I realized afterwards I probably could have used a pair of vice grips to stop the top of the bolt head from turning when it wedged up against the shifter. Oh well, she didn’t get chewed to bad.

So, here is the finished bit. It looks so new the rest of the interior really is depressing.

Hot Heads

Those tan-colored buttons are the exhaust valves. They’re this color because I was running a lean air/fuel mixture and burning antifreeze.  Unfortunately, these factory heads were cracked somewhere between #’s 3 & 5 cylinders. I couldn’t see a crack and a lot of times you can’t because they’re hairline thin.

 

 

 

You can really see white on the # 6 valve to the right here;

The problem with all this is that the burned antifreeze will ‘ash foul’ your spark plug and cause misfiring. Below is what an ash fouled plug looks like.

I ended up replacing plugs about every 500 miles, which was every two weeks given my work requirements and at $4 a plug, it was getting expensive. The solution was new heads.

I had a choice between aluminum and cast iron, stock or various rates of flow depending on performance. The more air and fuel you can stuff into the combustion chamber, the more power you should be able to get out of igniting this mix. That said, it doesn’t mean anything unless you have a heavy foot, or in other words use the power. If you’re idling around town most of the time in traffic, then there is no use for that extra power.

I chose Edelbrock aluminum Performer heads with 64cc combustion chamber with 2.02″ intake valves and 1.60″ exhaust valves. This is mild. The bigger valves really help with air flow. There are 72 cc and higher heads. Since this is a daily driver, the guys at Promax suggested this would be noticeable enough for my use and they were right. ignore the potentially problematic spark plug wiring (I’ll get them tied properly soon) where if they rest on a header, they’ll melt and I’ll be misfiring again.

Here are the plugs now, looking great with no residue after being in the heads a few months.

One thing to note, these new plugs have a longer threaded portion to accommodate the deeper aluminum casting. Stock heads have a shallower threaded portion and thus stock size plugs will be further away from the piston upon top dead center. That precious bit of info is courtesy of Promax. This is why I buy parts from a speed shop rather than a parts shop. I could have spent weeks trying to figure out why I wasn’t ‘feeling’ the extra horsepower all because of having the plugs too far away for good combustion.

Here’s what the combustion chamber on the edlelbrock looks like-nice and smooth;

An obvious installation tips- do this in summer! I did mine in the middle of winter and used my block heater to let heat dissipate through the block and heads to keep the thread sealer, gasket goo and my hands from freezing.  I’ll try to get some photos of the roller rocker arms I put on next.

Transmission Transfer Tips

I’ve had a feeling, a hunch that my transmission was not working properly since I bought it in 2008. This is all based on a lot of little things, quirks in its behavior too numerous to describe but nothing obvious like slipping or not moving me forward. I also haven’t mentioned that I put aluminum high flow cylinder heads on the truck. This significantly increased horsepower and ever since that day, the transmission hasn’t been able to handle that increased power.

Well, on Canada Day, I remedied that. Here’s what went in to fix this problem.

Now I know it was a national holiday better suited to beaches, boats and bbq, but I like to cross things off lists when I have free time. So, with a fistful of wrenches, sockets and sheets of cardboard, I dropped the old transmission by pulling the driveshaft, linkage, dipstick, crossmember, supporting the engine block and prying the transmission off the engine. Here is what I was looking at shortly after the above.

Do you see the rocks? This is where the cardboard comes in. I’ve had bruises on my hips the size of lemons from wriggling around underneath this thing for other incidental fixes. 3 days I planned on sliding in and out from under this truck and the last time I couldn’t roll over in my sleep without wincing. Not this time.

Having checked the flywheel for cracks & warpage with a dial indicator, I had a green light to put it all back together.

If you’re planning on trying this with your vintage vehicle, invest in a transmission jack. I ended up using ratcheting tie-downs strung between the frame rails to lift the new transmission off the wheel ramp (yes- wheel ramp) where i had slid it into its starting place. Once it was high enough, I put a floor jack under it to raise it gently into place. 4 hours for that step. Might have taken 1.5 with a proper jack. Some folks in their younger 20s can lift these off their chest into place and reach for the mounting bolts and find the holes to the engine block without seeing a thing. I’m too old for that. Not to say that I haven’t done this, but there are easier ways.

Another tip, place the transmission mount on the tail but don’t secure it until you have the cross members bolted in place. This is so you can line up the mount holes in the cross member. Also, make note of which way your member came out. I had inadvertently turned mine end for end in the painting process and the mount holes were not lining up with the cross member requiring a third removal after it was all bolted in. #!@&.

A minor item to place was the speedo assembly. This was removed from the old transmission and fitted with a new o-ring. A quick check of the teeth for wear and in it went. I am not sure if these units wear out but it has a slight looseness  in the transmission tail housing that was apparent in the original trans as well. The big difference is that this one doesn’t leak fluid here anymore. If you are running oversized tires or wheels, this plastic gear can be changed to keep your speed accurate on the gauge.

More on the fun stuff, the shifter and interior buckets seats I installed on this same weekend in my next post.

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.

A little less slip

Snow season is coming, I can feel it even if it is unseasonably warm up here. Last winter with my truck, I spent most of my time in intersections spinning a single wheel while waiting for the inevitable horns of fury from behind me. I think there should be bumper sticker that says; ‘We don’t slow for snow’. God help you if you haven’t nailed the throttle by the time the light has turned green. Even though Canadians are thought the world over as ‘nice, ‘ just hold one up at an intersection in the dark of winter from their morning pilgrimage to Tim Horton’s.

This year,  I’ve been proactive. I pulled the open differential and replaced it with a limited slip or ‘posi’ as otherwise known.  Last winter, it might have helped to have had real snow tires but I offset that concern by dumping a bunch of bricks and gravel in the back. It didn’t help much since only the one wheel was spinning, but this year I’ll have two. I might still have to add the gravel or bricks though I shouldn’t have to endure any more horn blasts.

Here it sits prior to installation.

It wasn’t that much work dropping the differential. I just placed stands under the frame rails ahead of the axle. U bolts holding the axle to the leaf springs required generous doses of penetrating oil and a 3 foot pipe extension to my breaker bar and socket to break them loose. The leafs stay in the shackles, the shocks stay in the upper mounts, only one brake line needs to be removed atop the dif. I’d do it again but I don’t think I’ll have to.

I did have to get a cross joint though to make the drive shaft fit the different rear axle but that was easy enough. While I was at it, I changed the back brake cylinders since its way easier when fully exposed. Reversing the order of removal, it went back in quickly with no issues.