nocooler's firechicken thread

[daveismissing]

Fingers crossed it's within what is considered normal and not excessive. I really don't want to have to spend more money putting a regulator on the circuit.

pressure reg not voltage reg?

[nocooler]

Yes, pressure regulator for the transmission cooling system - I referred to it as a circuit. Excessive pressure will shove the crank forward and take out the thrust bearing in the engine.

[nocooler]

Lifters (Morel 7717), lifter guide trays, head gaskets (LS9), head bolts, replacement valve springs (BTR Platinum), and some other odds and ends are on the way. Oh and some 245/50/16 - Nitto 555 RII Drag Radials.
The plan is to swap the cam to the turbo grind I have and reassemble.

[Steve Wood]

It all works out for the better. Even the time of the year is right.

[nocooler]

And the parts are here already! Just waiting on a balanced puller that should be here tomorrow. Then I can swap the cam and reassemble.
A new carb showed up for the go kart today and after installing it, it was very apparent how much someone had messed with the governor. I played with it a bit and ended up at 20mph which should be plenty fast. When it’s warmer out I’ll mess with it more, I don’t like the lack of throttle response - I know some of it’s the governor. Right now you floor it and wait, and then the revs come up. But if you wack the throttle on the carb or move the governor arm she’s pretty snappy. I might end up putting a return spring on the governor arm and the run the throttle cable to the arm directly instead of through a bunch of linkages and a handful of springs. Then I could just put a throttle stop on the pedal too.

[Steve Wood]

Might consider a torque converter style set up on if one can be had that fits the engine. That should give it a lot of more bottom end.

[nocooler]

Moving along

[nocooler]

and it's almost back together! Waiting on a set of longer pushrods. Pre-load came up short .040 and it needs to be .060 ish.

[nocooler]

Oh, and I got the last set of reasonably priced 7.425 pushrods that Summit had in stock.

[Steve Wood]

Pricing is bound to kick us in the mouth given the current financial situation.  I suspect that any good priced item is probably a good investment even if it is not needed.  The resale value has got to go up.

[nocooler]

Steve - I don’t disagree. I was at the farm supply store and they were telling me the chicks/turkeys were selling like they haven’t seen before.

Today I was going to change the trans fluid and install a new filter/screen. I decided while I let the atf drain I’d double check the converter spacing. It was apparent I had an issue once the converter was free. The flexplate moved very freely front to back. So I pulled the transmission - and damn I love this lift!
The flexplate is cracked all the way around the hub between all the bolt hole and then started cracking outward. New one will be here Monday. I’ll double check spacing when it goes back together, it was setup on tight side but it shouldn’t have cracked the flexplate.

[Scoobum]

I had a 77 Nova that was stripped out with just the bench seat in it...light as fuck. I dumped a 350 SB in it. The son of a whore would crack flex plates between the big holes on it. First time it happened it sounded like a rod knock. Had no money for a good aftermarket flex plate so I just kept throwing in plates from the wreckers. I got good enuf at it I could slide the trans back just far enuf to get a bar up in to get the crank bolts loosened off and out.

[Steve Wood]

I think I mentioned the problem that I was having with the ptc converter lacking clearance to the flexplate on my son's wagon.  Given that the torqueflite that we installed did not have a mounting boss for the column shifter linkage and it had been well abused in the past, we pulled it out and installed one that came from a guy up in Indiana.  We still had too little clearance.  I talked to ptc and sent the converter back and they shaved 0.040" off the ears...  It came back and it was still closer than I wanted and the converter seemed to be suddenly tight on the input shaft of the transmission.  I talked to them again and they made  a new unit and sent it to me during the Christmas holiday week.  Talk about service!

In the meantime, I got another flexplate just to cover the bases and discovered it has 0.100" less offset than the hd unit I was using.  Between that and the new converter, I suddenly had 0.125" clearance which I was aiming for.  I am not sure how much problem the first converter had and how much was with the flexplate but that part is finally all good.  When he was here during spring break, we did not get as much done as we wanted to but he has three kids and a wife that always wants to go eat when she is awake.  Makes it difficult to get the usual 15 hours in LOL

But my new Daytona Super Jack worked like a charm and I was able to set the car off the blocks to jack stands and then all the way to the floor.  I was able to control the drop down to an almost imperceptible rate and it was a piece of cake.

Still have a bunch of wiring to do, and I could knock it out pretty fast if motivated but I want him to do it so he will know how it all works...or is supposed to work.

I have had the Challenger parked outside and I decided I should crank it up and let it run a bit...nothing happened when I turned the key to start.  After some troubleshootin g, I decided the starter relay was not working but after hitting it a few times, it came to life and fired right up.  It needs a good cleaning under the hood as rust is accumulated from the moisture not getting burned off things.

I ordered two relays, one for the Challenger and one for his car.  I guess they are not so reliable after 50 years?

I probably should have pulled the 526 out of the Challenger and put it in his wagon but I am tired of pulling stuff, go figure.

[nocooler]

it's done!

[Steve Wood]

Reminds me of a Buick flexplate with the ring of cracks.  You work a lot faster than me