Betty White, the now not so neglected race car

[HRH]

Got the car almost ready to start today. looked up the catch can one problem is the vent is above the hood level so I still have to fix that and relocate it or something I don't know. Making two plugs for the big 3/4 PCV on top and the regular 5/8 outlet from the air valve that I have left on and haven't bothered to put a plate on. Plugs will be sufficient for now.

I haven't hooked up the new aluminum radiator I got but I haven't even put water in going to see if it starts before I do all that. Added some fresh fuel tonight which I'm pretty sure is non-ethanol been sitting for a little bit but should be okay pretty sure I filled it up in about November.

got the battery charged tonight so tomorrow I'll put that in see if it fires up and if it does I'll put the new radiator in and get that situated and then just a matter of cleaning up my mess and fixing a few things here and there. Then it's off to the dyno for tuning after I make an appointment they're probably 3 or 4 weeks out right now.

Also need to mount the intercooler on some rubber mounts in the top and put a bottom mount on it but it's roughly in the place it needs to be.

Oh yeah, I need to put the new transmission in. And the box van was running just fine but decided to start having issues starting. Long cranks it appears the fuel pressure is bleeding off after it sits for a bit. Once you get it going it's fine. Don't smell any fuel leaks but that's next thing to check before I decide to drop the tank and fiddle with the fuel pump I just put in about 5 months ago. If I do find it's that I'm putting a line down the tank and going to relocate the fuel pump in line on the frame so I don't have to drop a stupid huge ass box van fuel tank every time. It's rather heavy and unwieldy and we can't really get it high up on our racks at work because the ceiling is too low. Plus its a bitch to maneuver for the drive on rack.

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Filling fuel rated hose with Right Stuff makes for great vacuum plugs that don't wear out FYI.
[url=https://postimages.org/]

[HRH]

She runs again! Proceeding with radiator install. the only downside is that new aluminum radiator I got is really thick. I apparently ignored that. I'm hoping it's going to fit.

[HRH]

[HRH]

well sweet it's a little bit thicker than the original but it still fits just enough clearance got about a half inch 3/4 inch between the intercooler pipes it even has little hangers so you can actually mount it on the core support without putting the bolts in and it holds which is really nice for a budget radiator 180 bucks this thing is super cheap and looks to be super effective. The mishimoto ones were about 250 or something online this was the budget knockoff. As far as I can tell the construction looks very nice.

[HRH]

found the only issue so far the top nuts have nutserts in them which are super nice the bottom ones are just open so there aren't any threads to put the bolt into. Really that's a pretty minor issue considering you can mount it with the top and then I'll just run a nut on one side and the bottom bolts and it'll be fine.

[HRH]

So after much annoyance and getting in the car stuck halfway on the car trailer on Thursday night I finally got it all the way on the car trailer Friday morning, and unloaded it as we were closing up. Packed the box van full of crap, and now I'm finally down here today to get the exhaust situated hopefully the alternator rewired and maybe the suspension adjusted and hell a transmission if I get really excited. Still have to measure that I'm not sure if they're the same length.

[HRH]

Lift, glorious lift! Had to jack up both front and rear ends to get the damn arms underneath. we'll see if I get to it today but suspension is definitely on my list for raising this thing up. It's already plenty low I think another inch of clearance wouldn't be that much.

[HRH]

This is taking me far too long and I really want another turbo two and a half inch v-band clamp fitting that I could weld on so I can make an intermediate pipe but I don't have one so trying to figure out how I want to get this done today or if I want to leave it at half car and call it good for now.

[HRH]

finally figured out the feed issue with the welder was a spool that wasn't spinning nicely on the shaft so I put a little silglyde on it and that solved the problem. I'm actually getting pretty happy with the beads I'm putting down.

[HRH]

[HRH]

okay we're at a stopping point for tonight didn't get all that much done but at least it's tucked up nicely and damn near even with the floor of the car which means it shouldn't catch anything specially after I raise this thing back up. Didn't get a ton done today but had to go up and get some more exhaust fittings and hangers and such so I feel good about the day. Going to go by the wifey dinner and have some quality time so I can come back early tomorrow morning and play with it some more.

[HRH]

Alright! Now to attach for the last time and weld one hanger in the middle of that rear section to anchor it.

[HRH]

So embarrassing moment this is the difference between welding overhead and welding on the ground with about a foot of clearance, not able to see. Both are air tight, but one is infinitely better. I'll let you guess which one.

Annoyingly I had meant to put that bung in earlier while I had the pipe out on the bench but I forgot about it and then did final assembly where it's back up there and if I wanted to get it back loose again I'd have to cut off and weld the one hanger on the rear. So I said screw it and welded it in the car. Not as nice a weld as my other ones but still reasonable.

[HRH]

Got the car mostly running. Temperature seems to climb in the bay even with the fan on. Still can't get it to maintain idle. Got a lot of little issues to sort before I have it dyno tuned as that will be cheaper the less time they have to fiddle with it.

I did figure out a solution for the trailer issues. Took four ramps but it works like a charm. I also have some .7 struts tower spacers for the rear coming.

[HRH]

Okay, this weekend was fraught with annoyance but I eventually won. Ended up resetting the throttle plate on the z car. It's actually open a little more than I think it should be but whatever, it's idling.

I confirmed the mechanical temp gauge was screwed. ended up swapping that out with a bit of annoyance to a really nice Auto meter electric gauge. That necessitated taking off the thermostat housing and re-drilling the hole in the side because the 1/8 pipe thread hole I had wasn't quite good enough for the sending unit. It screwed all the way in without getting very tight. So I found a bushing I had for quarter to 8th and ended up drilling it out and retapping it for quarter pipe and then putting the two adapters in, and that worked just fine.

After that I futzed with the EFI to make the thing run better. Didn't get it perfect but I did get it better or at least good enough so when Hank goes to dyno it hopefully it won't take him the entire day and an huge bill.

Last but not least I finally spent 6 hours today screwing with the alternator and finally figured out what was going on. For the past 4 years it hasn't worked correctly. If I wired it one way the light for the alternator was on continually it wouldn't go out when the engine was running. If I wired it the other way which was how I had it, the light would remain off all the time and the alternator would full field at 15 and a quarter volts.

Today it finally took a prod from Creepy Cruiser (Todd, 65 Cadillac hearse) who was helping me via text and phone. ended up trying a few things that I didn't think of and found while I had it wired correctly the light still wouldn't go off. So I wired in a hard body parking light that I happened to have around in the engine bay and wouldn't you know it that worked! in the end I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work the light in the dash so I disconnected it and I zip tied the parking light to the passenger side roll cage. And now the light turns on at kion and when the engine starts it goes away and the alternator actually charges correctly at about 14 and a half. Only took me 4 years and it's ghetto fabulous but I don't care it works.

[HRH]

Hmm, looks like photo hosting is down.

[HRH]

test

Okay, none of my stuff shows up anymore. Is there a limit to the amount of stuff on postimage associated with my profile?

[Laecaon]

I can see every photo on this page... The photo host you are using doesnt have accounts. I only added that for a simple method of hosting pictures here. Im not sure why you cant see them?

[Laecaon]

[HRH]

Here's what I see:

And interestingly enough, I only see a little picture icon right before the word "image" as a hyperlink. This is on the laptop now. I've been uploading from the phone. It's only been in the last few days that things haven't worked. Maybe a Windows update screwed stuff up? Maybe I got a virus? Seems odd it would be happening on both the phone and the computer.