27 October 2018 - headlight adjustments

The low beam headlights were not in proper adjustment and I did not know how bad that was until I had to drive at night.

So I spent a couple of hours disassembling the headlight assemblies to make adjustments. I discovered the the passenger side low beam had two faulty adjusters.  Apparently they had popped loose.  I had to completely replace the vertical and horizontal adjusters.  Its a bit time consuming but its done.

27 October 2018 - fuel system updates/upgrades

I installed the -6an female swivel to -6an male adapter and installed the fuel pressure gauge on the adapter.  This adapter does not leak.

With the pressure gauge installed and its now safe, I can see what the fuel pressure is with the current stock fuel pump.  At idle, pressure is about 3.5 to 5 psi.

adapter is -6an male to -6an female swivel with a 1/8 npt port for a fuel gauge.

23 October 2018 - fuel system upgrades/stuff

The replacement -6an adapter arrived today.  The fuel pressure gauge has been installed on the adapter and some time this week I will install these items to finally check on the fuel pump pressure.

The replacement adapter is from Hyperfuel Systems, PN:86607.

20 October 2018 - hood to firewall seal

I finally installed the hood to firewall seal.  Didnt take much, just pop in the plastic inserts into the rubber seal then install the seal into the mounting holes on the firewall, took about five minutes.  But its done...

20 October 2018 - ignition stuff

I replaced the cap and rotor(MSD kit 84315).  Pulled the plugs, cleaned and gapped to .050.  Previously the gap was .044.  So I'll run it this way and see how it goes.

19 October 2018 - fuel system updates/upgrades

The other day I received the -6an male to -6an female adapter fitting and the fuel pressure gauge.  Today I installed those parts.  The adapter leaked no matter how I positioned it.  I tightened it as much as I could(really have to be carefull with an fittings too easy to overtighten them).  I tried other -an6 fittings/hoses and that adapter always leaked.  It leaks at the female swivel fitting.  So I contacted Jegs explained the issues and they promptly processed an order to send me a replacement, but not from the same vendor.

Red arrows indicate where leak is at....basically all around that collar

For the short amount of time that the fuel pressure gauge was installed it indicated 4-5 psi but the needle was constantly bouncing.  I thought that it should be a steady reading on that gauge.


I did some research into that leak.  Turns out the o-ring could be damaged.  But that o-ring is not exactly user serviceable.  And its kinda hard to damage that o-ring in the first place.  So even tho a replacement is on the way I will see if I can repair that item.

16 October 2018 - Wiring extension and stuff

I test drove the car today.  It started and ran good.  No sudden shutdowns.  After the drive I checked on the wiring harness taping and coverings and they look good and did not show signs of unraveling.

14 October 2018 - wiring harness extension and stuff

I discovered that the wiring harness that I ordered from WCCC, two of the three wires are 12" longer than the harness I am replacing.  After installing the harness and routing it where I want it to be, it is the right length so that I do not have to cut/modify any wiring.  So I put convoluted tubing on the wiring harness and wrapped that with TESA tape.  I have never used that type of tape before, so hopefully I wrapped the wiring correctly.

Here is a before shot - This is proposed layout using temporary wiring harness extensions

Here is an after shot - This is the current layout after having installed the replacement wiring harness and with convoluted tubing installed and wrapped with TESA tape.

13 October 2018 - wiring harness extension - ignition coil/temperature sensor/oil pressure sensor

I have been looking at cleaning up/moving engine bay wiring.  I have made a couple of changes to some of the wiring in the engine bay.  I re-routed the MSD distributor trigger wires and the MSD ignition coil wires.  I also did a temporary wiring extension to the wiring of the temp sensor, oil pressure sensor and ignition start to coil wire, just to see if I could move those wires away from the engine and high heat areas.

Here is a pic of just the rerouting of the MSD distributor trigger wires and MSD ignition coil wires

I used a push on style connector for this oil pressure sensor and it works very well.  This is only temporary as I gather the parts to properly extend the this wire that is a part of the igntion wiring harness.

These wires were also temporarily extended.  I used the same type of push on connector but I used a #8 threaded piece to connect the stock push on connector to the blue push on connector.  The blade style connectors were used on the igntion coil power wire.

Here is a pic of the temporary wiring harness extensions

 

Here are the components I will be using to properly exend the wiring harness.  The heat shrink is a special type that has adhesive.  The tape is TESA tape and is specifically for wrapping automotive wiring.

13 October 2018 - driveability

So far, since adjusting the float level on the primary side, the car has not shutdown.  I have been driving somewhat aggressively too and still it drives great.  Just came back from a 6 mile road trip without issues.

13 October 2018 - fuel system stuff

I received the fuel system components I recently ordered.  But before I make any changes to the fuel system I'd like to know what the fuel pressure is with the current mechanical fuel pump.  To do that I need to install a fuel pressure gauge.  I do not have the fuel pressure gauge so I ordered one from Jegs.  I also ordered a -6an female to -6an male adapter that has a 1/8 npt port.  I will install and check the fuel pressure as soon as I receive those components.

-6an male to -6an female with 1/8" npt port for fuel pressure guage

9 October 2018 - carb stuff

Test drove the car today without issues.  No stumbles/shutdowns or anything like that.  I am wondering if the float level was the cause of the cutoff/shutdown issue.  I have the float level set to specs and will continue to drive test the car.

8 October 2018 - carb stuff

Car started up and idled good.  Went for a test drive, no problems encountered during drive.  After getting back to the garage to look over things I found that the choke was partially engaged.  I really couldnt tell during the drive that it was partially closed. I made adjustments and will test again.  I might try to re-install the choke cable assembly, really depends on startup/driveability.

7 October 2018 - carb stuff

When I installed the new 1850 carb, I thought I had checked the float levels, primary and secondary.  Well when I did a jet change today, I checked the float levels and found the primary to be very low.  So I adjusted it so that it just trickles out of the fuel bowl plug.  Took it for a spin and it seemed ok.  It did get a little hot while I was making the carb adjustments, but then it cooled off once I drove on the highway for a few miles.  I am going to test drive the car tomorrow.

7 October 2018 - carburetor stuff

Since the plugs and the exhaust indicate a rich condition I decided to change the jets.  The primary jets were 68.  I changed them to 66.  The accelerator pump discharge nozzle is 31.

I damaged the metering block gasket during the jet change and had to buy a gasket set.  Now everything is ready to go.  I reset the idle mixture screws to default.  I need to warm up the engine and use the vacuum gauge to set the idle mixture screws.

6 October 2018 - fuel pump replacment

I used to have a holley 80gph fuel pump and the car ran soooo much better.  So today I thought I would buy that same fuel pump and get back to that old reliable setup.

I purchased this mechanical fuel pump...

PART# 12-833 

80 GPH Mechanical Fuel Pump.

I also purchased with this fuel pump, two fittings.  For the input connection a 1/4" NPT male to 5/16" barb.  For the output connection to the carb, a 1/4" NPT to -6AN male

Heres a couple of pix of the current mechanical fuel pump setup and fuel line connections

The left connection is the input and it is a 5/16" fuel line to a fuel barb connection.  The right connection is the output to the carb and it is an adapter,
5/16" inverted flare to -6AN male

6 October 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

Here are shots of the wire routing and placment

6 October 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

I ordered two rolls of TESA wire loom tape 51026.  should be here in a day or two.  Until it arrives I went ahead and rewired the MSD 6A wires and distributor and ignition wires and checked for damaged wires/terminations.  I did not find any problems.  I routed the wiring a little differently and temporarily installed and connected all the wiring for testing purposes.

The tach has been completely removed from the electrical system.  The car is ready for a road test.

5 October 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

Earlier today when I did a drive test, the car stumbled for just a fraction of a second but did not shutdown, and it was electrical not an engine issue.  I found out that although I had disconnected the tach, it still had power to the internal lighting.  When I had previously removed the tach completely from the electrical system I had no issues the entire week until I re-installed it.  So I am now in the process of checking/replacing the wiring from the MSD box to the MSD coil, and from the MSD box to the ignition wire.

5 October 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

To continue with checking/testing if I have found the cause of the sudden shutdown issue, I drove the car pretty hard during two early morning trips.  No problems/issues.  So I have re-installd all of the dash panels and hardware. 

4 October 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

Today I re-installed the instrument cluster and dash pad as well as the tachometer.  I fire up the beast and head out of the housing area and suddenly the engine dies!  The only things done at that point were adding the instrument cluster and tach.  So I when I got back to the garage I disconnected the tach and test drove the car, no issues.  So I will now test drive the car with the tach being disconnected and see how that goes...

4 Oct ober 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

This is day five since finding the loose wires on the starter relay.  There have not been any issues up to this point.  Tomorrow I will start putting the dash panel and asseblies back in place.

3 October 2018 - sudden shutdown cont'd

I drove the car for about a 10 mile road trip in city traffic and in the backroads and did not experience any shutdown issues.  Will do a couple more days of testing and then will re-install the dash cluster and components.

3 October 2018 - holley carb / spark plugs

Looks like the carb is setup a bit rich. Used a vacuum gauge to tune the primaries, and drove the car to test the current carb setup.  At idle it runs good, cams a bit lopey tho, still need to test the acceleration to determine if secondary spring is the right one.

Yesterday, removed all spark plugs and found that the plugs all look the same.  Each plug has a greyish to tan appearance on the electrode.  There is small amounts of sooty buildup on the top two threads of the electrode tip.

Still couldn't do accleration tests today, there ALOT of law enforcement folks on the roads.

1 October 2018 - wiring harness restoration info

Items that may be useful

• tesa tape 51026
  https://www.tesa.com/en-us/industry/tesa-51026.html
   
• wd40 contact cleaner
   
• seam ripper

• paint pen

1 October 2018 - carb issues - cont'd

While out testing the car for sudden shutdowns I was also checking out the secondary spring changes.  The stock spring was installed during this drive and when I pressed the accelerator all the way down, transmission dropped into 2nd and then the engine stumbled/bogged more than what I would like.  So after getting back to the garage, I changed out the spring to the brown spring.  So that will be checked next road trip.

1 October 2018 - sudden shutdown - cont'd

Took the car for test drive today and drove it kinda hard but it did not shutdown.  Still need to keep testing.