Updates:
Got through my punch list today, except 1 item I'm saving for tomorrow, and one new exciting discovery that will have to wait until Monday (hopefully) to get resolved.
Started off the day getting right at it, going for the distributor. Shout out to Days of Pain and Victory for a pretty good tutorial, link here:
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For those looking to do this, you do NOT need any fancy scan tools etc. Just be careful and make sure you put it in exactly as you took it out. Really not that hard...
Had the distributor out pretty quick, and new one in. All in all about 2 hours going slow and checking my work. Here's old and new next to each other.
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Now the bummer here is the old dizzy was fine, and not the source of my problems.... ah well, more on that later. For $107 I got a new cap and rotor out of the deal, and a known good "billet"? distributor that should not give trouble ever. Check that off the list.
I actually started this last night but also got it wrapped up today, replaced the ancient trailer brake controller that doesn't work with my P3 that's been on a shelf since I sold my truck.
Of course I can't leave well enough alone, so I also rewired most of it.
Old junk. What even is it??
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New unit installed. Ran fresh 12ga power and ground wires, power is coming from the under hood fuse block and the OE 30a stud there. Pretty cool these old Chevy's had that.
The instructions said to ground back to your battery and grounding is the #1 source of troubles, so I went extra mode and ran a 6ga ground wire from the battery over to by the ECU. I'll take more advantage of this later probably when I go dual batteries and big 3, etc., so it wasn't a waste. Plus I wanted a good clean ground, I really hate electrical problems, especially when they can be avoided just by doing things right the first time. Since all the wiring etc was in my drawer of goods this was a free mod. The power wire on the old brake controller was pretty small, maybe 16ga, and the controller calls for a pretty large source, especially if you might be pulling multi axle brake trailers. Who know... I don't want the trouble! And the old controller was ground to the dash.... probably be fine, but why risk it.
New ground wire, coming in on left, yellow terminal wire runs out to ground the controller.
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Tap for brake on, I actually left this alone, even though I despise the add-a-taps and it's not how I would have done it, I didn't really have the time to clean this up and do it a different way. So I left it "for now" (probably forever but we will see).
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New controller installed, wiring all tucked up nice. It's high and tight to the dash so out of the way, but I have to squeeze to hit the Boost button. Luckily you don't need that too often. It could be adjusted down but I like how tight it is to the dash.
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When I wrapped all the work today I took it for a test drive, and found the weird grinding noise I had hoped was distributor still happening. I buckled down to look for the source. Finally figured it out, it was the PCV valve, it would intermittently flutter open/shut at a high speed and make a god-awful racket. That was a $7 fix. I'm still learning, geeze, I could have avoided messing with the distributor by replacing a simple known tune-up piece..... oh well..!