Armalite15
I'm Awesome
Second thread I've subscribed to today, some of you guys have an abundance of talent.
'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."
- Thread starter Erik the Awful
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...and a shortage of sense. Thanks for the feedback!
I have my three-wheeled scooter almost finished and I sold the VW, so I put in a Summit order for exhaust tubing to get the exhaust out past the rear axle. I also ordered the Holley harness to plug the Sniper directly into the small-cap HEI and the bracket to mount the throttle and TV cables to the carb. I've re-decided that for now I'm going to install the junkyard 700R4 because it's a whole lot faster than doing the NV3500 swap. I'm hoping to get back on track and install the transmission in the next week. That said, I have reserve duty this weekend, so my opportunities for productivity are limited.
One of my recently retired Air Force buddies just tagged me in the 22 Pushup Challenge for suicide awareness. You do 22 pushups each day for 22 days, nominating others each day. Ugh, but it's a worthy cause. So I started off my morning with twenty-two pushups and then rolled right into stabbing the transmission. I don't have a lift (yet!), and no transmission jack, so I had to do it all by hand with a tiny Harbor Freight aluminum floor jack. My wife did slide the floor jack under the transmission while I bench-pressed it with the tailshaft hanging on the crossmember, but the rest was all me. It sucked. I got it in place before lunch and spent a couple hours after lunch hooking everything back up.
The transmission pan has a hole punched in it by the yard, so I didn't worry about jacking from the pan. I'll swap the old pan tomorrow. I also have the new radiator to install. I put a bucket under the radiator drain and opened the drain ****, but nothing came out, so taking the lower hose loose is gonna be a mess tomorrow.
I have my new exhaust pipes and the distributor harness, but I'm going to get the truck driveable again before I dork around with those. Summit says the throttle/TV cable bracket should be delivered tomorrow. I'm glad to be back in the saddle and motivated to work on it again!
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255
Available 24 hours a day in both English and Spanish.
Let those around you know that you care!
The transmission pan has a hole punched in it by the yard, so I didn't worry about jacking from the pan. I'll swap the old pan tomorrow. I also have the new radiator to install. I put a bucket under the radiator drain and opened the drain ****, but nothing came out, so taking the lower hose loose is gonna be a mess tomorrow.
I have my new exhaust pipes and the distributor harness, but I'm going to get the truck driveable again before I dork around with those. Summit says the throttle/TV cable bracket should be delivered tomorrow. I'm glad to be back in the saddle and motivated to work on it again!
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255
Available 24 hours a day in both English and Spanish.
Let those around you know that you care!
I did get out there the next day or so and replaced the transmission pan and radiator. It all went smooth. I put the Audi fans in place of the giant Mark VIII fan setup. The Summit throttle bracket came in with no instructions, but went together fairly easily after I looked the instructions up online. I drove the truck to and from the hardware store - about a mile from my house, adjusting the TV cable whenever I stopped, and I think I finally got it set.
In the meantime I finished building the battery pack for my three-wheel scooter and test drove it around the neighborhood. That thing scoots! The steering is very twitchy, and I put it up on two wheels twice. Then I plugged it in to recharge it and the cheap motor controller started squealing and burnt up. I can't complain, the controller/motor/throttle kit I bought on Amazon was less than half what I'd priced from other places, and the motor and throttle seem to be decent. A good controller is about $40, so I'll be ordering that in the next few months.
Yesterday my son came over so we could move his P71 Crown Vic into the shop and start work on the engine. I think it has a spun bearing. I strapped the tow ball on Way Cool Jr. up to the sway bar on the P71. He waved that he was ready to start moving, so I put it in drive and started towing. I heard screeching tires and thought, "Huh, the rotors on that things must be rusted up." No, he'd waved but didn't have the key in the ignition and still had it in park with the steering wheel locked. Way Cool Jr. dragged the Crown Vic ten feet in park without me really giving it much gas. I'm really beginning to like this motor.
After about ten minutes of getting the car turned to get into the back yard I checked the Sniper, and the coolant was at 238* and the fans weren't on. I checked under the hood and I didn't plug the fans back in. Doh! I plugged them back in and they still didn't come one, so I have a mystery to solve. All the while the wipers were intermittently wiping, with the switch in the off position. It's never done that before. WTH? Once I get those two wiring issues sorted, it's time to get a new windshield and start putting miles on it.
Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention the old engine. I took the original 350 from WCJr to the machinist. He took one look and said it was easily salvageable. They hot tanked it and got tons of mud out of it, but the bores cleaned up with a .030" overbore. I bought the cheapest .030" flat tops I could find and some inexpensive Speedmaster floating rods. The heads are 193 TBI heads, but I'm going to do a little cleaning up on them. I bought the Enginetech ES179R camshaft, some stock-style valvesprings, rings, bearings, and head gaskets. I need to stop at Pull-A-Part for some pushrods and rockers, but I could have less than $600 in the motor, depending on what I owe the machinist. It'll also clean out all the parts and gaskets I have laying around - like the set of brand new flat-tappet lifters I've had on the shelf. But I can't start reassembly until my son and I get the motor out of his Crown Vic and tear it apart.
In the meantime I finished building the battery pack for my three-wheel scooter and test drove it around the neighborhood. That thing scoots! The steering is very twitchy, and I put it up on two wheels twice. Then I plugged it in to recharge it and the cheap motor controller started squealing and burnt up. I can't complain, the controller/motor/throttle kit I bought on Amazon was less than half what I'd priced from other places, and the motor and throttle seem to be decent. A good controller is about $40, so I'll be ordering that in the next few months.
Yesterday my son came over so we could move his P71 Crown Vic into the shop and start work on the engine. I think it has a spun bearing. I strapped the tow ball on Way Cool Jr. up to the sway bar on the P71. He waved that he was ready to start moving, so I put it in drive and started towing. I heard screeching tires and thought, "Huh, the rotors on that things must be rusted up." No, he'd waved but didn't have the key in the ignition and still had it in park with the steering wheel locked. Way Cool Jr. dragged the Crown Vic ten feet in park without me really giving it much gas. I'm really beginning to like this motor.
After about ten minutes of getting the car turned to get into the back yard I checked the Sniper, and the coolant was at 238* and the fans weren't on. I checked under the hood and I didn't plug the fans back in. Doh! I plugged them back in and they still didn't come one, so I have a mystery to solve. All the while the wipers were intermittently wiping, with the switch in the off position. It's never done that before. WTH? Once I get those two wiring issues sorted, it's time to get a new windshield and start putting miles on it.
Edit: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention the old engine. I took the original 350 from WCJr to the machinist. He took one look and said it was easily salvageable. They hot tanked it and got tons of mud out of it, but the bores cleaned up with a .030" overbore. I bought the cheapest .030" flat tops I could find and some inexpensive Speedmaster floating rods. The heads are 193 TBI heads, but I'm going to do a little cleaning up on them. I bought the Enginetech ES179R camshaft, some stock-style valvesprings, rings, bearings, and head gaskets. I need to stop at Pull-A-Part for some pushrods and rockers, but I could have less than $600 in the motor, depending on what I owe the machinist. It'll also clean out all the parts and gaskets I have laying around - like the set of brand new flat-tappet lifters I've had on the shelf. But I can't start reassembly until my son and I get the motor out of his Crown Vic and tear it apart.
Last edited:
Frankenschtein
Newbie
Quality posts here! Thanks for sharing the detailed and documented build with us.
I wish the pick your part places near me were worth a crud. More like "One Headlight" is the theme music due to there being only one headlight in the whole yard. Usually its busted too...
I wish the pick your part places near me were worth a crud. More like "One Headlight" is the theme music due to there being only one headlight in the whole yard. Usually its busted too...
I yanked the Audi fans back out and went to Pull-A-Part in search of a factory shroud and valvetrain parts. I scored the pushrods, rockers, and rocker hardware pretty quick. There weren't any intact shrouds on the pickups, but I found a nice shroud on a Suburban, complete with the second battery wiring! I completely forgot that Suburban radiators are about 6" wider. Doh!
I posted some pics in the "What I Did Today" thread in the lounge about cleaning out my Harbor Freight parts washer. I've had it for about a year now, and I don't use it daily, but I use it probably twice a month. They recommend their water-based solvent, but I don't have time to play around with stuff that doesn't work. If I wanted to piddle around with cleaning things I'd have stuck with a 5-gallon bucket, a can of PB Blaster, and a wire brush. I got two five gallon buckets of PSC1000 from Tractor Supply, and it simply works. I also mounted the tank on Harbor Freight's furniture dolly. It raises it up to a usable height while also making it more portable in the shop.
If you're following this thread, you know that most of my parts come from Pull-A-Part, they're typically pretty nasty. I knew I'd be cleaning the tank out pretty often, so I installed a ball valve in the bottom of the tank with the tank still full. I stoppered the drain with a gloved hand (HF's gloves are pretty sweet for use with this tank), unscrewed the plug, and installed the ball valve one-handed. I had a 1/2" tall donut magnet from an old Nissan transmission pan handy, and I put it around the drain hole.Then I drained the tank back into the original PSC1000 buckets - I thought ahead and kept them around. I had a quarter of an inch of sludge in the bottom, and after about half an hour of scraping the stuff on the bottom around, I finally got the fluid drained with all the sludge left in the tank. I scraped it out, wiped the tank clean, forgot to take after-pics, and put the solvent back in. The first bucket of solvent I drained was dark, but clear. The second has a lot of sediment in suspension, but as well as the solvent is still working, I'm not too concerned.
If you have or are buying a HF parts washer, here's the metric-threaded ball valve you'll need. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N2MDEQX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
View media item 32496View media item 32497
Afterwards I cleaned the pushrods, rockers, and rocker hardware. I was cleaning the valves about a week ago on the wire wheel and caught one wrong. The wire wheel on the bench grinder sucked it in, and before I could flip the switch the grinder motor smoked. It was my good grinder. Doh! So I still have about half the valves left to clean.
My son and I have the motor ready to come out of his CVPI, but one of the O2 sensors is in the way, and it's stuck. The 13/16" and 21mm wrenches are too small. The 7/8" and 22mm wrenches fit loose and flex instead of breaking it loose. I've already burnt up two sawzall blades trying to cut through that turd. Ugh.
The new motor controller for the three-wheel scooter is on its way from Monster Scooter Parts. I'm going to try and get video when I get it running, and I'll post a link here.
Yesterday I went to LKQ, because even though their yard is junkier, their prices are higher and the trucks aren't picked as clean. Sure enough, I scored a fan shroud. The lower was in excellent shape, but for the top I had a choice of a shroud with the corner tabs busted off, or one with a big crack in one side. I picked the cracked shroud. At home I fired up my plug-in soldering iron (the butane torch gets a little too hot). I have a couple strips of plastic I cut off a shredded Mustang inner fender, and I used it as filler plastic as I welded the crack in the shroud up. It took half an hour, but the shroud will work. I bolted the Vortec fan (remember - it has a Vortec water pump) and TBI shroud on and took the truck on a drive around the square mile. The Sniper is having trouble with taking heavy throttle application, and I think I have yet another header leak to fix.
It's running good enough that I think it's going to the glass shop this week. The windshield has four different cracks, some overspray from the dash paint, and the rest of the windows have peeling tint. My plan is to get the windshield and the tint replaced. I think after that I'll be looking for tires.
I posted some pics in the "What I Did Today" thread in the lounge about cleaning out my Harbor Freight parts washer. I've had it for about a year now, and I don't use it daily, but I use it probably twice a month. They recommend their water-based solvent, but I don't have time to play around with stuff that doesn't work. If I wanted to piddle around with cleaning things I'd have stuck with a 5-gallon bucket, a can of PB Blaster, and a wire brush. I got two five gallon buckets of PSC1000 from Tractor Supply, and it simply works. I also mounted the tank on Harbor Freight's furniture dolly. It raises it up to a usable height while also making it more portable in the shop.
If you're following this thread, you know that most of my parts come from Pull-A-Part, they're typically pretty nasty. I knew I'd be cleaning the tank out pretty often, so I installed a ball valve in the bottom of the tank with the tank still full. I stoppered the drain with a gloved hand (HF's gloves are pretty sweet for use with this tank), unscrewed the plug, and installed the ball valve one-handed. I had a 1/2" tall donut magnet from an old Nissan transmission pan handy, and I put it around the drain hole.Then I drained the tank back into the original PSC1000 buckets - I thought ahead and kept them around. I had a quarter of an inch of sludge in the bottom, and after about half an hour of scraping the stuff on the bottom around, I finally got the fluid drained with all the sludge left in the tank. I scraped it out, wiped the tank clean, forgot to take after-pics, and put the solvent back in. The first bucket of solvent I drained was dark, but clear. The second has a lot of sediment in suspension, but as well as the solvent is still working, I'm not too concerned.
If you have or are buying a HF parts washer, here's the metric-threaded ball valve you'll need. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N2MDEQX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
View media item 32496View media item 32497
Afterwards I cleaned the pushrods, rockers, and rocker hardware. I was cleaning the valves about a week ago on the wire wheel and caught one wrong. The wire wheel on the bench grinder sucked it in, and before I could flip the switch the grinder motor smoked. It was my good grinder. Doh! So I still have about half the valves left to clean.
My son and I have the motor ready to come out of his CVPI, but one of the O2 sensors is in the way, and it's stuck. The 13/16" and 21mm wrenches are too small. The 7/8" and 22mm wrenches fit loose and flex instead of breaking it loose. I've already burnt up two sawzall blades trying to cut through that turd. Ugh.
The new motor controller for the three-wheel scooter is on its way from Monster Scooter Parts. I'm going to try and get video when I get it running, and I'll post a link here.
Yesterday I went to LKQ, because even though their yard is junkier, their prices are higher and the trucks aren't picked as clean. Sure enough, I scored a fan shroud. The lower was in excellent shape, but for the top I had a choice of a shroud with the corner tabs busted off, or one with a big crack in one side. I picked the cracked shroud. At home I fired up my plug-in soldering iron (the butane torch gets a little too hot). I have a couple strips of plastic I cut off a shredded Mustang inner fender, and I used it as filler plastic as I welded the crack in the shroud up. It took half an hour, but the shroud will work. I bolted the Vortec fan (remember - it has a Vortec water pump) and TBI shroud on and took the truck on a drive around the square mile. The Sniper is having trouble with taking heavy throttle application, and I think I have yet another header leak to fix.
It's running good enough that I think it's going to the glass shop this week. The windshield has four different cracks, some overspray from the dash paint, and the rest of the windows have peeling tint. My plan is to get the windshield and the tint replaced. I think after that I'll be looking for tires.
Here's a tip. If you have an O2 sensor that won't come out, don't try to sawzall though it. They're ceramic on the inside. I burned through two sawzall blades and barely got a quarter of the way through the CV's O2 sensor. I grabbed my air chisel and if fell apart in five seconds. Once we had the engine out a 7/8" impact socket fit snug and I was able to hammer it the rest of the way out.
The machine shop finished up my block and heads yesterday. I just had them do the basics: vat the block and heads, bore the block .030", and replace the cam bearings. The bill was nearly $400. I think he was ticked about the amount of mud that was in the block, but I'd warned him about it.
I decided to drive Way Cool Jr. on the twenty-mile round trip to pick up the block and heads. It needed a nice test drive. The truck ran great, shifted great, and was inspiring confidence, until about a mile from the machine shop. It started with a light backfire, then started sputtering, knocking, bucking, and finally crept into the shop parking lot. I paid for everything, got my stuff loaded up, and started the truck up. It ran fine. I pulled out of the lot and almost immediately it started acting up again. I crept into the town hall parking lot, popped the hood and found the coil loose on the back of the motor, sitting on a header. I had the coil held down with the same bolt that was holding the throttle/TV cable bracket. When I switched to the throttle-body mount for the cables, the bolt left holding the coil bottomed out before cinching down the coil. I borrowed a wrench from the fire department and switched a couple bolts on the intake to get the coil tight. Still misfired and backfired. Hmm. Maybe the coil got too hot sitting on the header? My wife and I got dinner, and afterwards she drove me to the parts store and I got a new coil. No fix.
It runs great at idle, and sitting in park. Once on the road, if I barely touch the throttle it will rev up a little, but usually breaks up and sputters. I'd think fuel filter except for the backfiring. It's not overheating. The Sniper's getting a consistent 183* reading, which is cooler than I like, but not terrible. It also ran like this with the engine cooled down at 120*. This morning I'm going to tow it back to the house and start diagnosing it. The fuel tank had bad, gummy gas in it when I got it, so I'm going to start with the fuel filter.
The passenger door handle, the one I didn't replace because it was still in nice shape, broke. Also, the power steering gearbox is leaking enough fluid that I could smell it, and after I stopped at the machine shop I had to add fluid to the pump because it was whining.
Other driving notes? The exhaust is really loud when driving with the windows down, but the temperature is cool enough now to drive with the windows up, and it's actually not terribly loud in the cab.
I decided to drive Way Cool Jr. on the twenty-mile round trip to pick up the block and heads. It needed a nice test drive. The truck ran great, shifted great, and was inspiring confidence, until about a mile from the machine shop. It started with a light backfire, then started sputtering, knocking, bucking, and finally crept into the shop parking lot. I paid for everything, got my stuff loaded up, and started the truck up. It ran fine. I pulled out of the lot and almost immediately it started acting up again. I crept into the town hall parking lot, popped the hood and found the coil loose on the back of the motor, sitting on a header. I had the coil held down with the same bolt that was holding the throttle/TV cable bracket. When I switched to the throttle-body mount for the cables, the bolt left holding the coil bottomed out before cinching down the coil. I borrowed a wrench from the fire department and switched a couple bolts on the intake to get the coil tight. Still misfired and backfired. Hmm. Maybe the coil got too hot sitting on the header? My wife and I got dinner, and afterwards she drove me to the parts store and I got a new coil. No fix.
It runs great at idle, and sitting in park. Once on the road, if I barely touch the throttle it will rev up a little, but usually breaks up and sputters. I'd think fuel filter except for the backfiring. It's not overheating. The Sniper's getting a consistent 183* reading, which is cooler than I like, but not terrible. It also ran like this with the engine cooled down at 120*. This morning I'm going to tow it back to the house and start diagnosing it. The fuel tank had bad, gummy gas in it when I got it, so I'm going to start with the fuel filter.
The passenger door handle, the one I didn't replace because it was still in nice shape, broke. Also, the power steering gearbox is leaking enough fluid that I could smell it, and after I stopped at the machine shop I had to add fluid to the pump because it was whining.
Other driving notes? The exhaust is really loud when driving with the windows down, but the temperature is cool enough now to drive with the windows up, and it's actually not terribly loud in the cab.
Dubs
I'm Awesome
Check your timing. It almost sounds like the distributor moved. I've had it happen to me. It did exactly as you are stating.
That's how I found the coil. I checked the distributor and it's tight. I'm going to replace the fuel filter, check the plugs, put some octane booster in the tank, and check the timing before I do anything else. I'll probably pull the distributor all the way out and check the gear as well.
