rang-a-stang's summer project/build

[SJTD]

Could be, especially on tight fitting caps, but I don't think I saw anything about that being the reason.

[rang-a-stang]

Nuttin about the torque cycling huh?. Can't hurt but I don't see the point. If the the torque is below the yield it won't matter. If it's above it's too tight. Fatigue is a non-issue with two or three cycles. Or many, many more.

VW loves to use these bolts dubbed "torque to yield" by people. You torque to a specified value then add a quarter turn. Replace if untorqued. Never bothered to compute if they are actually yielded and not sure what the point would be.

Good luck with the engine and the other issues.

Right, nothing about the torque cycling. What I did instead was use one torque wrench to torque them, then backed it down and re-torqued with a second torque wrench to verify it was correct, then backed it down and re-torqued with the first wrench again. That way I was using 2 torque wrenches and could compare the readings.

I know the torque to yield bolts you speak of. I have a Rock Auto T-shirt because I submitted a story to them about "Repair Mistakes" and they printed it in their newsletter. That mistake had to do with a VW 2.0 with those bolts.

It could also have to do with making sure the fasteners are seated properly. Just a thought.

Yeah, I kinda think the same thing. You torque it once and maybe the cap shifts a little. Torque it again and maybe the bolt shifts a little. Torque it a third time and you are golden. Like a wise man once said "Can't hurt..."

Could be, especially on tight fitting caps, but I don't think I saw anything about that being the reason.

The guy that wrote that builds AMC engines for a living. I am not going to question it. His reasoning is good enough for me.
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My truck is running and driving. I am still fighting oil pressure but it's better. I think I almost have it licked. I had a timing SNAFU earlier too, but now that that is straightened out, it is running MUCH better. Exhaust leak is SUPER annoying and my throttle body has a really annoying whistle.

When I was waiting for the engine to come back I pulled a leaf out of my front spring pack. That brought the front down about 5/8". It is closer to level.


I had forgotten how LOOOOUD this truck is with no cat and headers on it. I bought another straight through muffler to put on, to hopefully mellow it out a bit. Right now it sounds B.A. but after about a 15 minute drive it gets really obnoxious. If this truck ran 12's in the quarter mile I would leave it but right now it speaks loudly and carries a small stick.

I'll be glad when this is all done and I can get to swapping my fender flares and installing the Chief stripes on the side.

[bluehwy]

Loud and proud.

[SJTD]

When I was working at VAFB they had these Kleco (SP?) sets. Some of the wrenches themselves weren't calibrated but they had a mounted box with a big calibrated gauge. The Techs set the wrench then verified it against the gauge. I brought my 30 year old Craftsman 1/2" wrench and tried it. After adjusting it a bit it was right on through its whole range except I lost the bottom 5 lbs or so. Shouldn't be using it that low anyway.

Never got around to trying my 3/8" wrench.

Wish I had some brilliant insight to your oiling issue.

[rang-a-stang]

Loud and proud.

hahah! It's loud but not so proud!

When I was working at VAFB they had these Kleco (SP?) sets. Some of the wrenches themselves weren't calibrated but they had a mounted box with a big calibrated gauge. The Techs set the wrench then verified it against the gauge. I brought my 30 year old Craftsman 1/2" wrench and tried it. After adjusting it a bit it was right on through its whole range except I lost the bottom 5 lbs or so. Shouldn't be using it that low anyway.

Never got around to trying my 3/8" wrench.

Wish I had some brilliant insight to your oiling issue.

It was great meeting you last week! Thanks again for the seats! I already got the driver seat base all cleaned, lubed up, and ready for install. I had it on my list to do today but it fell off the list as I was running out of time.
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No pictures today but at least some good news.

I am pulling out my victory flag for my oiling issues. I am not flying it yet but I have it out and am about ready to stick it in the ground after one more check.

I built a new interface cable for my EFI computer so I was able to monitor my parameters for the first time since the re-rebuild. It is running REALLY nice. So on my last drive (a week or two ago), my shifter would not go into anything but P R N D; I could not get to 2 or 1 and it would pop out of D. My transfer case also kept popping into neutral. As I inspected those linkages, I saw I put the motor mounts in the wrong holes on the frame which pushes the whole drivetrain back ~3/4". I pulled my jack out, lifted the motor, and man handeled the drivetrain back to the correct holes. No more linkage problems.

Took it for about a 15 minute drive today. I was pretty heavy footed and it seemed to run pretty awesome the whole time. I have about 14psi of hot idle oil pressure which is OK.

[bkilby]

It's the simple things.... Good news Rang. Hope that solved some issues. I'm curious to see what you come up with on the oiling issue. Fingers crossed!

[rang-a-stang]

It's the simple things.... Good news Rang. Hope that solved some issues. I'm curious to see what you come up with on the oiling issue. Fingers crossed!

No smoking gun on oil pressure yet. AND it does not seem to be "fixed"; more below.
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I have about 100 miles on my re-rebuilt engine at this point. I drove it to work last week (about 20 miles one way). It runs amazing! MUCH more power and a smoother idle than pre-re-rebuild. My hot idle pressure is still low. After my drive to work, including a 10 minute drive at 65MPH (2700RPM), my pressure was 10psi at idle. My dash showed ~30 on the freeway but my oil pressure gauge is not quite as accurate as the Chinese media so I am not sure what it really was. I will find out in the next few days.

Took this picture outside my office. Notice my new bumper sticker. This is the first bumper sticker I have ever put on paint and not chrome/glass; I like it that much. Thanks, Dave!

Filled my tank so I can measure MPG too. This will be the first time I have ever taken a MPG measurement.

I have an exhaust leak at my driver side header. I think it is the header gasket (I cracked it when I installed it and hoped it would hold but it may not have) but I also ported my header flanges when they were off and may have ground through a weld bead. Anyway, the header needs to come out and be fixed. I found the Remflex gaskets for cheap at Walmart so I ordered them (and that is all I ordered). I got an email today that said

We're very sorry, but due to high demand, one or more of your items is delayed. We're working hard to fulfill them as fast as we can

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! There is a high demand for AMC V8 header gaskets?!?! Sure there is! Then again, my order for that gasket probably brought the demand for those gaskets up 100% from what is was before the order.

[SJTD]

Good meeting you too. I was sorry to see you didn't bring the Cherk.

[rang-a-stang]

Good meeting you too. I was sorry to see you didn't bring the Cherk.

It wasn't ready quite yet. I wouldn't have trusted it that far yet. Plus my heater still does not work so it would have been a chilly ride!
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Lately all I have been working on is getting it ready for daily driving life again/building confidence in it. Took it off-roading:
Off roading thread

Today I spent about 2 hours pressure washing it, wiping grease fingerprints off the paint, cleaning the windows, and vacuuming it. Got a good 15 pounds of dirt out.


This week I swap in SJTD's power seat bottoms and wire them up, fix my heater controls (copying DarkMonohue, here), rebuilding/installing a carbon can 78 WIDETRAC sent me, and hopefully (but doubtfully) pulling the driver header to fix the exhaust leak. The wife and I are gonna road trip it to Orange County Saturday.

I really want to start on my flares but I have a 6-week business trip coming up and there is no way I will finish it before that.

[rang-a-stang]

Pulled the Double Cardan. Here is the carnage on my shaft.

Notice my yoke is mostly extended. I also notice this spot that looks like something smacked it pretty hard. Maybe a rock on the hill I was climbing? not sure. I looked around and did not see any damage under the truck where a broken shaft would have smacked something under there.


Moved on to power seats. Pulled my front seats out and the center console. When I was working on my heater controls the other night (more on that in a minute), I pulled a 12ga wire in from my new fuse box under the hood, through the dash and put a connector under the dash for the seats. Here is the seat harness mocked:

Started at the passenger seat, I burned a hole in the middle under the seat for the power connector to come through. I heat a pipe with a MAP torch, then touch it to the carpet to burn a perfect hole in the carpet to pass the wire through that won't fray:


Ran the wires through the truck, installed the passenger seat (already has a power seat bottom installed), clicked all the wiring together, tried the passenger seat out, no joy. Driver side works: there is 12v at the drive seat connector and it should be at the passenger side to. I'll figure it out later. At least the hard/time consuming part of passing all the wires under the carpet is done.
Mocked the driver side power seat bottom. I got this seat bottom from SJTD and it's from his 84 Wago. The floor pans in FSJs changed in 1980 when they went to driver side drop front axles. All the bolt holes line up, so the seat bottom does "fit"

However, the front inside mounting point is to high. I need to fabricate a bracket to make it fit, like this:

While the passenger seat was out, I also compared the bottoms to SJTDs to figure out where I am going to cut my seat to mount the control panel. The bottoms are pretty different. The 84 Wago seat bottom side is long and straight. My Cherk side has a curve to it. I assume to allow easier ingress to the back seat? Or maybe it just changed in later years?


So I put my whole truck back together and called it a day for now. I'll create the seat bracket, weld it together and install it, hopefully tomorrow morning. Then I'll figure out why the passenger seat is not working.

Last night I pulled my dash cluster and hooked up all my vacuum lines to the heater motors. I used a vacuum pump to check the motors and they both worked and hold vacuum. Then I checked the line from the vacuum ball to my switch and it was a dumpster fire. Replaced the whole thing, hooked it all up and it seems to work! Wooo Hooo! But, when I select "Heat" the door closes and I get no heat. When I select Defrost, it works great. I think I hooked up 2 of the vacuum lines wrong.

[bkilby]

Rang, there's only 2 vacuum lines for these rigs that I know of. One goes to the door at the firewall to allow the air to flow into the cab. When it does, you're on heat by default. When you activate the vacuum to the second line, you're telling the blend door to move from heat to defrost. That's it. If you have a bad seal on that blend door, or if the door is not moving it's full travel, you'll get both heat and defrost at the same time. Like my rig. Remove the vacuum line coming from the vacuum ball as it's going into the cab and run your tests. You'll get it figured out.



I must have missed the thread on the drive shaft.....

[DarkMonohue]

From what you're saying here and our conversation earlier today, it sounds like you have the vacuum hose from the engine connected to the correct port on the heater control, but the hoses to the inlet door and the blend door are probably reversed. Switch those two around and see what happens. I think that will get it working correctly.

[rang-a-stang]

Rang, there's only 2 vacuum lines for these rigs that I know of. One goes to the door at the firewall to allow the air to flow into the cab. When it does, you're on heat by default. When you activate the vacuum to the second line, you're telling the blend door to move from heat to defrost. That's it. If you have a bad seal on that blend door, or if the door is not moving it's full travel, you'll get both heat and defrost at the same time. Like my rig. Remove the vacuum line coming from the vacuum ball as it's going into the cab and run your tests. You'll get it figured out.
...

From what you're saying here and our conversation earlier today, it sounds like you have the vacuum hose from the engine connected to the correct port on the heater control, but the hoses to the inlet door and the blend door are probably reversed. Switch those two around and see what happens. I think that will get it working correctly.

(all tests with engine running) I think I have the "heat" and "Vacuum" nipples backwards. When I select "off" the door at the heater manifold over the trans hump is open. I can stick my finger up there and feel the door. If I turn on the fan, I get some air. If I select "Heat", that door closes. If I select "Defrost" I get tons of flow (and dust) out of the defrost vents and the lower door remains closed.
At this point, I don't care. I have warm air coming in the cab and I can defrost my wind shield. I'll figure this one out when I get home in May.
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I have power seats!!!!
I had a chunk of steel in my scrap that was the exact size I needed! Stuck it in a vice, hammered it into shape, did the best weld I have ever done, and voila. I use flux core mix so there is spatter but the weld is actually really nice and has good penetration.

If you have never removed your seats, there are funky E10 bolts holding your seats to the rails. I bought an E-socket set from Farbor Height a few years ago for a job on my Mazda and figured I would never use them again. Now I have used them twice.

It took about an hour to figure out a good place to put the control head then to cut the hole and mount it. There is a loop to the hog rings right where the control head would want to go so I had to push it forward. Marked it on masking tape, used a dremel with a cutoff wheel and went to town. Here's the driver side all put together.

Got it installed and it sits perfectly level. I measure the floor pan for level under the back seat to make sure the truck was level then the top of the seat rail and it was. Bolted it all in.


Pulled the passenger seat out to figure out why it didn't work the first time and found when I connected the power, it pushed the pin out of the back connector. Re-seated the pin and it was good to go. Installed the control panel on the side and re-installed the seat. Now I have power seats.

So why all the fuss with power seats? Because our seats are so not-comfortable. I love my original seats and don't want to swap them but the angle of the backrest is terrible. With these seat bottoms, I can tilt my seat now and that brings a whole new level of comfort. It completely changed the driving experience. Totally worth it.

Last little nugget: 78 WIDETRACK sent me a replacement carbon can (because mine was so broken). I used all the good parts from between the 2 and now have a fully functioning carbon can. Thank you sir!
(it looks dirtier in the picture than it really is because it was late at night and the flash does that)

[fulsizjeep]

Nice work on the seats!

Sorry you have to deal with all that emissions orneriness. I remember tossing at least 3 of those carbon cans in the trash over the years.

[SJTD]

I take it Cherk seats don't have adjustable backs? Just fold forward? I forgot the floor might be different.

I wanted something else because of no recline. Tilting the whole seat helps but it's not the same. Also, '84 had no headrests.

Whole lotta work as you saw. But they're from a Lexus so they gotsta be comfy right?