This is a great thread! I wish I was next door so I could watch and make excuses why I couldn't help :laugh: Seriously, I'd love to help. As for air shock cross over, my 80 LeSabre has the air shocks that were under my 69 Wildcat. So theres quite a bit of interchangeability there. BTW, is your carb and dist stock? If so, getting those set up right will yield you a nice improvement in the quarter. Good luck on your rear swap!! :TU:
Day 4 @ 8.10 am.. Sunday. We have more rain but it looks like it will clear up. Hopefully it will be warmer than the 49 degrees that were offered yesterday morning. GF will have to help with bleeding the brakes (still sleeping, so that will have to wait anyway), then I'll have to drive it around the block to the nearest gas station to get me some air. I hope the fuel level indicator can works. I couldn't see a way to take it apart and clean it inside. The car has a stock HEI from a 75 LeSabre I believe it was. I have one of those kits with springs and the other stuff, but last time I had a go at it, the car ran good initially and the got slower as it got some speed. I'll have to look back into that. Everything was put back stock again. The carburetor is from a 73 Electra. It has been rebuilt at some point and offered a little performance increase over the original one. I would like to know how to tune the carb or at least know what is what on it. The book I have on it is just too much like a book, I need someone to point out to me, fuel comes in here, is mixed here, goes out here, this is called this, this you take apart like this etc. I've had the tank off before, and changed most of the clamps and all hoses back then. I wasn't able to find those little screw clamps of the right size at the last time it was out, but this time the 99 cent store had stainless ones that fit perfectly. Four for 99 cent, great, but probably not the best reliability included. I also invested in a mask for painting last night, I'm a bit tired of seeing what color paint I have been using by blowing my nose. It cost like 28$, but hopefully it will last me a long time.
11.45 day 4. So far no good. I bled the rear brakes and put the tires back on. The car is lower on one side than the other, and it is because of the new shocks. Maybe they need som air in them to start functioning, we'll see. I turned the key on and the fuel level went staright to full and bottomed out, doesn't look promising, any ideas? Do I need to bleed the front brakes too, or do you just have to bleed the rear ones if those are the only one's that has been disconnected? I'm also a bit concerned about the posi, there doesn't seem to be much pressure inside of it, and when I turned one wheel the other easily spun the other way, no resistance, is this the way it should be? The car's battery had run flat for some reason (???) so it's being recharged, I'll go back down in a few hours.
They kind of do, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of pressure in there. I'll lower one wheel to the ground and try to turn the other, and we'll see.
When checking a posi this way, don't you have to have the driveshaft turn freely? IIRC when I checked the 70 Wildcat parts car's posi, I had to put it the tranny in neutral before I could tell it worked. Just a thought and maybe I'm mis-remembering again... Great thread "EEE" - love the detail and pics! All the "other" stuff that always happens with these projects is a riot, too.
I took the car out and put some air in the shocks. Well, the air came out as fast as it came in, and the car went a little bit up, and then a little bit down again. It was impossible to hear where the leak was coming from, since the compressor at the gas station was making so much noise. I doubt it would raise the car any considerable amount, had it up to 85, and the compressor had a hard time to pump any more ir in there. So the car is now a bit lower in the back, and the old shocks will go back on, unless I find a hole in a line or something. Sigh.. The posi unit is still an unknown, I raised one wheel on the car and put it in neutral ,and the other wheel spun very easily. Anyone got any knowledge on this this add? The fuel sending unit was down to almost empty, which was a good sign, but the whole interior light system had a fuse blown or was shorting out or who knows what. Not exactly the result I was looking for, but that's part of this activity. Sometimes I wish I was more interested in playing the playstation instead.
News on your posi doesn't sound good...here's a thread on the subject: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?t=94801 Devon
Bummer on the news. I say keep swinging. You won't keep the rest of us in suspense with stories about your Playstation heroics. And look at all you've learned, and helped the rest of us learn, too. And you helped out a damsel in distress, to boot. You shouldn't need to bleed the front brakes if the line to the back brakes was the only thing opened. Unless, of course, in the process of bleeding teh back brakes, you run the master cylinder out of fluid, introducing air to the front brakes as well. ou: Brakes suck. No glory there unless your upgrading to great big discs or something.
Today we took a rest from the cars and took a drive south for lunch. The posi situation is kind of crap, but we're dealing with junk yard stuff so that's part of the game. I don't know if I can have it rebuilt or what I can do with it. I don't know if I could get any spares for it from anywhere. The brakes are fine, but they never come out exactly the way they were when you started. The front brakes are still holding the wheels a bit and would need to be adjusted; which I have no idea how to do; that will be a different chapter itself. Regarding the shocks, I've been trying to think up a way to figure out where the leak is coming from. Maybe I'll give Gabriel a call tomorrow, and see what they say. If I can't fix them, I'll just put on the old shocks again. One thing that feels like a real bummer is how much time is being spent to locate the posi piece, buy the wrong one, find the right one, buy it, drag it home and clean it, paint it, paint the diff cover, change the whole axle over and not have it come out ok.. ou: For what really??? ou: Well, if I can spend four hours sawing off an axle shaft with a hack saw then I guess I can deal with the posi situation too. One new thing that is coming up is a new trunk carpet for both cars. Home Depot was complete crap in helping me to get the one that I wanted and they had me chasing it, being arrogant, and they never came through, I'm not impressed with them when it comes to how much time I wasted there; I went to Lowes and there it was, 9 feet please. I still don't know what a damsel is, I'll have to do a google.. Ok, on the images it looked like what I think is also called a dragonfly?
A dragonfly? Huh. A "damsel in distress" is a girl in need of help, and the saying comes from some fairy tale somewhere. I don't know the details. I was referring to the girl in the bushes. Still, the 3.42 ratio should wake the car up a bit, doesn't it? I can't say for sure what is wrong with your posi, but I would imagine the clutches are worn out. If that is the only problem, I wouldn't think driving it would ruin anything, as the clutches basically just lock the two wheels together. If they are worn, the diff would just act more like an open diff. I know the more common Eaton style posis are rebuildable, one of the advantages of having one. I don't know if the big 9-3/8" ones have any parts available, though. Hopefully, someone else here can help. I assume you don't have a compressor. Have you thought about using a manual tire pump, like for bike tires. It might take a while, but, hey, you spent 4 hours cutting an axle. There really isn't that much air in the shock system, so it should be a lot faster than trying to fill a car tire with one. If you don't have one, they are at least much cheaper than buying a compressor, and then you could jack the car up, fill up the shocks, and crawl under and listen for leaks, or use the old soap water and a brush trick and look for bubbles.
I've been thinking about the water trick to check for bubbles, but it would only work for the lines; I guess soap is a good idea for the actual air valves on the shocks; I'll look into it. MMmmm. damsel.. Just like in the movies ey? The posi will stay in there until we figure out a reason to take it out of there I guess. Other than that, I've had a few margaritas, bloody marys and a tequila sour so it's all good. The black car got a new tunk carpet today, looks ok. :bglasses:
Try the bubble stuff kids use to blow bubbles - its cheap and will light up if it hits a leak! Soak everything and it should be obivious. - Bill
I filled it with the bottles that's seen in post two. I also added a bit from a third bottle of GL-5. Today something interesting happened; I managed to get the car to powerslide for the first time. Coming around a wide corner from a stop light I pressed on the gas enough for the tires to go, it was a nice controlled slide, with little "kick back". This has been impossible previously because of the open diff so I guess the posi is working under some conditions. I'll give it a fry up at some point to see if we're spinning both or not. I was also out at the yard scavenging for doors and found a set on a 75 Electra. I took the passenger side off, and it had a metal plate at the bottom to collect moist twigs under, so I checked under it, and of course there were some rust. The driver's side door had the same split at the top as mine, seems to be something that can happen. I left the doors, but the car had a passenger side mirror which I grabbed together with a pulley and the HEI. I went up to the register and they're like 70$. ??? No way, apparently the HEI is sold in parts or something, so I went back and stashed everything behind a container that was against a wall and will return on the 17th of March when it is half price. It was just too much for me. Rolling the dice again..
Try to figure a way to test one shock at a time. Maybe pull one side off the air inlet and get a steel cap to block off one side of the system. Air it up, if it holds move to the other side. At least that way you might be able to isolate the problem shock or air line. o No: Rick
