Thanks and fan photos. (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Ted, Randall, Frank, and V-8 Buick lovers, Thanks for a the compliments guys!! It has been a long road!! First, another quick update. Here is how Greg installed the dual electric fans on the radiator. First a driver's side view: and now a passenger side view: It looks discreet and doesn't really detract from the classic look of Jim's engine. So unless something doesn't work, they are staying. The only thing is that somehow I need to deal with the hump between the radiator and the upper support that was shaped to secure the fan shroud. I've got at least two possible solutions, but I'll leave that on the queue for now. Well, . . . . . 2 years ago that was all I was doing!! Since then, well things mushroomed!! Actually, that key fob is my old key fob from decades ago. I have two new shiny ones. Even so you are correct. Not only do I need to reverse the fob, but I really need to come up with some sort of guard to protect the paint around ignition switch. Anybody ever done something like that? Thanks again everyone for all the help on this caper - you guys are the greatest!! :TU: Cheers, Edouard :TU:
Excellent shrouding! You shouldn't have any heating or cooling issues with that. Just make sure the fans have adequately rated relays for the amp draw. I know too many people that have melted relays without popping fuses.
Wow, Edouard, that is some nice work! Everything looks like it belongs! Great attention to detail!:TU: Looks like you will be driving it soon!:3gears:
Thanks and car show thread (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Randall, Frank, Steve, and V-8 Buick connoisseurs of chrome. Thanks for the praise! Honestly I had no idea how this would all turn out so I'm really a little bit in shock! I hope Greg would have covered that one. This is stock and trade for him. Honestly he had "helped himself" to the unused fans, so he probably already knew what sized relays to use! Well, it was hard for Biquette not to be in the show. Orinda Motors uses the service bay to display some of the cars and since Biquette couldn't move much at the time, she had to be there. The whole story of the show is in this other thread: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?273431-Lessons-from-a-soggy-Orinda-Classic-Car-show I was inside and dry while the car show continued, but I would see outside that all of a sudden we were getting a whole lot of rain. Since I can get data from my weather station on my iPhone, I had a unique perspective on the deluge. So unfortunately, most the car owners had an absolutely miserable time at the show. But since Greg had completed all the assembly of Biquette just before the show. Biquette was a real star. Since visitors to the show almost immediately sought shelter from the rain, my car got an awful lot of attention!! Thanks again everybody! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Biquette comes home for a bit! (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear V-8 Buick followers of da' trusty wagon soap opera, Something very special happened last Thursday but I haven't had the time to write about it until now. Biquette come back home to visit for a moment! Now this may seem a little odd, but there was a very good reason for this. With the new class-III hitch, I wasn't sure if Biquette could get down the driveway anymore. Greg wanted me to check if there was a problem before settling on a final suspension configuration. So I got to drive my car for the first time!! First stop was the Flying-A gas station for Biquette's first full tank of premium. Here is a very rare picture that includes me in the scene. Flying-A is part of the Orinda Motors family so . . . they have been following the saga also and were nice to take the picture for me: Then it was off to our house. This would be the first time my Mom has seen anything of the work done on Biquette. She was become very frail and broke her arm over the summer that was a real blow. She was very happy to see how the interior turned out. She was less happy about the sound of the engine and I agree with her on that. The engine is still running relatively poorly. However that is to be expected since the EZ-EFI hasn't had any tuning data beyond moving the car around Orinda Motors. I put the first 6-7 miles of actual road driving on the car. The engine was a somewhat ill-tempered, but I had no trouble getting car to my house and back to Orinda Motors. How about going down the driveway? No problems at all. There was plenty of clearance. Before returning to Orinda Motors I took this quick picture of Biquette on the driveway: The sun was so bright that the Seafoam green is bleached in the photo. Also Biquette looks a bit odd because of the complex slope of the driveway. This driveway was my Dad's last great engineering challenge and he put a lot of time making sure the slopes would provide good drainage. Greg has a few issues to work out, but Biquette is very close to coming home for at least a while. There is a problem with the Detroit Speed interval wiper motor creeping up the bottom of the sweep. Greg called Detroit Speed to find out about that. Greg is concerned about the amount of noise coming from the valve train. He has a feeling some components aren't as tight as they are supposed to be. I have sent an email to Jim asking if there is any adjustments Greg should be doing. Finally, there is the issue of final tire size. Greg has already programmed the Vintage Air system. He showed me how to operate Biquette's air conditioner and it seems to work just great. Greg has managed to get the old Buick controls to work with the Vintage Air system very nicely. Wow, I sure am looking forward to using that for the first time! So good news on da' trusty wagon front. The time has come to clean out her stall in the garage so that she can finally come home!! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Great news! I would bet that the valvetrain is noisy due to the poor idle quality from the EFI not being tuned in yet. Any time the idle is not right there is a chance of low oil pressure, this is what I would guess is happening. I would put some miles on the car before I picked a rear tire and rear end mods if any.
Good advice Sean! (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Sean and fan of "assertive" V-8 Buicks! Hmm, okay that's an interesting possibility. I'll mention it to Greg. That's another good idea. It is probably a good idea to allow the EZ-EFI system to lock in a decent tune before monkeying too much with everything else. Since I could use some "loaner tires" from Orinda Motors, I could try a few combinations and be really sure before settling on a size. Thanks for the good advice! Cheers, Edouard :beer
I bet you are walking on clouds! It is such a geat feeling to be able to drive the "project" once it is finished! Congrats! - Bill
Need to check out valve train noise (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Bill and followers of da' trusty wagon soap opera, Alas, this soap opera isn't going to end so easily. Jim replied to my question about the valve train noise and he was surprised - he has never seen that sort of thing on any of his builds. Also, the EZ-EFI installs he has done do not require a lot of time for the computer to get a good idle. So something seems fishy. Jim's only hypothesis was the perhaps some of the lock-nuts on the roller rockers had gotten lose, but that would be a surprise. I suggested that Greg get out a stethoscope and see if he can isolate the noise even if he thinks he can hear the two spots that concern him from a distance. Orinda Motors was busy again so my trusty wagon was back on the back-burner. So it is back to the waiting game. Sure hope this problem is nothing serious. Oh well, Cheers, Edouard
First report after 150 miles. (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Adam and followers of da' trusty wagon soap opera, Well yes I am and typically it is one of those "good, bad, and ugly" sorts of updates. Starting with the good news. Finally, Biquette was able to come home a week ago Friday: It was the first time she has been in her side of the garage in over 7 months. I couldn't drive her on Saturday, but have been trying to put on somewhere between 25 and 50 miles each day ever since. Orinda Motors recommended that I warm up the engine for a few minutes before doing anything and this turned out to make Biquette much more pleasant on the road. I wish I could describe the driving experience but it is to me totally unique and very different from my now fading recollections of driving Biquette with her 300 cid and TH-350 combo. It certainly isn't the quiet of a modern car, but the car is much more quiet most of the time. When the car is struggling (up a hill, passing in traffic, etc.) then the sound of the headers is loud. At other times they are noticeable. Nonetheless the car is surprisingly quiet. I'm noticing the wind noise and other sounds like the radiator electric fans and even the Vintage Air blower fan. All this is clearly thanks to the 200-4R tranny. Even at 35 mph, Biquette will shift into overdrive and the engine noise drops immediately as the RPM can go down to close to idle. With all the torque of Jim's masterpiece engine, the car can spend most of its time in overdrive. Even passing on the freeway, the car stays in overdrive and the RPM goes no higher than the 2500 RPM. Typically on the freeway the engine RPM is between 1500 and 2000. On Monday, I did that "man car bonding thing" of washing and waxing Biquette. Yesterday I was able to get out and snap some photos among the autumn foliage: Here is another view at a local church: Here is a final view with different foliage: I hope to take a movie from inside the car to give you'all an idea of the experience. I just haven't figured out how to secure the camera. The modern conveniences are working well with the traditional 1960s layout of Biquette. I have tested the Vintage Air air-conditioner and it works fine. I had to stop because the EZ-EFI runs the electric fans all the time the A/C is on to improve the efficiency of the condenser. I ran my test on a cool day and just running the air conditioner for a few minutes caused the engine temperature to drop from 180˚ to 150˚. Since it is better for an engine to break-in when hot that was the end of that experiment. The heater portion of the Vintage Air system seems also okay, but I didn't try to really heat up the car too much as the days remain reasonably warm. Ironically, it is perfect weather to use the cable controlled fresh air vents. I'm very happy I got the kick-panels with the fish-gill vents. They work very well. I haven't experimented too much with the Custom Autosound stereo, but I did get the Bluetooth interface and this works very well with my iPhone to play music. It should allow me to answer the phone as well - I haven't tried it yet. Honestly haven't used the stereo much since I wanted to pay attention to the engine noises mostly. The best news thus far is a very preliminary sense of fuel economy. As of yesterday, I had driven over 100 miles and the gas gauge had only gone down 1/4 or 5 gallons. That's on pace to exceed 20 M.P.G. and those are under hardly ideal driving conditions. So at the moment, it seems my dreams to get Biquette back on the road for long cruises is on track. Alas, not all is well thus far. The Detroit Speed Selecta-Speed wiper motor wasn't able to bring the wiper blades back to the correct park position. I sent the kit back to Detroit Speed, but they couldn't make the motor fail. On Monday when I waxed Biquette, I found that the new windshield had a surprisingly rough surface. It was difficult to move a rag over it. This year I'm giving Aquapel a try. I had a really hard time getting the Aquapel to adhere to the new glass, but finally it did that seemed to eliminate the roughness problem. I told Detroit Speed to send back the kit and we'll see if that is the problem. There was a leak in the speedometer linkage of the 200-4R transmission that CK-Performance built for me. It wasn't a big deal so I had Greg check on it. The CK guys had alas skimped and fitted the transmission with a used part. It needed a new O-ring and plastic gear. Finding those parts took a while and was the main source of the delay. The EZ-EFI system is having trouble keeping the engine at idle when warming up. Instead of keeping the RPM steady it cycles from about 600 RPM to about 1000. The problem goes away when the engine reaches about 150˚ but it is annoying. I haven't had a chance to look into this one at all. Then there is the ugly. The engine has developed a few leaks. Both head gaskets are leaking, but especially the passenger side gasket. Here is the best photo I could take of it this afternoon after 150 miles on the car: I have been trying to clean the paint with distilled mineral spirits. It works well for oil, but the coolant stains don't come off so well. As you can see there is both coolant and oil leaking. These leaks are hard to photograph. The only other leak that can be easily seen is this one for the fuel pump block-off plate: Greg pulled the plate off and found it was warped. He tried to grind it flat and put the gasket back on, but it is still leaking as for this afternoon. These leaks were found a few weeks ago and I immediately alerted Jim. Jim suggested a few tests. In particular he wanted to confirm that the head bolts were correctly torqued. Greg checked a few that were easily accessible and the heads are properly torqued. This is a real mystery because the engine didn't leak at all on the dynamometer. Jim had some concerned about the PCV system, but nothing showed up there that was an obvious fault. After all these tests, Jim concluded that probably it was some sort of a fluke that would work itself out as the engine breaks itself in. Alas, clearly 150 miles isn't enough to make the problem go away. I'll try to put some more miles on the car this week. I may not have many more opportunities for a while. The forecast is for wet weather next week and without wipers I cannot take any risks of being caught in the rain. So that's the news thus far. I am really enjoying the car. I'm getting used to my new baby. Still, there are some shakedown issues that will need to be taken care of. Cheers, Edouard :beer P.S. The hood ornament isn't lost but just temporariliy removed. I didn't have the correct emblem nut to secure it. My drive for today was to run over to a local auto body supply shop and get the correct nut.
I'm bumping this thread because the forum software isn't recording my latest posting for some reason. My latest posting of this afternoon is here: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.p...-billy-goat-quot-Wagon!&p=2264309#post2264309 If you haven't read it, now you can! Cheers, Edouard :beer
Good to hear things are progressing. The last bugs seem to usually be the most tedious to resolve. I'm of the understanding that the engine should be broken-in by the time it comes off of the dyno. What is your objective there? So the valvetrain issue has been resolved? Glad you're already enjoying it!
I'm glad to hear that you are getting to drive it! Some of the leaks are fusterating for sure and as D-con says, the engine should be considered broken in from the dyno work Jim did. The hunting while warming up might be due to cycling between warm-up mode warmed up mode. What thermostat are you running? Because even when the fans are on a running engine shouldn't drop below it's thermostat temperature. I think the EZ-EFI uses 160*F as the warmed up switch, but check the manual. It might be cycling on and off around 160*F rather than warming up steadily past 160*F.
Adam, I wanted Edouard to put a few hundred miles on the engine to get a good feel for what's going on with the leaks, before I get on a plane to go fix it. I have already secured shop space in the area to do whatever it takes to resolve any issues, but it really needed to be run in for a while before we travel down that road, and I wanted Ed to get some time behind the wheel with it. He has been waiting so long for this project to be finished. The oil leaks are a bit of a mystery.. and are frustrating, since it did not leak a spot on the dyno. Testing out there indicates that there is no air gaps in the gaskets, yet it leaks some amount of oil. Not sure what that silicone mess around the fuel pump blockoff plate is all about, seems to me that if you took the plate off and flattened it, a small bead of sealer would do the trick for sealing it up. That appears to have been done with the plate installed. I need to look around and see if I have one of the factory cast iron block off plates, used on the early Riv motors. The coolant leak was a lesson.. it has the typical warm up/ cool down dis-similar block/head material leaks that we have seen in the industry with other engines over the years. .. Not an issue with STG 1 heads, but the 2's will require a different gasket than the Standard Fel-pro in the future. It will need the gaskets that yours has Adam, the 1125 Performance gasket, with the silicon beads around the water passages. These are considerably more money, and I typically only suggest them for any build, if there is a performance/sealing reason to have them. I also found out why Mike T told me that he rolls a tab of AC/Delco stop leak into each head of every engine he ships. I used to chuckle at that suggestion, but not so much anymore.. and thinking back, he was building STG 2 head engines (since they preceeded the STG 1 Alum head) many years before I was, and I am sure encountered this problem before. After I thought about it for a while, I realized that most STG 2 headed engines I have done have been more race oriented, with better gaskets/more bolts ect.. so it has never been an issue. Fact is, the majority of the stg 2 stuff has had copper head gaskets, with Forcell-Clark silicone applied around the water jackets.. that has been standard proceedure for me since about 2002 with those, and have a 100% no leak record with the STG 2 alum head stuff, up till now. But we live and learn. IN this instance the STG 2 heads were used to fit the motor/headers in the car, so it's more of a mild STG 1 build with STG 2 heads. I am glad to hear your enjoying it Ed, and keep me posted on the situation. JW
Pulled my motor 3 times to work on leaks. Still not perfect but my motor has more holes and lines than your has (let's see Poston pan, supercharger lines, remote reservoir PS uzzled It is really hard to have a leak free motor.
Tough sell to "original customer" (Re: Trusty "billy-goat" Wagon!) Dear Adam, Randall, Jim, Doug and fans of "assertive" Buick wagons, Well today was a very important day and I guess it went as well as could be hoped at this stage - but it was a little "rough." I have been very anxious to allow my mother to get a ride in Biquette. She is after all the person who decided we had to have Biquette back in 1968. She is now 82, frail, and suffering from failing eyesight. Still she was wiling to do the weekly grocery shopping and afterwards a hair-stylist appointment in her "selection of 1968." Alas, Biquette remains a little raw for this sort of duty and the exhaust noise was more than Mom could easily stand. I believe that the engine is louder than it should be. The EZ-EFI system seems to be keeping the mixture a little rich and the engine really only runs well after reaching its operating temperature of 180˚. Much below that, and the engine seems to be labored in its operations. Today's expeditions were almost all surface street drags and it appears that the gas mileage really suffered as well. All this suggests to me that I really need to get up to speed on how the EZ-EFI system works, but alas I ran out of day to do explore that. I think the shakedown period will be lengthy. I've change too many things on the car and the domino effect is starting to get to me. This afternoon, I was trying to understand something about the stereo and discovered that the rear speakers seem to have some distortion with the new stereo. It is a low priority item, but all these things finally need to come together before the car can be really enjoyed. I thought the car was equipped with the standard 180˚ thermostat, but I would have to check to be sure. I'm fairly sure that isn't the problem because the problem happens below 150˚ F. At about 150˚ F, the problem stops. Greg has programmed the EZ-EFI system to control the electric fans and they kick in at a reasonable 195˚. However, I haven't had a chance to dig into the EZ-EFI manual at all. I wanted to figure out a "tiny" problem with the stereo and ended up consuming almost an hour!! ou: Tomorrow won't be as busy, hopefully I'll get to exploring this. Thanks Jim for the rescue!! ray: Perhaps when you are looking over the gasket situation, you might have a peek at a few other things like the EZ-EFI configuration. Just having your trained ear listening while you are driving the car should allow you to diagnose all sorts of things that a "chebby" guy like Greg just cannot be aware of. Greg was out sick on Wednesday. I was hoping to drop by Orinda Motors tomorrow afternoon so that Greg could poke around with his ultraviolet probe to see the dye in the oil. That would already give a better indication of what continues to leak. The leaks are clearly small, I haven't noticed any drop in coolant or oil when I last checked. However, I've been tardy in doing that over the past two days. Sorry it was Biquette's engine that had to teach you this lesson Jim. I suppose it is very unusual to request stage-2 heads without specific performance needs. However, every time I open up the hood I cringe at the idea that these are the - easy - headers to get into this engine bay!! I can't imagine going with any other combination than what you recommended Jim. Honestly, if it wasn't for the I-Did-It steering column, I'm not even sure this combination would practically fit!! Well, . . . . Biquette's engine started leaking . . . . . oh about 1970 or so. It was a long standing tradition to keep a piece of cardboard under all our cars. Periodically we would buy a big appliance like a dishwasher or what-not and Biquette would get real treat - a new cardboard diaper. Well, believe it or not, in 2010 Orinda Motors managed to plug every leak in Biquette's old 300. So after literally 40 years of oil diapers, Biquette was allowed to sleep in the garage without any "depends." So I'll keep trying to get her leak tight. Perhaps it is a dream, but after all - hope springs eternal they say!! Cheers, Edouard :beer P.S. I forgot to mention that it was hot enough to need the air conditioner and . . . . . it didn't work!! ou: I hope it is just a programming problem for the Vintage Air control but certainly not the way to impress Mom . . . . . *Heavy Sigh* . . . .
Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle ? .. it takes a while to sort out any new build - If anyone tells you they didn't have to tweek things after initial reassembly they've missed their calling as a used car salesman Im glad you got to take your Mom for her ride and Im sure she is as well. A few years ago I visited my Mom in BigRed .. we were then going to go visit my dad in the nursing home. When we left her place and walked towards the Buick, she asked if she could drive :eek2: .. So I tossed her the keys o No:ou: Heck, the first 7 years I owned it it lived in their driveway (and appropriately marked its territory)
