Kevin Wiles

i'll have to wait til i can borrow a puller to pull the pitman arm ,... but in the meantime... Tonight i lifted the car again and with it NOT running, it turned smooth as silk left and right, i went back and forth at least 20 times, realllll nice, no vibration, nothing like that. then i cranked the car and did the same, left right, smooth, nice. shut the engine off and tried it again.... turning the wheel with the engine off. It starts to feel a little like it did last night, harder to steer to the left... vibration, a little noise.. then Gurgle, hiss, sploosh. check the floor. fluid all over. maybe i had it overfilled, , i DONT KNOW but it sure doesn't seem normal to me for a NON RUNNING car's steering fluid to rise when the wheel is turned... is it normal? again I DONT KNOW So i dry that fluid up and wipe everything dry to see if i can figure out where its coming from. Well, its coming from the top. at the filler neck, its overflowing. its almost like its building up pressure or like theres something stopping up the system and the fluid has nowhere to go except thru the top. but anyway.... long story short: after sitting overnight it felt good, then bad, then started leaking. And i'm trying to get a pitman arm puller rented to further diagnose... but, does any of this new info tell you anything?

I have a steering problem. When I turn to the LEFT it feels like i have lost power steering, and sometimes I feel a herky jerky in the steering. So I felt like I probably had air in the system. I raised the front end of the car to bleed the system and when I started to turn the wheel, I got an unpleasant surprise. With the engine NOT running, and the front wheels OFF the ground, it is easy to turn the wheel to the right, but when you turn left there is some resistance. You can feel a bit of a grinding. Me and jared both felt it. Even if you lean up against the car you can feel a vibration throughout the whole car when you turn the wheel left. which is odd with the engine off and the wheels in the air...... So what I thought was a power steering PUMP problem is something else all along. What do you diagnose?

ok then. thanks! The ones I have are from a corvette

edit: here are some pics showing the difference but WHICH IS WHICH?? one is flat and the other is deep inset

You know the monte carlo turbine hubcaps??? They also came on corvettes. I remember there is a slight difference in the center. Can someone explain the difference and tell me which is which? And by the way, once I figure that out, I will have a set of 4 for sale.

Hi I'm glad you like it. I also like the way it turned out "looks-wise" but it took a lot of work, and there is no definitive way of making it happen exactly the same because I started with parts of unknown origin, then modified them on top of that.... so with that being said.. .I went back and found this old post that I typed out the last time someone asked about it. (as a side note, the coke machine has not moved an inch in several months, i took the seats out to put rubber floorboards in and have been too lazy and cheapskate-ish to finish the job) "the suspension on the coke machine is really buggered up and i would not recommend it to anyone. To get the stance of the coke machine you have to cut the fenders. there is no way they will fit without it. Cutting the fenders makes the fenders lose all their structural integrity and they warp up badly. I had to reinforce the wheel lips with a curved rod. It was crazy. The coil springs that were already in the car are of unknown origin. They were very tall, even with the big block in place. I cut 2 coils out. The spindles are I THINK out of a 69 camaro with drums. The stock a-arms are all contorted out of place and the ball joints look like they are at a dangerous angle. I plan on someday making vast improvements to the geometry of the suspension. It was done all wrong to tell you the truth"

awesome collection, wish i had a way of displaying some of my stuff

Jared, did you raise enough money to come up with my appearance fee?

I Like this idea . thumbs up. My dash is flat black painted, i won't be doing any bare metal there, so no sun glare here. amazingly i've never had a glare problem with my aluminum interior.

Back when the coke machine was in the shop for the rollcage, i don't think the doors were on it, and the cage builder didnt realize it but now when the door is on, even with the thin aluminum sheet metal door panels, it hits the cage when the door is shut. and you have to slam it to get it to close. So now I've got this big idea that I wanna do "engine turning" on all my aluminum interior panels. Thats where you make overlapping brushed swirls in the metal. But before I do all that beautification I need to address the problem of the aluminum door panel hitting the rollcage, cause its putting a dent in the panel... soooo.. and this is CRAZY but... do you think I could take an enormous sledge hammer, you know the ones with the long handle, and hit the rollcage and bend it over about 1/2 inch? or would I just be flattening the tube like an idiot? hard to tell without trying.... But if that works I can easily make a new panel and "engine turn" it and have no denting problem. here is a picture of the drivers side. the problem is on the passenger side, which has only 2 horizontal bars instead of 3. only the top bar is hitting. sorry i dont have a current pic but you'll get the idea.

for some reason I just saw this post for the first time. Very interesting stuff. Never ever knew that. Its one of those things that I dont believe has ever been brought up here in our 11 year history. Cool

the carb is rebuilt and is is purring smooth as silk now. rebuilt the carb with a custom kit from cliffs q-jet website. During the rebuild I did all the tricks like seating the check ball with a punch, (using an old check ball), enlarging some of the little holes in there, making the throttle blades open directly up to a perfect 90 degree angle, I also modded it where APT (adjustable part throttle, only on later model q-jets, not on our 70-72's) can be adjusted from the outside of the carb. I put brass bushings where the primary shaft goes. Gave it a good cleaning, even went as far as to remove the idle tubes. Polished the bores for the power piston and pump. After reading the book and studying web pages, and getting to know the carb, I oculd do another in much less time and now that I have some special tools, for much less money. (PS- I did not have to epoxy anything, as this carb is a later model and they had better ways of sealing the plugs) My other monte will need the epoxy. Anyway, success! It is running great!

the carb thats on it now, came with the engine i bought used. it used to run right, so i'm assuming it will run right again with some work. i bought the "how to rebuild and modify rochester quadrajet carbs" book by Ruggles. It should come in soon, I'll start by reading that.

putting the other carb on makes it run PERFECT. Now i have finally found the answer to "what is wrong with my engine". The carb. Now I have a decision to make. Buy the book everyone praises so much and learn how to rebuild this one... or simply buy a reman.....

i can hardly wait either. i'm dying here to know. and what makes it worse is the small amount of time per day that I actually get to work on it, and the large amount of time I have per day that I have to think about it.

ok here's what i'm doing today. I'm taking the side inlet carb off my other monte. i'm going to rig up a rubber hose that will curve around to the front inlet fuel line thats on the coke machine. if the engine runs fine on that carb, i'll be rebuilding or buying a new carb. this will help narrow it down.

It has been doing this for over 2 years and I'm just now getting around to fixing it. It seems like it ran pretty good while I was in charlotte for the 10th annual fgmcc meet, but started acting up on my 2 hour drive home. And it does run BETTER while cold and with full choke. Putting the rag over the carb is just like partially choking it. And it runs better at idle with the rag. While driving seems to run just "ok" when you have the gas pedal depressed, accelerating, but as soon as you lift or go a steady speed, its pop sputter and spit.

it sits and does little pops and muffled quiet misfires during idle, but backfires and spits and pops while driving especially when letting off the gas. overall just doesnt seem like its running like it should be.

i could but most of them have that side loading fuel line, notice this one has a front loader. See pic. My other monte has a quadrajet but its the common side loader. I would love to find someone with a known good front loader. (also see my edited response above)

i have been trying 4 days to figure this out. I just can't do it! can't figure this one out fellas..... i'm very stumped, and i'm very confused. I did find this online though.... http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vintag...pen-square.html and then i read somewhere else where the 4 hole gaskets will just slightly improve low end torque and possibly improve mpg's. I have found nothing online that says this gap and open area created between the carb and intake will create a stumble. I guess now I pull the intake and look at the intake manifold gaskets. Because, in review, I'm definetely getting a vaccuum leak, and spraying to locate it has not turned up anything....

ok i thought maybe air was getting somewhere it wasnt supposed to or something.... i was gonna pick up this type of gasket to see if it helped me .... but if you say thats no problem..... i need to continue troubleshooting.. this is the kind i was thinking i needed to get:

maybe i am using the wrong terminology. here is what my intake looks like: and here is my carb and what I BELIEVE COULD BE whats causing me these problems. It is an open gasket, as opposed to a 4 hole gasket. My question is, does this matter?

ok brace yourself everyone, i'm about to ask a really really dumb question. Is it ok to run an open spreadbore gasket on a regular 4 hole intake with a quadrajet? I'm assuming the answer is no. *runs and hides*

anyone else got any ideas? i'm gonna try a couple more things tonight and if i can't figure it out, i may have to pull the intake and look at the gasket. the gasket could be messed up on the block side, where no carb cleaner will get to it. or perhaps the carb is leaking vaccum inside somewhere. still baffled here....

i sprayed carb cleaner all over the front back and sides of the carb with no improvement in idle. i also sprayed it all around the edge of the intake manifold with no improvement in idle. could this be due to a vac leak INSIDE the carb? is it safe to say i need a new carb? of course, spraying the carb cleaner into the carb helps the idle..... wish i could just switch the carb from my other monte, but it has a side loader fuel line, whereas this coke car has a front loading line. if i have to get a new carb, will i need a new line? or do they make an adapter? i'm googling around now....