wallaby

Power output is the same. The EFI gives benefits at startup, or altitude changes, that a carb can't match. There might be a slight improvement in mileage with EFI, but it's not enough to consider. FYI

The Eastwood chassis black is good stuff. It is in a slightly larger can than normal spray paint, and it has a lot of solids in it. It goes on a bit like a textured coating, then lays down smooth as it dries. Its pretty good at hiding surface defects. (it will cover part numbers and make them invisible) You may not feel the need for a 2nd coat. The textured look when first applied makes me nervous, and it dries slowly. Almost as slow as rustoleum. It does not atomize well as it comes from the can. Instead of a fog it is more like droplets. If it didn't cost so much, I would stock up and get extra as it really is different than the thin runny spray paint you get at the box store. Maybe Eastwood could estimate how much you would need. I have not tried doing any big jobs with it, but would guess 6-8 cans?

I hate going in there with drill bits. Glad it worked for you. It's going to act a bit different with the load of a transmission hooked up, but you are on the right track. Once you have it all together, try to get the idle speed as low as you can. That way, shifting into gear isn't such a shock and the idle will be manageable. Mine likes manifold vacuum; it picks up the speed and then I can dial it down as needed. Once the speed gets reasonable, fine tuning is pretty easy. Oh...the A/F gauge can be a real help, but not at idle. It's good for cruise information or wide open throttle, but lopey cams confuse it and the info isn't accurate. New cars run at leaner cruise settings than you want to aim for. Wide open throttle is pretty standard at 12-12.5.

I heard rumor that the Peggy Sue car show is alive and well in Santa Rosa.

Are you running manifold or ported vacuum to your distributor? Mine has a similar setup and it always shows a rich AF mixture at idle. Mine idles happy at about 12.5 on the gauge. Don't forget that a cam with a bit of lope will mess with the AF gauge..in other words, the gauge can't be trusted. I would start over and forget what the AF gauge is telling you. Your ear can be a better judge of what the engine wants, and you should adjust for the highest vacuum you can get. The timing sounds reasonable, so hopefully it's just a matter of getting the carb adjustments dialed in. There is a possibility that with the low vacuum at idle your primary rods are lifting and making the mixture rich. There are spring options to correct that, but I would hold off on that for now and see if it can be made to run right without having to take the top off the carb again. If you can get the vacuum to come up, it will pull the rods down where they should be and you will regain mixture control from the screws.

If you unhook the wire from the sender, you can test the wire with the voltmeter to make sure it has a voltage there. I don't recall if it is a full 12 volts. Key should be on for the test. With the wire still unhooked, place it somewhere where it can't find a ground. (no meter for this test) Observe gauge reading on dashboard with key on. Now connect the wire to a good ground with a jumper wire. Observe gauge reading on dashboard, key on. Without a ground (open circuit) the gauge should read full in one direction, and with a jumper to ground it should read fully in the other direction. These tests so far only confirm that the dash gauge is functioning properly. To test the sender, it is as you described: Unhook the wire from the sender, and hook one voltmeter lead to the now vacant terminal. The other voltmeter lead goes to a good ground. With the voltmeter set to read resistance (ohms) it should give a reading at this point. Start the engine and let it begin to warm up.; as it warms, the ohm reading on your voltmeter should change as the temps go up. If somehow you have an idiot light sender in there, it's near impossible to test. It would show infinite ohms (indicating no connection to ground) until the engine begins to overheat and reaches the senders' pre-set limit. This would be a temperature above boiling. At that point the sender trips and the meter would show zero oms.

The temp senders are different for gauges vs idiot lights. The sender for idiot lights is just a trigger that turns on the dash light when it reaches a certain preset temperature.. it acts like an on/off switch. The sender for a gauge is different; it behaves more like a dimmer switch or a volume control, and yields a variable signal that ramps up or down as temperatures change. Both the fuel and temp senders control the ground side of the circuit... if you unhook the wire from the sender there should be a voltage in the wire when the key is on. Grounding that wire should get a reaction from the gauge in the dash. Because you have a temp gauge, the fuel and temp circuits work the same way... you have a voltage source going the the gauge and the other side of the gauge is connected to a sending unit which is grounded. The sending unit controls whether the gauge sees a "good" ground, no ground, or something in-between, and the gauge in the dash points accordingly. I'm not sure how the sender might have been changed during your rebuild, you would expect the same part to be reinstalled if it was removed. I am struggling to figure out why the fuel gauge is acting up. Doing engine work shouldn't require messing with the dashboard or the fuel tank, and the fuel gauge circuit isn't connected to the engine anywhere.

Ditto the above. I have adjustable air bags in the rear of mine and can change ride height easily. Zero air offers the best traction for me..any added pressure brings on wheel hop and poor handling issues. I only add air when the trunk is packed full of crap. lol

I have been through the same process with mine. I changed everything ..with little improvement after all that work & expense. My brakes are similar to what you describe; solid, but poor at stopping the car. I often wonder if I'm just spoiled by the brake performance of newer cars and expect the Monte to be similar. I can share what DID work for me to make the brakes work better, but the differences aren't drastic. I never found "the culprit" that was clearly an obvious reason for poor brakes. 1. Brake shoes and pads. The Monte likes a soft lining for better bite and initial grab. The "lifetime", the metalics, and ceramic type of pad materials are far too hard for good braking. They may last forever, but don't offer up much friction. See if you can find a parts house that can supply you with organic linings...these are the old-school type that came with the car, and make your wheels dirty. This was the biggest difference I felt in all the parts changing I did. 2. This is a close 2nd to changing the pads & shoes. Have your drums & rotors resurfaced. I avoided this step for a long time because they looked fine...no groves or anything and they ran true.. and what could go wrong with those chunks of cast iron? Work hardening is an issue, and continuous use seems to just polish the surface making it harder for the linings to grab into. Don't bother to rough them up with a disc sander, you need to take them in and have them put on a lathe and have the hardened surface removed. This also made a difference I could feel. Everything else I did was of little help. I finally went with a hydroboost system, but that came with a different list of issues. It seems to over-boost the brakes and makes them feel very touchy and gives very little pedal feel. If I was still messing with the original booster system, I would be tempted to try the smaller master cylinder listed above for drum brake cars, just to get a bit more mechanical advantage. It might might result in a bit more pedal travel, but also delivers higher line pressure for the same amount of leg effort. It's a pretty low cost experiment.

Oh, that's VortecPro? I have one of his engines and I must be the only one who isn't impressed. I had an engine I built myself that ran nice, but it broke a ring and I opted to start new with an engine from Vortec. I upgraded and had him put in the mahle pistons, and an isky roller cam, and the result is with the new engine the car is a full second + slower in the quarter mile while also losing 5 mpg. Its pretty bad when you go from a low 13 second time (and hoping for 12's) and you land in the mid 14 second area. My original engine was a 468 with domed pistons and merlin oval port heads, and this replacement has probably got flat top mahle pistons and he chose to top it off with ported peanut port heads. There is a huge change in port size from the performer rpm manifold he fitted it with, to the smaller port size of the peanut port head. The poor engine runs well and feels torquey enough, but it looses steam and flattens out at about 4500 rpm. It feels powerful (because its big) but does not feel healthy, and is far from feeling brutal. Another issue I had with Vortec was the lack of an invoice...I have no idea what parts went into my engine except what was mentioned in a couple of brief phone conversations. All I got was a bill and a receipt. I had him supply everything...carburetor, dist, everything...so I knew the dyno numbers were for the engine setup I was actually getting. I think the dyno sheet was wrong, I don't feel like I have 500+ hp or 600 ftlbs. I saw the video you posted, got excited and thought "hey maybe these guys can fix my engine"... but now I find it's the guys that built my engine. Grrr

The choke thermostat is the coil thingy that mounts on the intake. It closes the choke when the engine gets cold, then releases its pull as the engine warms up. Meanwhile, you have the choke pull-off that operates on engine vacuum that is trying to open the choke as soon as the engine starts. It's a tug of war between the two until the engine gets warm, and the choke thermostat gives up the fight. From your description, the two items are working, (or close enough) at the time you are having trouble. You stated that the choke closes as soon as you touch the throttle. That's good. Next, you turn the key and it cranks but doesn't want to start. At this point, the choke pull-off isn't in play, so that isn't an issue yet. So it sounds like either you have too much or too little fuel to get the engine going. Mine does as Bruce described...empty float bowl takes a lot of cranking to refill, then it runs fine until it sits for days again. I smile and assume this is part of the design so I get oil pumped throughout the engine before actually starting. LOL Usually, the well plugs don't get disturbed when doing a rebuild, but sometimes they start to leak down all by themselves with no reason whatsoever. Maybe taking the carb off and filling the float bowls then setting the carb over a glass bowl will reveal if the plugs are leaking. I looked at the Cliffs' website, and the well plug issue is well spoken of. He pulls them out, taps the holes with a bottoming tap, or a tapered tap for the secondaries, then uses marine-tex as a sealant and uses threaded plugs to seal the holes forever. He calls it easy but it sounds difficult to me. I worry about the resultant shavings from threading going places I can never access again. Most of the people posting were those that tried different epoxy types, or JB weld with only temporary success. I see there are replacement WELL PLUGS (The technical name for the part) available, but you have to drill and use a puller to get the old ones out. Who knows if the new replacements will work any better. I might try spray painting that area to act as a sealant next time, as it's thin enough to seep into where it needs to go, and might set up even if some gasoline is in those hairline cracks where the leaks are happening. Epoxy, paint, plugs, having Cliff do it...hmmm..any method will probably take days to dry or set or perform. Those pesky plugs can be a real issue.

So when you go out to start it for the first time of the day, you have to hold the throttle open to get it to start? Does it start ok when you do that, or does it start then die several times before it will keep running? Usually when those plugs leak it drains the float bowls and it takes several attempts, or long periods of cranking to get the fuel pump to refill them before the engine will run on its own. It's possible there is an issue with the choke adjustment, but with a Q-jet, those darn plugs are always a suspect. I heard rumor that there are replacement plugs that have O-rings, but I have never seen any. I have tried several types of epoxy to cure the problem, but its like impossible to get the area clean enough of lingering gasoline for the epoxy to adhere well enough to provide a leak proof seal. Then there is the continuous exposure to fuel...epoxy doesn't like it especially long term. Maybe Cliff Ruggles has a neat solution, I have not talked to him on the subject.

I remember years ago I was shopping for a new battery. I was just browsing what they had on the shelf. A friendly sales guy came up and asked, "what kind of vehicle is it for?" I said "Its for for an old Studebaker truck". He smiled knowingly as he picked up the catalog and said: "oh those old Studebaker trucks were great...Who built those"?

You currently get 19? You don't have much room to complain about that. I can't imagine it getting much better with changes...whatever they may be. If you are going for MPG, it sounds like you have the perfect setup. Maybe you can set up the OD trans so the extra gear is your first gear..and when the trans gets to OD, it lands exactly where your top gear is now. That would require a lower rear gear ratio.. and your cruise RPMs would be just as they are now. You would be guaranteed the same MPG you currently get, but you would have 3 gears below that for better acceleration. The same theory is used with a 3 speed vs 4 speed manual trans. Both transmissions have a 1:1 final top gear ratio, so the cruise rpm is the same. The added gear in the 4 spd resides below that to aid acceleration. I'm just throwing ideas around. My 454 gets 10 mpg. Uphill or downhill.

You can fudge it, and use it as it is, but the neutral safety switch will be confused. You may find you can't start it in neutral. Get the right bracket and adjust it, and all should be good. I usually put the trans in neutral, and the shifter in neutral, and make the adjustment. If you get neutral right, it most likely will travel up to park ok, and then down to low ok;.

Ok, I guess we'll see how those work. I think I have Monroe on mine, but did a KYB monotube on my other car and I might change over to those for the Monte.

oh geez, did the other one break the same way? I never saw a shock break the eyelet off before. Do you have tall springs in the car? I don't think that breakage is from compression, but it sure could be from over-extending. Jack up that corner only until the tire comes off the ground, and see if that shock was long enough to go from point A to point B. If the shock is acting as a mechanical limiter to your suspension travel, it's going to break again.

well, you need a puller to get that darn thing off. It goes further into the engine than you would expect. Might as well replace the front crank seal while you're at it, and then you need an installer tool to put the new one on. You never want to use a hammer to drive the new one on. I know from experience that the hold-down bolt isn't long enough to press the new dampner on. The bolt holds up fine...it's the threads in the nose of the crankshaft that fail.

yes, the original timing specs are conservative, to say the least, in order to meet emissions requirements. Aaron, your method is sound. Keep an open ear as you drive for pinging...especially at light throttle acceleration. I usually hold my revs at about 3000 and adjust my timing by ear...dialing back & forth with the distributor until I get the smoothest engine at that speed, then I lock it down. What I end up with at idle is anybody's guess.

if you can get it to idle down, it won't clunk so hard when you put it in gear, and it won't try to pull you when you are stopped...also reduces engine run-on when you shut it off. Depending on your cam, it may not want to idle that slow. If that's the case, a bit more slip in the converter will let the engine do what it wants without trying to bring the car along. The downside is that mileage drops, and you get less engine braking on deceleration...I hate that. The theory is that more stall will let the engine rev where it makes power, but too much will make it feel as if the engine is taking off without the car... and the car catches up later. They say the quarter mile time slips are better with a high stall, but it can take away from that "seat of the pants" feel of a high torque engine. So it's a double-edge sword. I like the connected feel of a clutch, and a slippery converter takes that away. If you have to go "high stall" only go as far as is required. My advice is to make a phone call and seek advice for your needs...don't buy off the shelf.

Wow. That looks great. I could never do it. Seems like that would be the easy part though...cuz I know somewhere there is a huge pile of dirty parts that need to go to that level and be put back on.

Now if someone has a trick to get the INSIDE mirror to stay adjusted....

You just installed hydroboost? The only problem I had with mine was the return line. I used a bulkhead connector to a flat spot on the side of my PS pump, and it was too close to the fluid level inside and would aerate the fluid. I had to modify the neck on my pump to raise the fluid level to stop that from happening. I still have dreams of welding a different connector near the bottom of the pump, but at the time I didn't have a welder.

A bit of a tangent here...does anyone know if the 71SS bumper has a different part number on it, or is it just a standard bumper with holes drilled in it for the rubber strip?

Are you using rubber or poly bushings? If using poly, you need to use their lube between the inner tube and the bushing material. (the outside of the inner tube). No lube needed for rubber bushings.