wallaby

I also like the airlift. You can adjust as much as you want, and keep the stance even with heavy stuff in the trunk.

Here is a pic. Of course this engine is upside-down, but it gives you an idea of the stuff lurking inside under the cover. The engine stand is bolted to the rear of the engine, and you can see two counterweights at the front of the engine that would be hanging down pretty far. You would need to rotate the engine 1/4 turn to get them to go up into the engine so you could remove the pan while the engine is in the car. In one position the connecting rods are down, and 1/2 turn later the counterweights are down. You need to find the best position to get everything as far up as possible. The issue is at the front of the motor...don't worry what's happening at the back. The pan removal isn't hard at all when the engine is out: it unbolts and drops straight down. The problem is that when the engine is in the car, there is a crossmember in the way that prevents you from dropping the front of the pan downward far enough. This photo shows the rear of the engine with the oil pump and pickup still in place...that's more stuff in there that will be in your way. There's no way to remove the oil pump/pickup without removing the pan first.

Here is a pic. The rearmost belt on the crank pulley should go to the AC, and down around the rear PS groove. The middle crank belt goes direct to the forward PS groove. The forward crank belt goes around the water pump and alternator. When installing, the power steering belt needs to be tightened before the AC belt.

It's just not as straight-forward as it looks. You see the bolts around the edges and figure it can be done with 1 or 2 sockets and an hours time. The part you DON'T see is all the stuff inside that the pan covers. That "stuff" is a crankshaft and a bunch of connecting rods and counterweights, etc, and it all hangs down almost as low as the pan does. It isn't going to go anywhere...meaning you're going to have to finagle the pan out with all that stuff in the way of making it easy. You'll probably have to raise the engine some so the pan can drop further down before it hits the crossmember, and probably have to rotate the engine so the stuff inside is in its upmost position to give you enough clearance to shoehorn it out of there. Sometimes the replacement gaskets can give you grief. It can be done, but it isn't as simple as it looks. There's your heads-up.

I would think that the outlet where the cooler line goes would be a good spot if you need flow of hot fluid. The return line would be cooler of course. The best spot for average is in the pan where the fluid pools. There are probably higher temp areas of the trans, where the oil gets very hot as it's used as a coolant, or in the converter where it is absorbing energy, but you don't want to know about those...you want to know the temp of the oil reservoir. The same would probably apply for oil temp: you don't want to know how hot your rocker arms are, or the bottoms of your piston domes, as there are always hot spots that get bathed with oil as a coolant. (Another example is valve springs.. no friction there to require oil, but they get very hot so oil is poured over them to carry away the heat). You just want to make sure your supply of cool oil is within limits and that supply is in the pan. There's my theory.

Wow. I could live with that if it doesn't overheat in traffic. LOL. It was 94 here today, and summer is coming! I don't know about the correction thing...I see roughly 750/750. That has to be nice.

Wow. That looks like oil fouling. Rich fuel mixture will make the plugs dark in color, but not leave much clumpy deposit like seen in your picture. You can put in fresh plugs, and ask for a hotter plug. That will help fend off some of the crud buildup. Do you have some cylinders that look different? Maybe only select cylinders need the hotter plug. Start with the fresh plugs first, and see how it runs....you may not have a carb issue at all.

I agree with the above: it sounds like a fuel mixture problem, and it takes a bunch of timing to overcome the issue. It could be a vacuum leak, or idle mixture screws wrongly adjusted...any number of things including valve adjustment. Double check the obvious stuff first. Make sure you have the firing order right, and points set right (if you have 'em). Dial the engine speed down as low as it will go and still run, then try cupping your hand over the carb opening to choke off some air. Does it like that? If it does it could be a clue to having the mixture screws too far in, or a vacuum leak. Qjets have a problem where the throttle shafts get sloppy in the carb base and cause vacuum leaks, but it's not normally as bad as you describe. Check the teperature of the exhaust coming out the tailpipe, does it feel dry and blazing hot? Right now at 1200rpm the carb is running in a transition period where both the idle mixture and main circuit are in use. Your goal is to slow it down so only the idle circuit is being used. It's impossible to tune when the rpms are so high. Slow the engine down as best you can, then make adjustments. If it likes what you do it will speed up, and you can turn it back down and adjust again. Changing the carb for one that's known to be good isn't a bad idea. Sometimes the battle is easier when you know what the problem ISN'T. Unless you are running a points-type distributor, I'd expect that to be one of the last places you'd find a problem.

Not sure about the small block cars; my big-block is just as Sam described. The water pump pulley is a single groove, and the PS pump is double groove.

I think everything is the same except the width of the rear. You would get the better fit with the Chevelle lines, IMO.

You can use a piggyback spade connector, and have both wires going to that terminal. Most autoparts stores have 'em.

Ok, this was different from what I'm used to. With a Q-jet you can change jets or rods without removing the carb and no spilled fuel. The Holley is a bit different. I should have just removed the carb and done everything on the bench from the get-go. With that minor gripe out of the way, the re-jet project went well today. The carb had #72 primary jets and was too rich at cruise (13.4), so I went down two steps to a #70, hoping to see a 14-something mixture at cruise. The carb ran lean at WOT to begin with (13.4) and with the new leaner jets in the primaries, I figured 4 steps up would be a good starting point for the secondary jetting. The seconary side had #75 in them, so I went up to a #79. Everything checked ok at idle afterwards, and I was able to get a leaner idle mixture and get rid of the smelly fumes I had before. Time for the test drive. OMG this made a difference: not only did I get a cruise mixture in the low to mid 14's, and a WOT mixture in the mid to upper 12's, but this thing came alive and I can feel a difference in the seat of my pants! The WOT condition has really improved. It must have been hungry for fuel; I broke the tires loose on a 2-3 shift and don't remember that happening before! It's almost as if the secondaries hadn't been opening before....but now I hear a distinctive growl from under the hood, and the engine pulls like a freight train. There's no doubt they're opening now. I still need to spend some time driving it to see if it likes where I've set it, but so far there has been a great improvement in just a couple of jet sizes. Thanks everyone for helping with this.

You're pretty much locked in with your front setup (however that turns out), so the adjustment is going to be in the back. I am running 1" lowering springs all around, and it seems to me that the rear sits a little low for my liking (but it rides nice). I simply added some helper air bags in the rear and I can raise it some if I want. The bags aren't designed to add lift like air shocks, but instead are designed to carry weight...still you will get about 3 or 4 inches to play with. With too much air they tend to be kinda harsh in the ride department, but if you plumb them with seperate fillers instead of using their included Tee fitting, they will help with roll control and you can preload one side if you want for better traction. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/air-60844

Wow! that looks nice, but then I'd have to have my bumpers redone.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been showing the vid to my friends. Geez, seems like yesterday this photo was the big news! .

Sometimes there is pressure in the steering linkage that is trying to rotate the steering wheel...the key switch doesn't want to turn out of the lock position with that load against it. Make sure you try rotating the steering wheel both left & right as you try turning the key, it might unload the system and let you turn the key. I used to see this all the time if a car was parked against a curb, or if the wheels were turned at the moment of shutdown. I think the tires are being asked to turn, but are still in solid contact with the ground...the rubber in the tires is flexed and at that moment you shut off the car and engaged the steering lock. Anyway, try to muscle the steering wheel one way or the other as you turn the key.

Most auto parts stores will have the flasher. You want the "electronic" flasher. The old type we are used to are a thermal type and use the load from the bulbs to heat a bi-metalic strip inside to bend and open the contact...as the strip then cools it closes the contact and begins heating up again. Flashing x-mas bulbs used the same mechanism. LED bulbs don't draw enough current to heat the strip, so this flasher doesn't work. The electronic type of flasher uses a timer circuit to pulse the output, so load from the bulbs isn't a concern. The downside? Often times the electronic flashers don't have the familiar click click sound as they work...and they flash at a constant rate regardless of load, so if you have a bulb burn out it's not like suddenly the blink rate changes to give you a clue.

That's good to know. I guess I can live with messy wires if the engine runs right. I stayed away from those caps just on design theory: You want to keep the seperate conductors as far apart as possible. When they switched to high energy ignitions, they used a larger diameter cap just to get everything spread out to eliminate cross firing. Ford kept the small distributor, but used a 2-piece cap with a large diameter lid to get the terminals away from each other. Then along comes this solution that has conductors cris-crossing in the cap...there isn't much room to keep them seperated as one must pass over the other within the confines of the plastic above the rotor. It just sounded like a bad idea electrically.

From what I understand, they don't make it any more. It was banned years ago for fear of the ozone layer and whatever surplus there is floating around can only be bought in 30lb bottles by a licensed AC tech. My local garage deals with a lot of old cars, and he gets it at swap meets and such, but the cost is high. The bottom line is you can't buy it...but you may be able to find someone who can install it for you if they have some.

There are a number of tricks that can be used to deal with detonation, but with 12:1 compression they won't ammount to a hill of beans. Going conservative on camshaft will make matters worse. If you chose a cam with more overlap, it will bleed off some of the pressure, but at a loss of low-end power and mileage. Going to a dual-plane intake might make things worse as well, being they are designed to get maximum cylinder filling at lower speeds (compared to a single plane). Make sure you aren't running lean on your fuel mixture. When do you experience the detonation? At light loads, or just under heavy throttle?

Well, if you've ever used one of those spray aluminum wheel cleaners, you know the result: nice clean aluminum that looks white. There is a chemical etching that takes place. It's as if the cleaner attacks the aluminum insted of the dirt. Restoring it back to a silver polished surface is probably harder than it was before using the cleaner. If you have some scrap pieces, you can experiment. It sounds like a lot of work.

Not sure how to do a definitive test. It seems that they used stainless to trim the cabin area: the window surrounds, drip rail moldings, optional wide belt moldings, and the big piece at the base of the windshield are all of stainless. The rally wheel trim rings are also stainless, but tricky to acid bathe because of the attatched steel clips. Pretty much everything else is either chromed metal, or clear anodized aluminum. The sill plates, lower 13pc moldings, wheel opening trim, and trunk edge trim are all aluminum. I don't know of a way to remove the anodizing without a corrosive effect on the aluminum.

I love Summit racing, and was going to post a link, but that Rock Auto place has a better price. I didn't go as far as to figure tax & shipping. Shop around, they are easy to get. OPG isn't even on my radar.

The tricky part is the supports in the corners. Once you have those made, the paneling goes in easy. Then you just add some decorator touches...

Does the car have fresh gas in it? My motorcycles run like crap after sitting thru the winter, fresh gas fixes that. To be honest, when I read your symptoms I thought valve spring. A broken spring can have enough strength to run at low speed, but be way too weak to run at faster speeds. I had one break and it gave me fits trying to figure out what happened...the break was hard to see. Anyway, it's something else to look for.