No idea on the conversion but it sounds like your enjoying the skinny pedal 
No idea on the conversion but it sounds like your enjoying the skinny pedal
Just posting to say this car is awesome! And thanks for all the updates.
YouTube writeup: "Short collection of clips. 4th week of daily driving after becoming "reasonably" complete. Putting together the "to sort out over winter" list. A whole lot of fun for a low low budget build."
Very nice!
'Sort out over the winter list'......is that what is on the DS rear quarter window?
The stuff on the rear quarter window was just my running list during the build. It was mainly to keep me on track so I didn't get lost, but I didn't really use it.
Over winter:
Do you have the skills to balance the drive shaft? Profit=sell !?!?!?!?!!!!?????
I do not have the machinery to balance the driveshaft.
I shortened the shaft about 5" I think. I don't remember. I merely drilled the spot welds out of the weight at the end I shortened, and re-welded it in the same place after it was shortened. There is a cyclic vibration from the rear that definitely increases with speed, but I can see a wee bit of movement in the rear u-joint. If a new u-joint doesn't fix it, it'll need to be balanced. Front u-joint is new.
I had previously swapped the poly trans mount out to rubber; it made zero difference.
Trans points down 4° and the pinion sits up 3°.
SkinnyG said:YouTube writeup: "Short collection of clips. 4th week of daily driving after becoming "reasonably" complete. Putting together the "to sort out over winter" list. A whole lot of fun for a low low budget build."
Hittin' them corners in them low low's!
Got the latest GRM issue - always puts wind in my sales to see pics of this beastie tucked in there.
I feel very honoured - this is the third time GRM has given a nod in my direction over this project. Thank you so much!
This magazine rocks!
In going through the wiring diagram to add my 8:3 tach adapter, it seems I read the diagram wrong, and in fact, the factory charge light wiring would have worked perfectly fine with the GM alternator. Figures.
8:3 tach adapter w-o-r-k-s..... but it's a bit wandering. I'm looking into it.
Chasing what I thought was a driveline vibration. Trans is down 4°, pinion is up 3°, so it's not that. Both u-joints are now new, so it's not that. Driveshaft wasn't balanced after being shortened, so it might be that, but....
.... it was a very minor vibration on the way to work today, very manageable. Then just to video the wandering tach while parked, the engine vibrated like hell at what would highway rpms. ! Was a NASTY vibration on the highway all the way home from work. But driving home from dinner later that evening, it was very fine.
There is a wee "drunken Chevy" wiggle on the harmonic balancer, but that should be constant vibration, not intermittent. I'm running the engine-specific flex plate that came with the engine/700R4 (never took it off), and it bolted straight up to the TH350 torque converter with zero drama, so I'm doubting that's the issue.
Going to put the scope on the ignition tomorrow and have a look see. They are new plugs, but used cap/rotor/wires. I shall start ruling things out.
Plates also expire tomorrow, so this will be my last commute until spring.
Factory balancer slipped on my 5.0 Mustang while it was in the garage getting a fresh throwout bearing and trans mount. Was sure it was somehow a driveline issue until I changed the balancer almost a year later. Sounds possibly similar but would hate to suggest just throwing parts at the car now.
Haven't done anything new to the car, but a new set of RE-71R's are on the way.
My 12-year-old Kumho 711's can then go to the great parking lot in the sky.
I had insurance for one month. Now that the plates have expired, on to my list of winter fixes.
Step 1: Detroit TrueTrac.
The open diff came out with no drama.
The gamble is whether I can just re-use the original carrier shims and magically have the backlash in spec. If not, I can get a shim kit for about $20.
Except one carrier bearing looks like it's having an issue, so I made sure to inspect the rest. Then becomes the dilemma - do I order up all new bearings, which come with the shims? Or only replace the bearings that are iffy, gamble on shims, only later to buy shims at what would end up collectively costing close to the full price of the kit?
If you have 1 bad bearing the rest are already suspect. In terms of cost of your time and time spent on the road broken down it make sense to just replace all the bearings at once. Then no worries.
Here is the offending bearing. It doesn't look like it has failed per se, it just looks like some brute force installation. They are Timken bearings, so presumably this diff has been previously rebuilt.
I decided to just replace the offending bearing and gamble to see if the factory shims would work with the TrueTrac. I waffled back and forth between this and the full master kit, but in the end decided that this was a toy, not my daily that I need to depend on, and merely changing the bearing ($20) and gambling on shims ($25) is a lot cheaper than the full kit ($150+ locally). And if a bearing lets go, I can deal with it at this time.
So, dropped the SkinnyKids off at their respective youth events, and came home to swap bearings, only I couldn't find my splitter. I swear I had one, so I must have loaned it to someone I trusted. Silly me. Luckily, Princess Auto is open late, and now I have another one.
Guess I'm swapping bearings tomorrow.
Re-using the factory carrier shims gave me 0.003" backlash - not enough (spec: 0.006-0.010"), so I have to order a shim kit.
Depending on what shims you have you could swap them around to get the desired backlash.
Left side is 0.235 and the right side is 0.241, which couldn't be swapped.
I took an extra 0.005 shim from when I did my 12-bolt, trimmed it to fit, and assembled it with that, but it only increased the backlash to 0.005", and was a bugger to install.
I have another 7.5" at work that I'll measure the shims and see if I can use them, then hit up the local truck shop on the way home and see if they have just the shim set. Failing that, another order from Summit and it'll be a week or two before I put this together.
I dropped the driveshaft off at the powertrain store to get balanced. Oh. I guess I could ask there for shims. Duh.
Driveshaft came back. They said it was horribly off - it was out over 0.050" - but they got it a LOT better. They trued/straightened it (but there are no weights welded on, how odd). Said if it's not "good enough," that I'd have to have it re-tubed. Where they had heated it to fix it, is the shiny where I removed the BIG-ASS weights before I brought it to them. They said the prefer to be +/-0.005" at worst, and mine was +/-0.010" or 0.015", I can't remember.
The drivetrain shop didn't have one of them fancy shim kits for the carrier, but I stopped at the truck place and pawed through their stack of smaller used shims (Dana 35 & equivalent), mic'ing a few that could get me close, plus I nicked some from the diff at work. I may see about machining one down on the mill to the thickness I think I need.
Hopefully the work to the driveshaft and the axle reduce the vibration. Sounds like the driveshaft was contributing for sure.
Good news!
The .007" thinner shim I picked up at the truck shop worked perfect with the .007" thicker shim I snagged from work, giving me .008" backlash on a .006-.010" spec!
SkinnyKid1 sanded and painted the diff cover while I put the driveshaft back in; should be all back together soon!
But we have to wait until spring until you can test it?
Well yeah!
I now have 3 of 5 families on my street actually talking to me, and a big hazer in front of all our houses might compromise that.
There was a time that zero folks interacted with me, like I'm the neighbourhood antichrist or something. Not because I sacrifice stray animals in a circle of thirteen candles, heavens no - it's because I don't trim my hedges to the "right" height, and I have modified vehicles.
Nevertheless - I have a few more things on my list to do over winter.
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