The float on the front bowl ( that large white plastic thing in the center ) had completely broken off its hinge... and of course we found this out at 4:30 pm, so all the stores that *would* have the part are already closed for the weekend. :poly127:
Lucked out. We were up at my father's office attempting to fix the server (no go, so fun amounts of stress from that), and my father went to a nearby Vic Hubbard shop and managed to get a new float... I'm going now to try it out. Maybe this weekend wont be a total waste and total shite.
I video taped during the initial start of the engine. It made for some cool footage... especially since my distributor was off 180, so the carb backfired into an atomic sized mushroom of fire
Well, two steps forward, one step back today. Got a bunch of odds and ends taken care of, sorted out a bunch of info regarding the ignition / carb, and we decided to get the front / rear sway bar kit painted / coated and install it soon. The step back... the power steering pump's pulley turned out to be warped, and I'm having a hell of a time trying to find a replacement.
WOW. this is AWESOME. growing up w/a dad that had a 57 chevy, convertible cutlass, 37 roadster, and a 71 mach 1 mustang....all i can say is i can totally appreciate your taste man
Seems three of the spark plug cables were hooked up in the wrong ignition order, amazing it ran at all.. gotta love old school stuff, so much more resilient than new tech. I believe this happened because the paperwork I had for when the ignition wires were ran many months ago may have gotten mixed up with the ignition paperwork I have for the '86 vette... oops.
That being said... holy crap the car sounds awesome. Video will be happening in the next day or two, barring anything major suddenly happening.
The replacement power steering pulley showed up today, so I'll be installing that along with doing a bunch of other stuff tomorrow.
I am glad I can't derive any pleasure what-so-ever from anything vehicular (to me cars are just big, vulgar, loud, and a necessary evil), because this seems like a very expensive hobby.
That said, I have to say your entusiasm is very inspiring and despite my dislike for these things, this is a thread I enjoy following. Keep it up
Hot damn! You went from just some pieces to an actual running car-- I have been following and enjoying this thread. Nice to see it finally all put together and working.
Cody.. dunno, honestly. One of the things I'd like to do when it's all said and done is to take it to one of the local "dyno days" my fellow Corvette aficionados hold, I'm sure they'd love to know as much as I do.
... which actually leads into the current issue.... the car wont move. An hour or so after that was shot, we went to take it out for its inaugural cruise around the neighborhood. We were supposed to take it on Tuesday to get the alignment and brakes done and get the front / rear sway bar kit installed. We got all ready, fired it up, and I put it in gear.... nothing. Revved the motor up some and it lurched forward a few inches, and then nothing more. Since my sis is heading back down to college next week, we might not get a chance to work on it this coming weekend. This whole situation put us easily a good three weeks behind the schedule we had (particularly since it was supposed to be going to the body shop to get tuned and finalized next week).
The issue could be any number of things, just need to start going down the list. :poly142:
I would guess that either your shifter isn't completely adjusted correctly (so you're not fully in drive), or your torque converter is having an issue... either bad, or not engaging. Actually, double check your trans fluid. I'm sure you filled it initially, but one you actually start the car, and get the fluids circulating, the trans will require a touch up.
This is all assuming that you can rev the enjoy, but it's just not moving.... which means the transfer of power is making it through the trans.
If the engine is sounding loaded when you push the throttle, then you may have an issue with your brakes being locked... or the rear axle has an issue (if you did anything to it as part of the restore).
Little update for you guys. Spent most of my 3 day weekend working on the car (ugh...). Managed to drive it a few laps around the cul de sac before the transmission stopped working (I'll upload the vid when I get a chance).
Towed the car over to a local transmission shop this morning, heard back from them saying that the pump in the stall converter is likely damaged, which means they're gonna have to pull the whole transmission out to work on it (read: pricey). Pops was obviously a bit bummed about this, as much about them having to pull out the transmission as the price, but it's gotta get fixed. :poly118:
I'm in a bit of pain, when I was bleeding the brakes last night (they're leaking from somewhere), the 'one man bleeding kit' swung loose, hit me in the eye, and I flinched... smacked my head on the fender then bounced back and smacked the back of my head on the concrete.... fun times. :poly142:
This past week the car was at the transmission shop getting the transmission rebuilt. Seems at some point (we're not sure if it was recently or many years ago) the stall converter got jammed onto the transmission, so the gears inside got moved around and when the car stopped moving the other day, it was because they'd finally chewed themselves up.
Once that was fixed, the car was towed over the brake / alignment shop it was originally destined to go to. It was towed since the brakes were almost non-existing in grip.... after they fixed the brakes, I was told by one of the mechanics that I should never install drum brakes again. (In my defense, it'd been nearly 10 years since those things were taken apart, and the shop manual actually didn't list all the steps that the mechanic pointed out to me.) They've taken care of the brakes, alignment, other odds and ends, and once they've figured out the leak in the power steering, we'll be driving the 'cuda over the the body shop to get a short list of items taken care of.
Sorry, been a tad busy the past two weeks (in Pasadena taking care of the house we bought down there). Right before I left for SoCal we picked the 'cuda up from the body shop. It has the stock hood, valence, and trunk lid on it at the moment as the shop owner didn't get around to putting on the aftermarket goodies before he left. He's sold the insurance repair part of his business off and as of the end of the year is moving down to Hollister (about 50 or so miles south of here) to have a house and custom-built workshop set up for him to do select jobs in it. He wants the car to be complete as much as we do, so we're all looking forward to taking it in around summertime to get the job finished.
As of now, we need to look into the power steering unit (potentially leaking) and a few noises (most likely loose nuts and bolts) that my father noticed when he drove it home from the body shop. It needs to get tuned a bit better by the guy who tuned it for us recently, as my father said it stutters when you gun it to get on to the freeway. Basically, right now, it's drivable, but needs a bit of work.
im trying to restore a 1987 short box chevy truck (plz no comment as to the year) i had my uncle rebuild an engine out of a 1979 chevy truck. its still in the early stages but i hope that it will be a pretty bad ass street truck
Suweeeet! I was just telling my younger cousins yesterday about this car. There was some race car game he was playing and he happened to select a green 67 'cuda.
Keep it up flooj!
The trunk is an aftermarket one, and from talking with the shop owner the bad line-up is to be expected from aftermarket trunks. We're not gonna worry about it at the moment, but we're bouncing between tossing the AAR wing on it or on the original trunk lid.
Very nice car. Is this a cruising around town car? I would have went with a hard top, or at least have the option for roll bars to keep the chassis as stiff as possible when you wanna have some fun.
Yeah, that's where the roll bar comes in, and they sell aftermarket hardtop kits for that car built to OEM spec, you just need to replace both rear quarter panels.
Minor update. My father took my suggestion and got some ignition wire hangers that bolt onto the block. Then he once again listened to a suggestion of mine (SHOCK!) and we put heat-shrink tubing on the red wires, cleans the wires up and blends them in with the other black parts of the engine bay.
Have you seen any of the new Challengers in your area yet? I'm seeing them almost daily now. I'd love to see one of them next to your Cuda, just to compare the styling. (Obviously they don't offer convertibles yet though )
notman... I've seen... one. Black with black stripes SRT8. It's rather sad that I haven't seen more, actually, considering how many my friends have seen. We wholly intend to take it to a Dodge dealership when it's done and park it next to a Challenger.
ae.. going on 11 years now. Car started as just needing the engine dropped back in (dad had parked it for nearly a decade), drove it for a few weeks, and decided that the amount of body work it needed warranted a full rebuild. Many weekends and summers of ripping it apart, cleaning stuff up, getting new parts, getting it worked on and painted, and putting it back together has us at this point. Once again dad and I are busy with other projects so work has kinda stalled at the moment, but should pick up soon.
We took the Barracuda for a shakedown run this morning to come up with a list of things that need to get address, needless to say the list was long. Big issues are the radiator coolant leaking out of the overflow after a run in copious amounts, all of the instrument cluster not working except the odometer, and the numerous noises coming from the suspension and underbody. All of which were known about, but the extent to which the noises were happening cemented in my father and my mind that we're going to be buying a car lift soon. We need to address the issue, and neither of us wants to be laying on the ground while we're doing so.
I was doing chase-car in my 'vette, so I'll be uploading pictures and video tonight when I get home.
Didn't get any vids from driving down the freeway, trying to upload a photo I took from that part but I'm having troubles trying to connect to my site's ftp at the moment.
Side note: Had an interesting idea while having breakfast with my father. We have a second set of tail lights which I picked up on ebay, and I'm thinking I may modify them to support LED's along the horizontal slots... a bit of modern styling on a classic muscle car.
Damn work web-sense... I'll have to check these out when I get home.
Odd that your odometer is working, but not the speedo. Typically they work together It sound like you have a bad thermostat, or the wrong one for your car. That or the radiator is plugged Something is keeping that water from moving
What kind of issues are you having with the undercarriage?
The LEDs would look cool if you can execute them properly They would not only modernize it a bit, but also add that 'custom' touch to it
Replies
Looks like people are having the same ideas though. Adjust the float, or maybe garbage stuck in the needle valve.
The float on the front bowl ( that large white plastic thing in the center ) had completely broken off its hinge... and of course we found this out at 4:30 pm, so all the stores that *would* have the part are already closed for the weekend. :poly127:
A few degrees adjustment on the ignition should have it idling after dinner.
Gonna require quite a bit of tweaking to get it spot on (and keeping an idle), but I can officially say that today it started running.
looks AWESOME
Seems three of the spark plug cables were hooked up in the wrong ignition order, amazing it ran at all.. gotta love old school stuff, so much more resilient than new tech. I believe this happened because the paperwork I had for when the ignition wires were ran many months ago may have gotten mixed up with the ignition paperwork I have for the '86 vette... oops.
That being said... holy crap the car sounds awesome. Video will be happening in the next day or two, barring anything major suddenly happening.
The replacement power steering pulley showed up today, so I'll be installing that along with doing a bunch of other stuff tomorrow.
That said, I have to say your entusiasm is very inspiring and despite my dislike for these things, this is a thread I enjoy following. Keep it up
... which actually leads into the current issue.... the car wont move. An hour or so after that was shot, we went to take it out for its inaugural cruise around the neighborhood. We were supposed to take it on Tuesday to get the alignment and brakes done and get the front / rear sway bar kit installed. We got all ready, fired it up, and I put it in gear.... nothing. Revved the motor up some and it lurched forward a few inches, and then nothing more. Since my sis is heading back down to college next week, we might not get a chance to work on it this coming weekend. This whole situation put us easily a good three weeks behind the schedule we had (particularly since it was supposed to be going to the body shop to get tuned and finalized next week).
The issue could be any number of things, just need to start going down the list. :poly142:
This is all assuming that you can rev the enjoy, but it's just not moving.... which means the transfer of power is making it through the trans.
If the engine is sounding loaded when you push the throttle, then you may have an issue with your brakes being locked... or the rear axle has an issue (if you did anything to it as part of the restore).
Towed the car over to a local transmission shop this morning, heard back from them saying that the pump in the stall converter is likely damaged, which means they're gonna have to pull the whole transmission out to work on it (read: pricey). Pops was obviously a bit bummed about this, as much about them having to pull out the transmission as the price, but it's gotta get fixed. :poly118:
I'm in a bit of pain, when I was bleeding the brakes last night (they're leaking from somewhere), the 'one man bleeding kit' swung loose, hit me in the eye, and I flinched... smacked my head on the fender then bounced back and smacked the back of my head on the concrete.... fun times. :poly142:
This past week the car was at the transmission shop getting the transmission rebuilt. Seems at some point (we're not sure if it was recently or many years ago) the stall converter got jammed onto the transmission, so the gears inside got moved around and when the car stopped moving the other day, it was because they'd finally chewed themselves up.
Once that was fixed, the car was towed over the brake / alignment shop it was originally destined to go to. It was towed since the brakes were almost non-existing in grip.... after they fixed the brakes, I was told by one of the mechanics that I should never install drum brakes again. (In my defense, it'd been nearly 10 years since those things were taken apart, and the shop manual actually didn't list all the steps that the mechanic pointed out to me.) They've taken care of the brakes, alignment, other odds and ends, and once they've figured out the leak in the power steering, we'll be driving the 'cuda over the the body shop to get a short list of items taken care of.
As of now, we need to look into the power steering unit (potentially leaking) and a few noises (most likely loose nuts and bolts) that my father noticed when he drove it home from the body shop. It needs to get tuned a bit better by the guy who tuned it for us recently, as my father said it stutters when you gun it to get on to the freeway. Basically, right now, it's drivable, but needs a bit of work.
im trying to restore a 1987 short box chevy truck (plz no comment as to the year) i had my uncle rebuild an engine out of a 1979 chevy truck. its still in the early stages but i hope that it will be a pretty bad ass street truck
EDIT: My father requested that I take the image of the bad trunk lining up down from here.
Keep it up flooj!
Coworker's looking to get himself a '69 Charger, so been having fun helping him figure the ins and outs of what to look for.
notman... I've seen... one. Black with black stripes SRT8. It's rather sad that I haven't seen more, actually, considering how many my friends have seen. We wholly intend to take it to a Dodge dealership when it's done and park it next to a Challenger.
ae.. going on 11 years now. Car started as just needing the engine dropped back in (dad had parked it for nearly a decade), drove it for a few weeks, and decided that the amount of body work it needed warranted a full rebuild. Many weekends and summers of ripping it apart, cleaning stuff up, getting new parts, getting it worked on and painted, and putting it back together has us at this point. Once again dad and I are busy with other projects so work has kinda stalled at the moment, but should pick up soon.
I was doing chase-car in my 'vette, so I'll be uploading pictures and video tonight when I get home.
[ame]
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Didn't get any vids from driving down the freeway, trying to upload a photo I took from that part but I'm having troubles trying to connect to my site's ftp at the moment.
Side note: Had an interesting idea while having breakfast with my father. We have a second set of tail lights which I picked up on ebay, and I'm thinking I may modify them to support LED's along the horizontal slots... a bit of modern styling on a classic muscle car.
Odd that your odometer is working, but not the speedo. Typically they work together
What kind of issues are you having with the undercarriage?
The LEDs would look cool if you can execute them properly