Tag Archives: Art Car

Chasing Down Leaks – My ’70 Mustang

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One thing I really hate is a leaky car.  I don’t like it when stuff leaks inside the car and I don’t like it when stuff leaks out of the car. 

I have a friend that alway says…”Hey…old cars leak.  That’s just what they do.”   To this I normally just respond with “Yeah…I guess so.”  I say this because he has pride in his work he does on his cars and I’m not going to poke at him about it. 

What I want to say is “Bullstuff!!!!” Not this day in age, there all kinds of reproduction parts and hoses that can be molded and even entire businesses that make custom hoses.  If it’s a gasket that’s leaking you can make your own, there’s all kind of gasket material on the market. 

If you remember back a bunch of post ago, you may recall my power steering issue with my C4 Vette.  Oh…yes…my poor old vette (which now has a new home), leaking everywhere!!!!.  I hated that, but it was all fixable, right down to having a place in town customize a power steering hose ( it didn’t actually get that far, the oddly shaped hose turned out to not be the issue.). 

The reality is that chasing down a leak is sometimes difficult, almost always time-consuming and the likelihood that it will be expensive is high.  So, no old cars don’t have to leak.  

What old cars do do (that’s just as funny to type as it is to say) is vibrate.  My ’70 Mustang is mostly stock parts, with the exception of polyurethane motor mounts, and it will shake stuff loose, is it a pretty raw machine.  A good portion of leaks can be attributed to that alone. 

A few weeks ago, I notice a dime sized dot of oil in my driveway….errrkkk….no I’m not a neat freak, my drive has spots (been meaning to get it power washed), but with my older cars I like to keep an eye out for issues.  So I climbed under the car and looked around and it appeared that the leak might be from the oil plug it’s self.   So I grab my 5/8 ” open end wrench and gave it a bit of a crank.  Now you have to be careful, especially with the type of oil pan I have (aftermarket chrome)  as it can get out of shape if you over torque the drain plug and really leak. I wiped down the pan so I could tell later on if there might be another leak. 

Chrome Oil Pan and Plug

 

A few drives later I noticed another dime size drip. Only this time  it was a bit further back.  OF NOTE:  My driveway is sloped, and pretty good incline at that.  This causes a bit of a problem determining exactly where liquid might originate, that whole gravity thing, ya know.  This drip did seem a bit further back then the last. 

Again I check the oil pan and this time the oil pan gasket between the engine and the block. Nope no oil.  So I go topside and start checking the  valve covers.  And sure enough there, there appears to be a leak in the rear of the left value cover.  Not really a big deal, looks like it’ll just need new valve cover gasket, this 302 engine is wide open in the engine bay with lots of room (nothing like the 84 Vette was to get to). 

Lots of room in this engine bay to work.

 

Valve Cover, you can see the bit of oil grunge along the bottom.

 

 I then recalled that FelPro gaskets were used and I specifically chose the type used on drag cars, designed so that you can pop the valve covers over between heats to make adjustments.  This particular set of valve covers that I purchased when restoring the car came with bolts that tighten with an allen wrench. 

Screw with allen wrench (or hex wrench).

 

 Just in case: 

Allen Wrench/Hex Wrench

 

Hexagon end of allen wrench

 

So I thought…to myself (really….can you think to anyone else?) “I wonder if they are all tight?”  Sure enough they were all loose.  Hence the oil leak.   I tightened them all down, wiped down the engine where I could reach and drove it a couple of days. No leaks!!!  Now I make it a habit to check those every so often.  This is BTW a good tip if you drive your muscle or vintage car.  

Now the latest leak, I noticed a couple of days ago.  I check the liquid laying in my drive (only about the size of a quarter) and it was power steering fluid.  I’m thinking oh…NO..not again!!!  I didn’t even look under the car and went straight to the computer and did a quick search for new power steering parts for my 70 Mustang. What I found wasn’t horrible, as in, well no retirement for me, got to fix up this ‘stang, but bad enough price wise to see if it was repairable. 

So I crawled under the Mustang (or hunk of iron, as my wife calls it…or maybe she was calling me the hunk  :^ ) and took a look.  Yup, there was a leak but it appeared to be coming from the flared steel hose fitting going into the power steering unit. 

Steel hose and the leaky mess.

 

A couple turns with a 1/2″ open end wrench and again wiped down area.   I keep checking back to see if any new leaks appear. 

I can say… right now…. that my 70 Mustang doesn’t leak….I don’t think!!! 

So now I stand corrected, sort of.  Old car do leak, hey new cars leak!!  However, they don’t have to stay that way.  

Tips: 

1.  Check under your muscle or vintage car for any liquid (hey…it’s ok if is just water from you AC..usually) on a regular basis. 

2.  Get under the hood and after your ooo’ss and aaahhh’s at your magnificent creation, tight things up. ( I always ooo  and  aaahhh!!!) 

3. Get the car up in the air “”SAFELY”” and check the fittings you can’t see or reach from the top side. 

4. Chase down the leaks and clean the area to make checking for a continued leak easier. 

Thanks for reading. 

Tim

Corvette Consternation Part 3 Fuel Foley

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Let’s recap for a minute: 

1.  Rack and pinion failure 

2.  Power steering leak 

3. Electrical system failure 

As you know the electrical system failure was the alternator and it was replaced. 

A now the story continues…… 

I picked the car up and it started fine, even had power to flip the lights up (it could do that when I dropped it off) and I drive two miles home.  It ran just horrible. No power at all.  That was worrisome. 

Now the ’84 Vette has  a very simplistic computer that controls the fuel injectors and it does take a bit after a “power outage” for it to get the mixture correct.  This should happen after a couple of miles.  Well by the time I got home there was no change in the how utterly horrible it ran.  So I took it for another spin and still no change. 

So I disconnect the battery for a few minutes and then tried it again…still the Vette could barely keep idle and giving it gas made it shake and the idle dropped to 400, 500 rpm.  So I thought ..ok..I’ll drive it to work in the morning and see if the 10 + miles will straighten it. 

Next morning, a Volkswagen bus filled with 40 people could have passed me like I was up on blocks!!!! 

Ok…at this point I’m getting a little bit…P.O.’ed…(that’s short for…oh..you know what it’s short for!!)  I call up my guys and I explain my displeasure.  My take was that they should have test driven the car and that they have had the damn (that’s short for @#$@#%%!!!!!) thing enough to know that it wasn’t running right.  I expanded on my thoughts in person when I limped the car back there after work..which was not a great day…which might have contributed to my disposition.  Sorry Sean, but you ya know noting but love…its all good dude….Sean later told me I hurt the only “feeling” he had…I told him to get over it.  They had a new guy there and he was the one that test drove it after the electrical work. 

This was the start of a 3 day, all hands on deck, WTH…(that’s short for “What The Heck” >wink?<…I didn’t want to push the envelope with the “bad words”, because I would have had to add “put the kids to bed ..I’m about to use some adult verbiage”) is wrong with this car!!! 

I’m thinking it’s still electrical, computer was F ‘ed (short for “fried”) or there was a short somewhere.  I ended up at the garage a couple of nights after work poking around a bit – Tim Sisk the guy that runs the places is good about that.  

So here is what was happened. 

 It appears that the evap system that is supposed to take the fumes from the gas tank for emissions was filling up with fuel every now and then.  This system is supposed to push the fumes through a canister filled with charcoal and remove some of the harmful particles.  Of course it doesn’t stop there the “cleaner” fumes then are pass back into the intake manifold to be “re-burned” and sent out in the world through the Vettes exhaust system.  This simple hose highway runs along the entire length of the car and isn’t designed to handle fuel.  

The end result was fuel running through the hose design for only fumes, traveled the hose highway all the way to the front of  the car,  filling the charcoal canister – which wasn’t designed to hold gasoline.  Once full the gas has not where to go but across the engine, just following Avenue Hose, and dumping fuel directly in to the intake.  That’s the cause of the poor (understatement) idling and running. The car was drowning in fuel. 

Canister - now rendered useless.

 

How does this happen? Well it occurs when too much pressure builds up in the fuel tank.  The venting of the fumes is supposed to prevent that. Once the pressure builds, which doesn’t take long with a full fuel tank, the gas has to go somewhere, so it takes a trip up the evap hose. 

Now, here is where a guy starts to wonder  WTH (short for….) am I doing with a one off car???!!!  Really the 84 Vette is a one off production year.  There were not ’83 Corvettes sold and although it has the same basic engine as the ’82 Covertte crossfires, nothing else was the same, and the ’85 Vette was an entirely different animal.  This leads to a fairly significant lack of printed knowledge on the system..this many years out.  Why do I mention this?  Because it’s tough to find the knowledge after this long and the newer repair books treat the ’84 systems as ..”oh yeah..it’s not the same as the ’85 or the “L83 (my engine) is similar.”  Gee..thanks for that.  But it is different and it’s not similar in many ways. 

Here is one.  

The fuel tank on ’85 Vette has what is called a check valve with allows vapor to travel through it, but if fluid enters it, a small ball is pushed by the denser liquid to a point where it will block the hole.  There is a diagram of that in many of the new  repair books.  But there are none for the ’84, and no, upon actually view the parts, you aren’t going to see anything that looks like the ’85 check valve. 

Ok..armed with is knowledge, I showed up at the garage and share the info.  This left us all scratching our heads.  There seemed not logical reason for pressure to build up. There is only the fuel pump down there (that we tested in a bucket of fuel and worked as it should)  there was only one other fuel delivery system was the “limp home” system which use the oil sending unit to push just enough, when the tank was low or fuel pump failed, to get you home or a repair shop. 

This lead into the third day, at which point the fuel module was removed from the tank again and it was discovered that there was indeed a check valve. 

There is a check valve built-in to the fuel module, it had a piece something (appeared to be plastic or maybe rubber) lodged in it large enough to keep the ball in a position where the it increased the pressure so much that sent it shooting fuel out up the vacuum line.  It was incorporated into the system in a way that was not conducive to separate replacement.  It was cleaned and that solved the problem..well most of it. 

The canister should be replaced find one it not easy. Right now we replaced the PVC valve with a right-angled and the canister is no longer in the flow. 

For my 84 that’s not a problem since there is no sensor that checks that and the car is running great. I’m not sure but I think she’d even pass emission, unless they were to visually see that it wasn’t connected. 

Of course I’m a big tree hugger and (you can tell because the Mustang gets 4 gallons to the mile ..hey that’s what dead dinosaurs are for!!!!) so I’ll eventual get it replaced. If I can find one.  In the mean time I’ve re-routed the  hose to protrude under neigth the engine so the fumes don’t fill the engine bay. 

Some pics: 

Hose Highway with Canister

 

End of the hose that is supposed to travel on to the Intake, now routed under the car, temporarily.

 

So there you have.  Good thing there wasn’t a car crusher in towing distance….nah…I love that car. 

Thanks for reading. 

TIm

Wrenchin’ Tip Engine Swap 8/15/2010 Label It!

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Now the Mustang is a fairly simple machine, even the electrical system is easy to work through. Pls note, I hate electrical problems and I equally dislike having to chance them down and I don’t care how simple it is.  My 84 Corvette is nothing short of a nightmare. 

Keeping this stuff straight is hard to do.  Now tearing out an engine doesn’t necessarily mean you are starting out with all new wiring, but it could.  A tip I use is to label everyone single wire with (normally) white duct tape. 

Like so: (not white duct tape!!) 

This actually reads: Starter Relay. (Yeah...spelling issues..like you haven't noticed!!!)

 

This is eXtremely handy.  For example there are no less than 18 different wires just on the driver’s door for the Corvette.  I’ve taken the door apart so many times for repair, that I started leaving them labeled. 

Of course you can use this for hoses, lines and parts. 

Thanks for reading. 

Tim

Auto Factoids for the Week of 7/23/2010

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7/20/1984 E.L. Cord was in Missouri.  If you think he’s only responsible for the Cord 

1937 Cord

 

 Think again!!!!  How about a company that included Stinson Aircraft, Checker Cab and American Airways (now American Airlines)? But let’s just stay with the cars.  How about the Auburn and Duesenberg?  His history is a good read. 

7/23/1894 first auto race.  It was organized by the Parisian magazine “Le Petit Journal” between the Paris to Rouen.  And the winner was………… Count Jules-Albert de Dion it took  6 hours and 48 minutes at an average speed of 19 km/h (which was approximately 11.806052652509345 p/h). I don’t know what he drove but 2nd places was taken by George Lamaitre and he drove a Peugeot: 

Peugeot 3 hp

7/24/1929 – 2, 000,000 Model A Ford built – A huge milestone. 

1929 Model A

Auto Factoids for the Week of 7/4/2010

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Here ya go, enjoy. 

7/6/1946…..U.S. began producing car again after World War II.  It is a bit misleading but some cars companies did continue to produce cars.  At the very onset of the war (1942 thereabout), some of the first effort were to build the cars without all the chrome, painting the trim instead, the first “blacked out” (they were actually called “blackout specials or models” ) which became popular with the grilles in muscle cars later on.  Washington dictated that stainless-steel and chrome would not be allowed on cars except on of bumpers, bumper guards, and windshield wipers. 

1942 Chevy Front.

 

1942 Chevy Backside

 

I think it looks great!!! 

7/8/1909  The first Hudson was built. 

Hudson Roadster from 1909

 

Thanks for reading 

Tim

1970 Mustang – Replacing my Pillar Post Moldings Part III

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Caulk another tasks down on the restoration of the Mustang. 

I finished up the pillar post molding last night.  Here is the before: 

Pretty?

 

Now these were not as labor intensive as the dash-pad but here were some issues. 

We’ll walk through them. 

The removing the dash-pad was chronicled in my earlier post and that was pretty quick now that I’ve done it twice. 

Once the dash-pad was removed there is an additional piece that needs to be removed, or at least a couple of screw removed on each side. That is the top molding: 

Top Molding

 

 In the picture above I’m pointing to one of the screws in the top molding that runs the length of the windshield.  That screw  is actually through the pillar molding which is partially behind it.  The top molding has 5 screws, two on each end and on my coupe the fifth is in the center and holds the plastic snap for the ends of the sun visors.  That screw does not have to be removed there is plenty of play after the removal of the four other screws, to safely (without forcing anything) remove and install the new moldings. 

The next step is removing the two additional screws that hold the pillar molding to the pillar. 

Screw Marked Remove

 

and this one: 

Second screw to remove.

 

It’s tough see there but here is a good clear picture…that old mold was so deteriorated it actually fell apart. 

Lower molding screw.

 

When I said it fell apart……. 

Yup. It was in bad shape.

 

The other side came/fell off the same way, in pieces, nothing left to do but snap the other pieces on and…eeerrrrkkkk(insert braking sound)…”Yeah..anybody know if you can insert sound in there a WordPress blog??” ….cricket..cricket…cricket……huuummm where’s my…oh I have no staff…well, only when my son visits (he does some on my graphic design..more on my new logo search later..maybe you all can vote on one??) back to my eeerrkkk…we need to discuss quality of workmanship for reproduction parts.  That won’t be a long discussion..”sucks”…there ya go, end of discussion. 

But really I know that they try, and I am grateful for something that looks almost as good, especially for a rare car like mine (…meaning not very sought after..at least not yet…therefore the profit in making any unique parts is next to nothing.) 

One of the first things about this particular molding is that is about 1/2 the thickness of the original and made of light plastic.  This worked out because the holes are not exactly lined up and there was a larger problem. 

Offset isn't correct.

 

As you can see the molding on the right (the original) where the screw driver blade is located, is recessed about 1/2 an inch, if not a little more.  On the left (new molding) there is almost only about 1/4 of an inch..maybe a bit less.  If the material for the new molding was as rigid as the original there would be no flex in the material and the lack of offset for tab on the new molding would not have allowed the use of the original screw, it would have been too short. Additionally, screw holes A and B  in the picture below were not aligned properly and would not have enough ”give” but allow installation, if it was stiff as the original. 

Improperly aligned.

 

 Was this engineering genius or happy mistake? 

Generally, the fit was close, not contours car show inspect-able close, but close enough for the local guys.  But if you can find parts made from “original tooling” (we talked about that when I was install the dash-pad for the first time) buy those, if your Average Budget can handle it.  These molding just aren’t available in any other tooling. 

With the holes in the wrong place it took some pressure and jostling to get them into place.  One tip I can pass on is do not tighten the screws until you have them all started.   I had to leave the top two screws out far enough to allow movement to get the bottom screw in. 

Keep the screw loose to maneuver the piece around.

 

 In the end the result were pretty good. You be the judge. 

Left side

 

Left side bottom (and my vette in the background)

 

Right side (and my neighbor's truck...like you need to know that!!)

 

Left Side bottom

 

Over all it took about 3 hours with interruptions with phone calls and neighbors stopping to chat.  It’s like Soaring over on www.MustangV8.com forum said..”Those are the kinds of tinkering jobs I like.  You get satisfaction you can actually see.”  (BTW – I like that forum, the Classic Mustang section is great.) 

Thanks for reading. 

Tim 

Auto Factoids for the Week of 6/13/2010

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Oh..yes I’m behind. 

There was a huge one last week.. 

6/14/1832 – Nicolaus Otto was born in Germany…”Who?”   He invented the gas motor engine. An engineer and experimenter, Nicolaus Otto invented the first practical alternative to the steam engine in 1876 — the first four-stroke internal combustion engine. He called it the “Otto Cycle Engine,” and as soon as he had completed his engine, he built it into a motorcycle. 

The Otto Motor powered Cycle

6/16/1903 – The BIGGIE….Ford Motor Company was established. On the same day in 1953 Ford introduced the power steering.  (Two for the price of one) 

Also on 6/16/1896 Jean Peugeot was born in Paris.  Founder of Peugeot the auto maker.  The family began with coffee mills and bicycles and then cars. 

6/18/1943  Tom Gale was born in Michigan, Flint to be more exact.  His Dad was a designer for Buick and his grandfather worked the assembly for Buick.  Guess where he went to work when he finished school….nope….Chrysler.. Gale became head of design in 1985.  He previously worked on the some of the iconic cars such as the E-bodies-Barracuda and Challenger and was a major contributor to the  Chrysler Portofino concept car. 

1987-Chrysler-Portofinow Concept Car

 

6/19/1947 the Tucker shows up in Chicago. 

The Tucker-Torpedo - I love these cars!!!!

And on the same day, 1969 GM produced the 4 millionth Cadillac.   

This isn't actually "THE" 4 Millionth Caddy..but you get the idea.

Thanks for reading 

Tim

Bowling Green Corvette Assembly Plant Tour…AWESOME!!

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I attended the Bowling Green Assembly Plant tour today.  It was really!!!!! awesome!!!!!

Corvette Assembly Plant Bowling Green, KY

 

The walk from the parking lot to the plant was filled with the smell of new car.  They must pour it out of every chimney and window.

They were building the Z06’s, ZR1 and Grand Sports…a lot of Grand Sports!!! (that is a damn nice car!!!) Amazing!!!!    Sorry no pictures were allowed.

Seeing all the parts everywhere and the hanging panels and frames…was a sight to be hold.

The tour was pretty quick..well maybe an hour…but I could have hung there all day!!!  I lagged behind the tour group and spoke with a couple of the workers.

At one stop, where they fill the newly married body, chassy and engine with fluid, the tour guide was going blah, blah, blah and I was looking over the cars and one of the guys walked over asked me if I had one picked out yet.  He said they seemed to be selling a lot of GS’s.  I asked him about the fender stripes and he said they normally just get tossed in the back and the dealership installs them.  He asked me if I liked the wider body and I said what’s not to like!!!!

We watched them marry up a Zo6’s mufflers, while another guy stuck in the tail lights and then on to the chassy.  Tire position was at a stop.

Actually got to watch a new Grand Sport come off the line and run over the ‘suspension’ activation section (floor) and then into the section where they align the headlights.

We  got to see a Z06 enter the final test chamber where they run 200 + tests in two minutes.  This one passed.

It was MOST EXCELLENT!!!! (Wayne’s World).

The NCM was good, but the plant tour overshadowed it…by far.   I’ll post up pics from the  NCM in the next post.

corvettte assembly plant

Auto Factoids for Week of 5/23/2010

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Few major milestones this week. 

Brooklyn bridge opened for traffic on 5/24 1883 and the Golden opened 5/27 in 1937. 

Race car driver Mauri Rose was born 5/26/1906 currently in the racing hall of fame, placed second in the 1927 Indy 500.  Actually won the Indy in 1941, but that was a tough victory, spanning two Maserati-powered Elgin Piston Pin Specials cars, after the first one had mechanical issues.  He tossed a fit and the car owners pulled one of the other drivers on the time from the race and give Rose that car. 

The Pin 

Elgin Pin

 

What powered that thing? 

Power Plant

 

The first Kaiser-Frazer was produced 5/28/1946 – cars weren’t sold until 1947. 

1947 Willow Run Plant

Auto Factoids for 5/9/2010

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Tough finding something historic for this week in May.

I do have a blurb on GM.

On May 10, 1923 they named Alfred P. Sloan as corporate president.  They didn’t just pick from the streets.  He was actually, a draftsman for a bearing company, Hyatt Roller Bearing.  That company eventually merged with a few other companies with United Motor Corporation.  Sloan became the president of that and shortly after that they were purchased by GM.

He served GM from 1923 to 1956 in some manner including board chairman.

Thanks for reading.

Tim