New guy from SC
05-13-2013, 11:00 PM
#1
Junior Member
Thread Starter
New guy from SC
Hi everyone. I'm a new member and let me say first of all that this is a great forum. Since a month ago when I got my truck many Google searches have landed here and I've gotten some great advice.
First I'll tell you about my truck and then a little about me. My truck's name is Nicole after a girl I know (about the same age lol) who always 'runs well' but doesn't look like much until you clean her up and then holy cow. I was hoping the same would be true about Nicole the truck and it's looking like that's the case. She's really coming together. You guys might think it's crazy but my years of mechanic'n have led me to strongly believe that machines have personalities. It's hard to figure out why scrubbing the floorpad and putting gloss on the tires would make the engine run better but sometimes it just seems like it does. Today I was merging onto a freeway with a truck coming up on me fast and when I shifted up out of 4th and floored it that I6 that I'm starting to love came to LIFE and punched me in the back at 60 and I said baby, that's what I've been waiting to hear.
I bought her as a 'between' car when my 3.8L 2000 Camaro spun a rod bearing at 225K. It came at a crazy time between contracts (I'm a free-lance programmer) so I decided to drop (up to) 3500 on something to get me to my next 'real' car. I found Nicole for $1K on Craigslist and even though the guy who had her gave me a little bit of song-and-dance she seemed like she'd do the job. She was hard to get into gear, wouldn't really go in a straight line once you got rolling, wouldn't really stop, and seemed to be making maybe 90hp tops.
I had a week to work with all that before she needed to be a 40 mile-per-day daily driver, so I adjusted the power steering - which got it close enough, rebuilt both back brakes (had one blown out wheel cylinder), changed the master cylinder, and replaced the rotted, bent clutch master cylinder pushrod. Now we're rolling but she still sounded like a clattering tractor and wouldn't get over 75 without the temp gauge running away.
A couple of weekends later I rebuilt the Carter YFA which helped a lot. The pump actuator link on the throttle shaft was broken (I had been thinking rotted pump diaphragm), but other than that there were no real carb issues and by fits and turns (and like I said before, with lots of help from here
) I got the vacuum straightened out enough to be satisfied that fuel delivery was as expected - even with this weird 'feedback carb' thing which I still haven't figured out completely.
I found plugs from 4, 5, and 6 burned white and rotted almost away with all others OK but ancient. Changed all plugs, cap, and rotor. Wires were ok. Cooling was still a problem at high loads and there was that runaway, which bothered me and made me think I had pre-ignition under load, or a timing problem (which I'll get to later because this still might be the case), but this weekend I fully serviced the cooling system (btw pure water came out of the drain - no coolant AT all) and today she stayed pegged at the low end of the factory gauge range over 40 highway miles at 65 mph even at WOT in 4th on a long (~1 minute) hill sustaining 70 - 75 mph (which was the previous temp runaway scenario).
And of course there was that sweet shift up into 3rd
. I'm really starting to like this truck. Oh did I mention that almost every bolt on the motor was loose? I was sure there was an exhaust leak but didn't expect to find every manifold bolt on 1, 2, and 3 moving 1/2 turn each. Ouch. Valve cover? Every one was loose. To sum up - all bolts are now tight. All wire looms are new. All vacuum lines are wiped with protectant, she's clean enough for me to notice a little oil oozing through an obviously soaked valve cover gasket, and maybe most importantly of all the air filter cover is now painted blue.
Gas mileage is up to 17 on the last tank (mostly highway) from 13. This tank I'm running a fuel additive and I've put Slick 50 (which I've liked in the past) in the crankcase. Obviously she's responding well and the only problem left is moderate surging and hesitation while cold (until about 10 min. on the road) - noticeable throughout the power band but more pronounced at steady light (~20%) throttle. At operating temp I'm very impressed. It's not terrible, mind you, but it's not right either. I'm concerned mostly because I wonder if this is a timing advance issue rather than a fuel issue. As you can see from my photos this unit appears to be a DSK2 which has been swapped in (?). I am completely clueless as to how to maintain this system and have not been able to find a timing mark on my crank pulley so I don't know where idle timing is. I have it set for best idle at operating temp with SPOUT disconnected.
My thinking is that this is an old engine and at operating temp parts expand and do what they're supposed to do. If timing advance was a problem, would I be seeing such good performance at any time? I plan to check the valve lash next weekend when I do the valve cover gasket, and with all the loose bolts I found I'm thinking the valves might really, really need to be adjusted. Second question, could this be incorrect operation of this feedback carb thing? Any help understanding that would be appreciated.
My car history goes back 37 years when I pulled the carb off of the '69 Chevy pickup my parents were giving me as my first car and took it apart just to see how it worked. Well, maybe longer than that because I had been kind of doing that sort of thing since I could walk lol. The rule in everybody's house was don't leave me alone with a toolbox or something was going to get taken apart (hey how else can you figure out how it works, right?). In my 20's I was poor and had to fix them myself which gave me a lot of experience. In my 30's I had three Volkswagen Scirocco's ('79, '81, and '83) which I loved. I did clutches, engine swaps, and head rebuilds on those.
The thing is it's been a while and I forgot how much I like working on cars. I've read a lot of posts here and know I'm not the first person who got one of these trucks just to get them to their next car but ended up finding out they had a gem. Thanks for reading this far, all two of you who did lol. I'm looking forward to participating in the discussions and posting updates on my new girl.
First I'll tell you about my truck and then a little about me. My truck's name is Nicole after a girl I know (about the same age lol) who always 'runs well' but doesn't look like much until you clean her up and then holy cow. I was hoping the same would be true about Nicole the truck and it's looking like that's the case. She's really coming together. You guys might think it's crazy but my years of mechanic'n have led me to strongly believe that machines have personalities. It's hard to figure out why scrubbing the floorpad and putting gloss on the tires would make the engine run better but sometimes it just seems like it does. Today I was merging onto a freeway with a truck coming up on me fast and when I shifted up out of 4th and floored it that I6 that I'm starting to love came to LIFE and punched me in the back at 60 and I said baby, that's what I've been waiting to hear.
I bought her as a 'between' car when my 3.8L 2000 Camaro spun a rod bearing at 225K. It came at a crazy time between contracts (I'm a free-lance programmer) so I decided to drop (up to) 3500 on something to get me to my next 'real' car. I found Nicole for $1K on Craigslist and even though the guy who had her gave me a little bit of song-and-dance she seemed like she'd do the job. She was hard to get into gear, wouldn't really go in a straight line once you got rolling, wouldn't really stop, and seemed to be making maybe 90hp tops.
I had a week to work with all that before she needed to be a 40 mile-per-day daily driver, so I adjusted the power steering - which got it close enough, rebuilt both back brakes (had one blown out wheel cylinder), changed the master cylinder, and replaced the rotted, bent clutch master cylinder pushrod. Now we're rolling but she still sounded like a clattering tractor and wouldn't get over 75 without the temp gauge running away.
A couple of weekends later I rebuilt the Carter YFA which helped a lot. The pump actuator link on the throttle shaft was broken (I had been thinking rotted pump diaphragm), but other than that there were no real carb issues and by fits and turns (and like I said before, with lots of help from here
) I got the vacuum straightened out enough to be satisfied that fuel delivery was as expected - even with this weird 'feedback carb' thing which I still haven't figured out completely.I found plugs from 4, 5, and 6 burned white and rotted almost away with all others OK but ancient. Changed all plugs, cap, and rotor. Wires were ok. Cooling was still a problem at high loads and there was that runaway, which bothered me and made me think I had pre-ignition under load, or a timing problem (which I'll get to later because this still might be the case), but this weekend I fully serviced the cooling system (btw pure water came out of the drain - no coolant AT all) and today she stayed pegged at the low end of the factory gauge range over 40 highway miles at 65 mph even at WOT in 4th on a long (~1 minute) hill sustaining 70 - 75 mph (which was the previous temp runaway scenario).
And of course there was that sweet shift up into 3rd
. I'm really starting to like this truck. Oh did I mention that almost every bolt on the motor was loose? I was sure there was an exhaust leak but didn't expect to find every manifold bolt on 1, 2, and 3 moving 1/2 turn each. Ouch. Valve cover? Every one was loose. To sum up - all bolts are now tight. All wire looms are new. All vacuum lines are wiped with protectant, she's clean enough for me to notice a little oil oozing through an obviously soaked valve cover gasket, and maybe most importantly of all the air filter cover is now painted blue.Gas mileage is up to 17 on the last tank (mostly highway) from 13. This tank I'm running a fuel additive and I've put Slick 50 (which I've liked in the past) in the crankcase. Obviously she's responding well and the only problem left is moderate surging and hesitation while cold (until about 10 min. on the road) - noticeable throughout the power band but more pronounced at steady light (~20%) throttle. At operating temp I'm very impressed. It's not terrible, mind you, but it's not right either. I'm concerned mostly because I wonder if this is a timing advance issue rather than a fuel issue. As you can see from my photos this unit appears to be a DSK2 which has been swapped in (?). I am completely clueless as to how to maintain this system and have not been able to find a timing mark on my crank pulley so I don't know where idle timing is. I have it set for best idle at operating temp with SPOUT disconnected.
My thinking is that this is an old engine and at operating temp parts expand and do what they're supposed to do. If timing advance was a problem, would I be seeing such good performance at any time? I plan to check the valve lash next weekend when I do the valve cover gasket, and with all the loose bolts I found I'm thinking the valves might really, really need to be adjusted. Second question, could this be incorrect operation of this feedback carb thing? Any help understanding that would be appreciated.
My car history goes back 37 years when I pulled the carb off of the '69 Chevy pickup my parents were giving me as my first car and took it apart just to see how it worked. Well, maybe longer than that because I had been kind of doing that sort of thing since I could walk lol. The rule in everybody's house was don't leave me alone with a toolbox or something was going to get taken apart (hey how else can you figure out how it works, right?). In my 20's I was poor and had to fix them myself which gave me a lot of experience. In my 30's I had three Volkswagen Scirocco's ('79, '81, and '83) which I loved. I did clutches, engine swaps, and head rebuilds on those.
The thing is it's been a while and I forgot how much I like working on cars
. I've read a lot of posts here and know I'm not the first person who got one of these trucks just to get them to their next car but ended up finding out they had a gem. Thanks for reading this far, all two of you who did lol. I'm looking forward to participating in the discussions and posting updates on my new girl.
Last edited by agFinder; 05-13-2013 at 11:15 PM.
05-14-2013, 11:00 AM
#3
Senior Member
Hello and welcome to the site.
What a detailed intro. Thanks.
What a detailed intro. Thanks.
