Trinten's SBC/F23 build - The work has begun! (Page 9/76)
L67 NOV 05, 12:34 PM
You really should use one of Rodney's new slaves. The cast iron bore gets really nasty over the years, albeit the lower seal on the MR2 piston will help scrape it clean and prevent the top seal from leaking. Wayne had me install one on his GT. I took it apart to look at everything and its a great design for the money.

http://realfierotech.com/ph...=14&t=16812&p=138074
Trinten NOV 07, 10:33 AM
Joe finished fabricating the piece to get the last two water hoses hooked up to the water pump. So a little work and some hose clamps later, that was done!

Now getting the last screw for the water pump in place was a PAIN. It had an allen-key head, and was too close to everything else to get a rachet up there. The screw was also too close to pump housing to replace it with a bolt and use an open ended wrench. The Solution? Joe cut off the right sized allen key head, and quickly welded it into a tiny wrench. I got under the car after finding a good position to get at it, and started working on it. It was very, very slow. Only a quarter turn each time, and sometimes getting the tool to line up and seat in the screw was tough. But I eventually got it!

I then began filling the cooling system... and didn't know/remember that my new radiator had a drain valve on the bottom of it. Thankfully I could feel it from under the car and screwed it shut, but lost about a half gallon of fluid. The rear of the car was jacked up at this time and I was filling it through the big hose that runs from the top of the engine block to the radiator. Once it reached the top of the radiator, we capped it and stopped (for then) since it was still in the air.

Wires for the thermostat are connected and I managed to zip tie them up out of the way (very difficult, required using four zip ties to "fish" the line over and then back down to where I could grab it).

Greg masterfully put in my new master and slave clutch with the MR2 piston with the double seal. After about 45 minutes of uncertain panic, the clutch worked correctly (short-full version -Greg was worried that my hydraulic throwout bearing was not in there, and pondering the easiest way to get in the transmission).

After that, I asked him to reassemble the interior, thinking that Jeff told me that he found and fixed the short. At the end of the night, when we were working on getting power to the secondary fuel pump... Greg discovered the short (again), when the wires he was going to tap were energized and shouldn't have been. He has a nifty voltemeter that has an sound-alarm-warning for when doing continuity testing, so after some back and for between us, him running through the fuses in the car, and us tapping and unplugging stuff in the engine bay - we found the culprit! --- the two ****ing red wires that run from the key relay to power the water pump and electric choke on my car.

It was too late at night to re-tear the interior apart any further than the armrest/glovebox thingie. Greg though said he'd coordinate with Joe to be back out there on Thursday and hunt down the short.

I did test my headlights though. I'm glad I managed to install/wire something up correctly and without any major issues. One was a bit delayed from the other, but the motors haven't run in over a year, and I probably need to play with how tight I have them cranked at the hinges, maybe a little lubrication.

The decklid had some bizarre reaction to the paint in some areas... it was... really, really weird looking. I should have taken a picture. So Joe started to sand down those spots, and laid on some more primer, and will be repainting those places.

I picked up some butt crimp connectors to get that last wire for the A/C, didn't get to that yet. This late in the year, not too worried about getting the A/C working, just keeping my hopes up that the compressor is good when I *do* use it next year.

Got everything ready for my throttle-spring-return, just need to screw it into place and do a final check on it (couldn't due to the car being jacked up the majority of the day again.

So the list shrunk... and then grew again!!! Gahhh!

But a HUGE thanks to Greg (CowsPatoot) for taking up 13 hours of his day, PLUS travel, to help me out. And going back out there to finish chasing down the wiring nightmares. Sharon (FierFly on Pennocks) came along too.
Trinten NOV 14, 12:47 AM
The car is up and running. There are still things left to be re-snugged (valve covers, for one... that's going to be a challenge). The decklid is receiving it's final coat of clear tonight and will be put on tomorrow and then I will be leaving with the car (lots of issues with the final paint on the decklid).

Found out that I have a very, very tiny axel seal leak. And my A/C Compressors SQUEELS!!! Oh it's horrible... it's not constant, but close enough. Joe is worried that it's from a bad bearing, I'm wondering if it's from being unhooked for so long and not lubricated. Is there a way to lubricate that thing without getting it charged?

I will make an uber post tomorrow, after I've gotten some sleep, and I'm sure CowsPatoot will chime in with my errors and additional info I forgot.

A massive, MASSIVE "Thank you" to CP again for all the help. It'd probably be there for another three weeks or so if not for his efforts. And thank you for answering all my questions and being a generally good sport.
Trinten NOV 14, 06:54 PM

Okay, here's part of the rundown.

Thursday - I was feeling kinda crappy, general malaise and having focus issues. In my job, rapidly juggling multiple data sources accurately - sometimes while on the phone as well, is a requirement. So not being able to stay focused could mean that 'big trouble' mistakes could happen. I finished what work I had, and then left for the day. Tooling around on the car takes focus, but not normally having to rapidly juggle multiple things.

So I headed down to the shop to meet up with Greg and Sharon. Greg had a solid 2.5 hours on me, so he'd need to fill in what he was up to besides the following. The two wires that ran from the cabin into the engine compartments, one was for my electric choke, the other for the water pump. He was pulling through a slightly heavier gauge wire and cleaning up the connections, as well as checking pretty much all of the wiring in the car. I pulled up stats on the water pump and fuel pump so we cold make sure they'd be properly fused and (in the case of the fuel pump) hooked into something that could support it's power draw.

I then got the E-brake coupler put on, and continued filling up the coolant system. To hear fluid dribbling out. Again. Only this time I wasn't so lucky as to have it be an open valve or loose hose clamp. I also got the throttle return spring bracket in place.

Some SBC blocks have a second, much smaller hole, tapped into the water jacket. My old block did not, my new block did. Joe noticed the hole, but assumed that it had been plugged. It hadn't been. He had the right kind of plug for it... unfortunately the arm of the waterpump covered the hole by a fraction, making it impossible to get the plug in with the pump on. Figures.

So going back to using the handtool that Joe crafted to slowly work out the tough-to-get bottom bolt, and than a combination of hand tools and sockets to get out the other three from up top. Then of course we had to dry out the area so when we put in the plug (with some RTV on it) it would seat properly and the RTV would be making contact with the block. Since we were reusing the seal on the water pump, we smeared a super thin layer of RTV on both sides of that, too. Just to be safe. Because getting this pump off took over an hour.

Putting it back on went faster, Joe did the top-access bolts while I worked on the bolt-of-doom. Joe did manage to find a bolt that had a small enough hex head so that a wrench could get on it, so that went faster than the hex-head bolt it came with. We then finished filling the cooling system, with only a few dribbles and drips from hose clamps that needed to be turned down a little more.

So now, the electric was mostly done - we had to rule out one "false" short, Greg would need to explain it again, but something about the "open door" sensor running through a relay along with the gauges that can cause a false short/continuity. So the interior stayed apart, and the fuse pulled from the gauges for now. Greg finished wiring in the Holley fuel pump.

So we kicked the car to "Run" (didn't crank it yet) to make sure the pumps were running, and to make sure that the cooling system was filled properly. Once that was done we disconnected the distributor so we could crank it a bit in short bursts to push oil back up and coat things. I hit the key and the starter made a horrible grinding sound, I stopped immediately. It was also "weak" sounding, so the battery charger went on. Another attempt a little while later, same grinding sound, so we called it a night till we could look at the starter the next day.

Friday - Joe climbed under the car and found that the starter (which is bolted to a block of billet and that is bolted to the bell housing) was not engaging the flywheel - just the tips were catching each other. So after about an hour or so of messing with that, the starter was dead on.

We then connected the distributor back up and fired it up! It started without any trouble, though we did have some fuel pressure issues. Scott - the guy who built the engine, came over after he closed shop to check things out. He helped with chasing/fixing some dribbles, and got the carb tuned. He found that at least one of the jets was clogged - dust/dirt/carbon from sitting around for a year+, and we got it to clear itself some. He showed me how to adjust the idle speed, saying it'd need to be tweaked as the carb worked the rest of the garbage out. A can of SeaFoam went into the tank to help with that.

The decklid was still giving Joe issues. Whatever was contaminating it was causing the primer and paint to come up in spots like dried mud. He kept sanding, cleaning, and trying again, each time with better results. He finally got all of it to lay nice, but since he shop wasn't heated and he was trying to spray on the clear Saturday night, the clear was a bit chilly and I got some "orange peel" going on. He didn't have time to redress my hood, which has areas that need to be re-sprayed with clear.

Saturday - Greg came out again to help get the interior back together, brought me an InfiniteWill trunk seal, and a bunch of other little odds and ends to finish getting the trim pieces on and in place. After that was all done, and another engine run and checking for drips, I baby'd it around the parking lot to make sure the gears were shifting right. Discovered the brakes had to be bleed again.

Thankfully I had picked up a MightyVac, so Greg was able to tear through bleeding the brakes in no time (and teflon taped the bleed screws to help deal with air getting pulled in around them by the vac.) So completely fresh fluid for the clutch and brakes, yay!

We then took it down the road a bit to see how it handled and to find out how badly it needed an alignment. Because the front suspension had gone untouched, it wasn't too bad at all - he still said I should have it checked to be sure. We found out the hardway that my headlights need some serious time being adjusted. And it's not terribly easy to do them with the Hella lamps I got. I'll probably need to pop off the headlight covers in order to do it quickly, or else it'll be alot of "hood down, check. hood up, adjust. repeat."

The car is now home today! Picked it up and helped Joe put the decklid on. SOMEONE lifted the car by the latch, as we had to hammer the latch down a bit to get it to catch correctly - this despite my instructions to both Joe and Jeff to not do that.

I have Rodney Dickmans hydraulic decklid lifter on there, but I think it needs to be adjusted. When I pop the trunk it doesn't go up, once I lift it about an inch or so it starts to push it up. It makes using the electric-release... well, unusable! Drove nearly 100 miles, the engine temp never got above 170. AND!!! NO SQUEEL!!! No idea why, but I am NOT complaining!!

Also, no HORRIBLE cabin drone at 45 mph. Driving it I did not find ANY speed that I got drone, but the mufflers did not quiet it down as much as I hoped. So now I'll need to revisit putting more stuff in the engine side of the firewall and behind/under the seats in the cabin to try to quiet it down. Cruising you can still have a reasonable conversation - highway speeds it gets alot tougher.

Things left to do now:

Inspection.
A/C recharge.
Replace Gregs InfiniteWill trunk seal.
Headlight adjustment.
transmission axle seals.
Replace all the coolant piping with the stainless steel stuff from Fiero store.
Alignment.

I think that's it, then the car is done until I get the EFI swap ready to go! Maybe brakes first. Debating on that.

CowsPatoot NOV 14, 11:17 PM
Any new issues come up on the way home?

Just a couple things to add...

Proof that Vince CAN turn a wrench...


Startup and exhaust note.....


First drive around the parking lot...


The first drive on the road...

[This message has been edited by CowsPatoot (edited 11-14-2010).]

Trinten NOV 15, 02:31 PM
Hehehe, thanks for the pics and video!

And yes. I can turn a wrench. After many questions and a tutorial...

But seriously, my fear is more from not knowing what I"m turning a wrench on, which could result in broken stuff. Never good.

Now trying to figure out why I'm not getting notifications on posts to my own thread.... lol

No issues on the way home, just still a few little dribbles as I mentioned, and that one drip-rail-trim-piece-thingie on the passanger side likes to keep popping part way off. I think it's because that rear quarter panel on that side is sitting about a 1/4 inch lower than it should. You can see the drop now that the decklid is on there.
No squeel on the way home earlier, either. Though this morning when I did the "Car shuffle" to get the Town Car out, it was come-and-go.

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 11-15-2010).]

Trinten NOV 20, 09:16 PM
Okay, so drove the car to work yesterday without any issues, the voltmeter was sitting steady at 14/15 (one to two tick marks after 13). Not a squeel, not a peep.

I leave work, and notice the needle is now sitting *right* on 13. I didn't pay it much mind. (also had a the arm pop off a headlight motor. Need to get a retaining clip for that apparently).

Today on the way to Koreys meet... the needle sat at 11/12. On the way home... it started off at 11, and slowly dropped down to betwen between 9 and 10 (all highway driving, goosing the gas had no impact on the needle).

Not only is this troubling, but as an added annoyance, it made my signals blink about ONCE A MINUTE! lol

Now there is a little oil getting out from under my valve covers.. is it possible some is hitting my belt and making it too slick to spin the alternator at proper speed? Or is this alternator a dud -- meaning I need to find that receipt...!

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
L67 NOV 20, 10:12 PM
Belts chirp when they slip.

Pop it off and take it to a local parts store which can do an electrical load test. It also helps to mention which kind of alternator it is. SI (one wire) alternators are incredibly straightforward, but CS style alternators and the like require a constant power feed to energize the rotor. I've had my share of alternator troubles in the past, and your description sounds like faulty equipment, but I don't know how your charging system is setup. It's possible you have a poor ground or small diameter wire that's generating resistance. First step: find out if the generator passes the load test.

[This message has been edited by L67 (edited 11-20-2010).]

Trinten NOV 20, 11:44 PM
Heya!

Due to concerns of having to make changes to make anything else fit and wanting to get the car done ASAP (by that time, at least), I had just gotten a new stock replacement alternator for the Fiero from O'Reillys. It was an Ultima 94 amp alternator. I wanted to do one of those CS-144 (I think it's the 144??) but didn't want to add another wrinkle to the progress at that time.

http://www.oreillyauto.com/...7&pt=01468&ppt=C0330

Joe had to change the pulley, swapped it off my old one.

As for taking it off... it'll probably have to be driven/towed someplace to have that done. I'll have to ask a few people if/when they'd be able to help me with it. Depending on how far I have to take it, I might finally use my AAA to do it... with the power running low, the engine is running hotter - likely because the water pump and radiator fan aren't running at full capacity.
L67 NOV 21, 12:58 AM
Very likely that it's the voltage regulator then.

[This message has been edited by L67 (edited 11-21-2010).]