In reply to Gunchsta:
I met my first girlfriend at a circle track while sitting in the stands because I was too young to be allowed in the pits.
Our classes were of the few that didn't allow dog boxes, so I spent a lot of time making out while listening to straight cut gears whirring around the track.
Im now curious as too what kind of bmx bike you ride. Time for a limited slip in the truck!
In reply to Crackers:
Ha Ha Ha that is awesome. No wonder you like that sound.
dropstep wrote: Im now curious as too what kind of bmx bike you ride. Time for a limited slip in the truck!
I ride a Sunday 2nd Wave (I think ha ha) that is almost 10 years old at this point. I've been into BMX for a very long time and I still love it. I'll get a picture of the bike after work- It's not much to look at but it's been taking a beating for some time now.
More pointless update spam!
This lower dash piece has been rattling and driving me nuts, so I decided to do something about it.
Brought some home repair stuff out to the garage and went to town.
Little foam insulation sticky tape did wonders. I still think I would like to pull the whole front of the dash off and do the connection points there as well, but it made an improvement as it is.
As an aside it's kind of nice to have a pretty mechanically solid 'project car' and take time to do little stuff like this, piddly little things that are generally overlooked (by me anyhow). Makes for a more pleasant driving experience.
Gunchsta wrote:dropstep wrote: Im now curious as too what kind of bmx bike you ride. Time for a limited slip in the truck!I ride a Sunday 2nd Wave (I think ha ha) that is almost 10 years old at this point. I've been into BMX for a very long time and I still love it. I'll get a picture of the bike after work- It's not much to look at but it's been taking a beating for some time now.
Ahh cool, its about the same age as my bike. Bicycles are one of the reasons 16 year old me wanted a truck!
In reply to dropstep:
Yeah the truck is awesome for chuckin bikes in- what do you ride? I took a picture of my steed last night then put it on the home computer and promptly deleted it from my phone. I'll put it up shortly. Bicycles are great! I was a bicycle mechanic/sales guy for about 10 years of my life.
Gunchsta wrote: In reply to dropstep: Yeah the truck is awesome for chuckin bikes in- what do you ride? I took a picture of my steed last night then put it on the home computer and promptly deleted it from my phone. I'll put it up shortly. Bicycles are great! I was a bicycle mechanic/sales guy for about 10 years of my life.
Current frame is an 04 haro mirra. Some snafu, kink and poverty parts. Wheels are mx22's because my super J is overkill. Quit riding for 8 years and just put it back together to ride with my kids/friends.
In reply to dropstep:
Classic stuff there. Put up a picture! Here's current pictures of my Sunday. Sunday frame, BSD forks, bars, cranks, Odyssey wheels. One of my friends rides for BSD so it seemed like as good a reason as any to buy their stuff. My sprocket is a Skworl made in MN by some other friends.
And to keep this somewhat truck related- Tonight I decided that the noise I tried to remedy with the insulating foam was actually the brake pedal, so I'll have to look into that further.
Also- here's a picture from our wedding day of the truck loaded up with stuff for the venue.
Well lets try an update with the new forum layout.
As usual I was perusing GRM today and found some motivation to go play in the garage since I finally got rid of the chimney poking into my already small workspace. Anyhow, previously I had put a junkyard S10 Blazer rear swaybar on the truck but this winter decided I didn't like how it was installed (half assed) and took it off. I tried to modify the mounts but lost interest so it stayed off... Until tonight! I braced the frame side of the mounts, and ordered all new hardware for the rest of the setup. The frame side of the mounts ended up not welding very good, probably due to poor prep by yours truly, but it's sold.
Anyway, here's some pictures.
This will brace the upper end-link mount to the whole of the frame, instead of just to the piece of 7/8" tubing welded to the inside of the frame.
Painted and shamefully boogered onto the frame. Turns out I am not super good at welding on my back.
Extended brackets for the bushings- My axle tubes are a larger diameter than the blazer axle so I had to lengthen the slots for the U-bolts.
Got my money's worth out of this cutoff wheel...
Installed!
Seems a little stiffer in the rear and corners way flatter- definitely a noticeable improvement. I'm pleased for an evening of work with stuff I had previously purchased. Money is tight right now so it feels good to be able to go play in the garage with things I already have!
Painted and shamefully boogered onto the frame. Turns out I am not super good at welding on my back.
Its something about sparks and slag landing on flesh no matter how well protected. That it! You are concentrating on the coming pain, not the welding, that is why its an ugly weld.
So minimum 2 beers, then weld, it will be beautiful! 
(Don't drink and weld, no really, don't)
In reply to pheo :
In all honesty 4 or 5 years ago the only way I would even go near a welding/grinding project was a couple beers deep, so I think I'm doing OK that I'm comfortable enough to do it sober and on my back.
But yeah, a couple beers probably wouldn't have hurt these welds. Might have made me lazy enough to slow down and clean stuff up and plot out a better angle then just burning it in over dirty metal and paint. Ha ha ha. Sometimes I'm a real hack.
How somebody fixed the rattle in that under-column dash piece on my suburban was evidently to remove it altogether
Seriously, though, I need to rummage around and see if I have it somewhere. But My column will probably have to come out a few more times before I have to worry about that.
Looking good! I know what you mean about a "project" that is functional enough to use. Using it gives you motivation to fix little details that just makes it that much more enjoyable. I'm usually good at getting the major things fixed and then I forget about details. But I'm trying to focus on some details as I go now, too.
Regarding the beer-talent curve. I learned a long time ago that a couple drinks put me at the peak of my ping-pong game. A couple more and I started going downhill. Quick.
In reply to ClemSparks:
Yeah that seems to be the solution for a lot of truck owners ha ha ha. Unfortunately I've come to realize that the noise I was hearing was coming from my brake pedal, not the lower column cover, so more investigation is needed.
Another 'rolling project' plus is that the fixes usually involve tightening this, or replacing that gasket, or some other such small-purchase stuff. I am really trying hard to use and appreciate this truck as is, not try to make it something it isn't.
I did take it on a little road trip this weekend for a friend's bachelor party- probably 160 miles round trip so nothing crazy, but it drove nice and I parked it in the driveway of the house we were staying at, set up the tent, and had myself a great place to stay after a night of drinking.
Micro-update.
I finally dug into the little squeaky rattler I was having coming from the brake pedal- turns out the plastic fingers on the brake light switch (and another similar such switch next to it- not sure what that one is for. Low brake fluid?) were squeaking really bad against the pedal arm. I sprayed a little WD40 on the plate that contacts those fingers as well as on the pivot points on the pedal. It's quiet as a church mouse now! I'm surprised how much noise that was actually making. So, more un-sexy modest improvements.
Minor victories count too.....
Another minor update here as this wild wedding filled summer is coming to a close. Went to another this weekend in South Dakota, took the truck, brought no tools and didn't even check the oil before I left- made it the 500 or so miles round trip without hesitation. It's nice to have that level of confidence. My wife had the truck on Sunday exploring the city while I was busy with wedding party stuff. Mileage was down a bit from the honeymoon- closer to 17 mpg this time around. Although on the way out I was flying trying to make it there on time at 80-85, and on some hills the converter would unlock and she'd zing up to 3,500 or so. I'm certain that wasn't the best way to achieve maximum fuel economy, but I was in a hurry. I checked the oil when I arrived and it didn't seem to use a drop.
Naturally because it's working perfect my mind is wandering on how to throw some more power at it. I have some bills to take care of before anything can happen though so that'll give me some time to "think twice wrench once" before I tear anything apart, if I do anything at all. Which reminds me, I received some stickers from everyone's favorite Mazdeuce when I arrived back at home. It was a pleasant surprise after a stressful wedding weekend, and because I had forgotten it was fun to see a hand-addressed envelope from Texas and try to figure out who it was. Thanks again Mazdeuce!
The tinkering continues!
That's right- I cut 1/4 of a coil off the front springs. I had intended on doing 1/2 a coil but that looked like it was going to be a lot, so I went with 1/4. It was barely worth it ha ha ha; I think it dropped the thing 1/4". It does look better but it's barely noticable. Anyway, it was a quick job before going back in and working on the house, and it felt good to wrench in my new spacious garage sans chimney.
Another thing I forgot to mention in my last post is with last weekends trip to South Dakota that makes 6 states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, & South Dakota) I've been too in the ol' truck this summer! That is the most states I've been to in a single year by far.
Well as winter is setting in here in Minnesota the truck is 'put away' in the garage. So time to make some changes!
After a lot of work around the house this summer I finally got some extra 'fun' cash together and ordered a cam, lifters, and new double roller timing chain for the 305. It would seem that this variety of 80's small block still came with a nylon toothed cam gear, which I am eager to get rid of. My dad's 64 Oldsmobile suffered a catastrophic failure of the same nylon timing gear (although that one was likely 20 years older than mine) and it bent some valves and did who knows what other horrible damage.
Now, I realize that a 305 is no prize pig, nor is it at all uncommon or expensive. However, mine runs well and it is something I already have, so I'm going to try and squeeze a little more life out of it and make it a little more durable with this cam/timing chain upgrade. Obviously a 350 would be a more powerful drop in solution, but at present I'm not interested in that. Anyhow, I looked at a particular article by Super Chevy magazine (here) and got the same summit brand cam and chain that they used on a 305 and seemed to really like. The cam is a Summit house brand K-1103 and it has an advertised duration of 288/298 and a .444/.466 lift with a 112* lobe separation angle. It is supposed to be a nice step up from stock but still allow the use of a stock converter & valve springs. It's pretty mild but again from what my research has garnered me they put severely neutered cams in these 80's smallblocks in an effort to make them more fuel efficient. So I ordered a cam, lifters, timing chain, gasket kit, and some assembly lube for a grand total of $159. Can't beat it! For now I am just going to do the cam swap, but I'm planning an aluminum intake in the near future. I actually also have a carb and a set of roller rockers that I may or may not use, but I'm trying to do one speed part/upgrade at a time so I get to enjoy each change and mentally track which one had the best bang for the buck.
Here's some teardown progress from last night, nothing too exciting to see here but it feels good to be back putzing in the garage.
Successful weekend!
I took Friday off work and used some of that time to do the cam install. Everything went pretty well but there were a few hangups;
-First, even though it looked like I had a ton of room there was no way the cam was coming out without some 'massaging' of the core support. The cam would come out of the block about to the distributor gear before it hit one of the uprights on the core support. So loosen/remove most of the bolts for the core support, pull it forward a few inches, and weasel the cam out. Then quickly and liberally apply assembly lube to the new cam lobes and some engine oil to the cam bearings and stab the new cam in before the core support moves back. No pictures of that procedure but it involved a little persuasion and worked just fine.
-Second, one of the intake manifold bolts (naturally one of the difficult to get a wrench on center ones) was pretty rounded off. How do we solve this quandry?
Yep, pictured is a 13mm wrench pounded on to what was originally a 9/16" bolt head, with the 9/16" wrench used as extra leverage on the 13mm so things would come loose easily. Worked like a charm. Had an extra bolt lying around so no harm no foul going back together.
Installation went well, cam in, new lifters in (assembly lube on the faces of those as well), cleaned & inspected the pushrods and put everything back together. Set the valve lash per the manual that came with the cam - intake open, exhaust to zero lash plus 1/2 turn, and so forth. I ordered the Summit 'cam installation gasket set' with my cam and new timing chain, which had all the necessary gaskets and although they were pretty cheap no name stuff, so far (fingers crossed) they're working just great. So now everything is together, filled with fluids, time for my least favorite part:
Cam Break-in.
You know- fire the engine for the first time, wing it up to 2 grand for half an hour. So I decided I was going to do this on my own, but as usual was completely unprepared. Hopped in the truck, turned the key - it cranked for a bit then popped right off. Not expecting this I leapt out of the cab and grabbed the throttle linkage to make sure the RPM's were up, and set my timer for 30 minutes. Well... the keen reader will notice at this point that I "Grabbed the throttle linkage" with my hand. So what am I going to stand here for 30 minutes holding this thing at varying RPM's above 1500? I texted my wife, no response... so I hung out like that for 4 or 5 minutes and finally just decided to kill it and start over, this time armed with a screw driver so I could set the idle up. Once I got the idle where I wanted it I was able to take a step back and bask in the glory that was my new cam breaking in. It sounded great, nice exhaust note and absolutely no rattles or clatters from the valvetrain or timing chain. Following the instructions is cool!
The 30 minutes went by, few spills/burps of coolant on the ground but otherwise nicely uneventful. I let the thing settle into an idle and listened to the newly acquired lope. It sounded great and was running real nice and quiet. I set the timing and went on a date with the wife. Got some nice pasta and a couple good beers, both of which were delicious after a nice accomplishment.
And as I think I previously mentioned - this engine did indeed have a nylon timing gear, which I was glad to get rid of. The chain was also very stretched so the new double roller was a welcome upgrade and nice bit of preventative of maintenance. Definitely feel like I caught it at the right time. The cam, lifters, timing chain, gasket set, assembly lube, oil and coolant ran me approximately $210 all said and done. Some driving around yesterday appeased the butt-dyno. Definitely has more power and torque, and has a nice powerband, pulling higher into the RPM range and sounding happier doing it. A cool exhaust note is an added bonus. I want to spend a little more time dialing it in - it still wants to diesel a bit when I shut it off so maybe more timing? I added a couple degrees initial from where it was at and it seems to like it, but the timing is still pretty conservative at 14*. I think I ran my 350 (with a larger cam) at around 17* or 18* initial so I'll play with that in in the spring.
Videos to follow!
Mine will diesel if the idle mix is even a tick too lean.
Mind you, I'm 10.9:1 compresion, and a snottier cam. I'm running fairly cold plugs though.
In reply to SkinnyG :
With that in mind I may back the mixture screws out a little bit. I forget- you still have a Quadrajet right? I did the 'turn mixture screws out until highest vacuum is achieved' method, honestly could probably go a bit further out, but I'm leery of really trying to 'tune' anything as it's colder right now than 90% of the driving I do with the truck. It's generally a summer cruiser I'm just a little excited with the new cam so I'm still playing around with it.
Here's a stock vs. cammed idle comparison. I'm pleased with the way the new cam sounds, actually has more lope than the larger cam (.510 lift) in my previous 350. I don't recall the lobe separation on the 350 cam off hand but I know this one is pretty tight at 112.
Yes, I'm rocking the Q-jet.
For the brief time I had mine on TBI/Megasquirt, I got the best idle fattening up the idle AFR to the highest vacuum (I think it ended up at 13.5:1, which I'm fine with).
My cam is 231°@050, with 108 lobe separation. Idles at 8" in gear.
Are you using a different camera for the new video? I'd love to hear the sound a bit less "tinny" like the first one.
What mufflers?
In reply to SkinnyG :
Same phone camera- I can try to get another video from the same angle as the first one, see if the tinny sound clears up at all.
Muffler is a Flowmaster, probably a 40 series but I'm not sure. Single in dual out, mounted way back by the bumper. Long tube headers (Flowtech afterburners that were free) and a home made mandrel bent y-pipe. I think 2 1/4" tubing.
Hot damn! I never thought a 305 could sound that good!
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