More Car Stuff

Mostly because of my newly acquired inheritance, I've been getting in a good amount of car work in these days. As always, there's more to do!!!

Not chronological, but to start with, I bought a new deep cycle battery to use in the Hawk, and put the one I'd borrowed from the Falcon back in. I'll also mention since I don't have a picture to go with it, one of Kutcher's tires had a nail in it that I removed and plugged the hole. I'd bought a tire plug kit from my previous job, and this is the first time I used it. I've seen them installed before, but have never done it myself. Either I should have gone at the tire more and oversized the hole more, or it's harder to get in than I thought, I had to fight it to get it in!!! It's holding fine, though. The tires are all getting worn, and I'm thinking I'll do something I've been meaning to do, take it for an alignment, and buy a new set of tires. The oil change light just came on, and it will be the first one I've done without being able to buy employee price oil. One of the driving lights burned out, but I bought a pair of yellow ones to replace the factory white ones with not long after we bought it, and this may be the perfect time to install them!!! Oh, and I bought myself a pair of ramps to make some of these maintenance tasks a bit easier.

I'm also planning on doing a repair on the bottom of Zonker's front bumper like I did on Scruffy, it has a little portion in the middle that's hanging down now. That was a big part of the reason I bought the ramps!!!

On to the things I've done to the Hawk, I got all the window tint removed from the front windows. It wasn't as difficult as I'd thought it was going to be.

Also got a reflection of Zonker and of an unmentioned cat with coffee T-shirt my wife got me in the window picture!!!

One of the first things I did to try to get it to run cooler was to flush to cooling system and install a high flow thermostat. After I drained it, I removed the thermostat and added the flush, ran it for a while, and drained it again. As I did this, I got a better look at the sketchy looking routing of the upper radiator hose. The water pump and air conditioning compressor run off one belt, and the alternator drives from the A/C, and the hose was running between the two.

While I had the hose off, I got a look at the groove it had cut in the hose, and did not like the look of it at all!!! On my first run to the local auto parts store, they were good enough to let me go behind the counter and see if I could find a molded hose that might work better. A portion of part number D72224 turned out to work quite nicely!!!

My other thought was that the upper radiator hose appeared to be higher than the radiator filler, which could possibly cause a bubble in the system. I found a filler neck tee that I planned to put in place of the splice junction. I made the first purchase from my former work for a U-bolt to use as a solid mount for it, and added a bracket to hold it between the belt. I also tensioned the belt a little more.

After I'd done all the cooling system work, I was thinking I should have got some T-bolt hose clamps from my previous work while I was there (I'm not paying their shipping costs!!!) While I was looking around for something else, I located a couple I'd previously bought!!! Makes for a cleaner looking installation!!! I'd run it a couple of times in the driveway for around half an hour at a time, and the temperature didn't get all the way up, but the first time I noticed the electric fan wasn't coming on all the time. I cleaned the terminals and it seems to be working fine ever since.

I had ordered pizza a couple of nights later, and the younger and I took the Hawk to pick it up, as well as try it out and see how it did. It made it without and cooling issues, but it would surge while driving. Steady throttle, and it sounded like I was on and off the pedal. On the way back, I thought I'd take the less steep but longer back way up the hill. Around half way, it starts acting like it wants to cut out. I throw it in neutral and rev a few times (still acting like it's running rough and not really wanting to run) then try going again. It stalls out. I re start it, and it wants to die again, then does. I re start it again, and there's a road going off the side that I'm pretty sure goes down to the next street over. I head down it, and it's doing a little better not climbing, but the road is super sketchy, it goes down to one lane, and rutted dirt!!! I had the idea of taking it down to our street and parking it there, but it made it halfway down the street between, and stalls. I roll it to the side, and try re starting it again. It starts, but it's running really rough. It had gotten warm, but not like when I'd brought it home. I was thinking the heat was causing an issue, so I'd let it sit and cool for a while and try again. Oh yea, where it was, they now have no overnight 2 AM to 6 AM parking now.

We walked up, ate our pizza, and I walked back down a couple hours later. It re started, but was still running rough. I drove it over to the bottom of my street, and it stalled as I was rounding the corner. I was able to re start it, and drove it to the same back way street I'd last attempted, and it stalled out going around that corner, too!!! I called it for the night, rolled it back to the side of the street (no overnight restrictions there!!!) and once again walked up the hill.

The next day I headed down to see if I could figure it out. I was suspecting a fuel delivery issue. I recalled from when my dad had it, it came with a cork float for the fuel level sender, and after 40+ years it just kind of came apart!!! Probably, ideally, I should probably drop the tank and get it cleaned. He had installed an inline canister style fuel filter before the fuel pump, a clear filter with replaceable elements just before the carburetor, and the carb has a built in filter. I took out the clear one to get a look at it, and it was caked solid, and the gas in it looked like dirty brown water!!! Thinking I might be onto something, I headed over to the auto parts store again, and got a replacement for the carburetor filter and the inline filter. I just removed the clear one, planning to get a replacement element at a later time, and put the new carburetor filter in. It seemed to run much better with just that!!! That night, I drove it straight up the front way, and it pulled all the way!!!

You may have heard the old cliché, the old cars, if they break down you can fix it on the side of the road with a screwdriver, crescent wrench, and a pair of pliers. That was exactly what I did!!! Oh, and one of my neighbors driving by told me it's a beautiful car!!!

I cut open the old carburetor filter, and it looked pretty gunked up.

I had ordered replacement elements for the clear filter, but then noticed that the glass was cracked, too, so I ordered a new one of those.

The next day, I pulled it up on the ramps and replaced the canister filter. I noticed it is concerningly close to the exhaust, and decided that I would fashion a heat shield before I wrapped up the work in that area. I used a Monster Energy Drink can, it has to be better than the nothing that was there before!!!

I've also vacuumed it out, and used some carpet powder on the interior carpet, and re vacuumed it. My surrogate son gave me a black ice air freshener. Neither of these has completely gotten rid of the rodent smell, and I laid down another layer of carpet powder and will vacuum it again tomorrow. Should see about getting the five years of dust washed off the car cover, and clean out the trunk. Should also see if the spare holds air, and pick up a replacement tire if it doesn't.

I've figured out some of the operation for the radio, it was a nice HD radio Pioneer unit back in the day, but the antenna doesn't seem to be working. I'm thinking of swapping in the one that was in the Homecoming Saturn, it's got nearly the same function as the ones in Scruffy and Kutcher, and having Bluetooth is always better than off a thumb drive.

One other concerning thing, the voltage gauge... always seems to show on the low side!!! If you rev it up, it'll come up, but cruising or at idle it's well under 12 volts. I'd mentioned the underdrive crank pulley, and had had the thought that the slow spinning was possibly the issue with the cooling. Having read up on the water pump, it seems like they are more than is necessary to keep things cool, even at lower speed, but the alternator could possibly not be spinning fast enough at lower speeds. I had thought of buying a couple of V-belt pulleys and different size cogged drive pulleys and a belt, and making a belt overdrive. Since the aren't that expensive or hard to install, though, I'm thinking of getting a one wire conversion to try out before I go that route. Years ago I installed a GM alternator on the Falcon with a one wire conversion, and it is awesome!!! If you just start it and it's only idling, the headlights and dash lights would be dim, as though it's not getting a charge, but rev it just a bit, and you can see it turn on, and it stays charging strong. No gauge on the Falcon, but from the lights, you can see it working!!!

Oh, and speaking of Scruffy, it developed a freakin' rod knock!!! Right around the time I was having to retrieve the Hawk, and I got the old transmission and engine that had been down at my mom's house. Drove it straight to a shop, and had them do a full rebuild, and swap it in since I no longer have access to a nice big flat driveway to do these things. Set me back probably more than it's worth, but you know. I form an emotional bond with my machines.