CRittaler

Not planning on tinting anything. Just fix the couple busted things, replace the tires and drive it

I just opened my shop manual for the car. The carb looks like a Carter WCFB 4 barrel. Thankfully this ship manual also has the schematics for the radio. It looks like is uses similar tubes to my 57 Chevy flatbed so I'll be looking for extras lol. I still have to check fuses and whatnot.

It's been a while since I've logged onto the forum. REDRUM has been running very well since I replaced the fuel pump and tank selector relays/wire harness. I saw this car on marketplace about 90 minutes from me. I took so PTO and drove down to check it out. The owner couldn't locate the title before I came down to check it out so he suggested towing it up to me to finalize the sale. I test drove it down there and was sold immediately. No money changed hands that day. He towed it 60 miles up to my neck of the woods on Wedneday Aug 28th and we completed the sale. 1955 Buick Century 322 Fireball V8 (also known as a nailhead) 2 speed variable pitch Dynaflow transmission closed driveline. Manual steering Manual brakes According to the old owner the interior was redone sometime in the 70's, but there's no documentation to prove that. It has been repainted, but it looks like it should polish nicely. Work PO did to it. - New brakes all 4 corners. - New fuel pump - New gas tank - Rebuilt carb What it needs: - Tune up: plug, cap, wires, points. - The GoodYear VIVA 2 tires are badly flat spotted. I have some Coker Classic radials on order. - Vacuum wiper motor is missing. I have an electric retrofit kit on the way. - Heater fan is stuck on, still investigating. - Radio is inoperable (likely a bad capacitor or vacuum tube). - I plan on swapping the sealed beams for Holley Retrobrights to keep current draw low. It only has a 30A generator. - Minor exhaust leak. Feels like there might be a hole in the front of the muffler, I need to jack up the side and have a look. Hoping that I don't end up sinking too much time into this one. It was purchased with the intention of minor work only.

my $0.02. Have a look at my project thread to see what the roof rust can entail. I paid $1500 for my F250 supercab long box 460/zf-5 swap and had to work on it a ton to get to road worthy. I admit my AVS2 is not perfectly tuned and my canopy is missing the front-top window so I get between 7-9 MPG currently. I commute 30 miles each way to work and it's consistently in heavy traffic (yay I-5)

It's been a while. My speedometer still bounces somewhat, I used some bearing grease on the connections at the cruise control. I still have to pull the cluster to lube the back of the speedometer. I think I have finally solved my start-run for a minute and stall issue. The oil pressure switch had failed so I replaced it with an aftermarket one. I still had the problem on occasion, turns out the fuel pump relay socket was severely corroded so I've replace both the fuel pump relay and the tank selector relay with a couple of water proof bosch style relays. I also have the new oil pressure switch bypassed currently while I was debugging. I like it this way better so I may leave it. I turn the key on and make sure that I can hear the pump before I try to start the truck. I may leave the oil pressure switch disconnected and run the wires to a toggle in the cab, use it as a fuel shutoff/anti-theft.

I replaced both pumps and sending units in mine. I had to adjust the float positions on both senders to have them read mostly right. Mine both swing to almost full and are on E with 5 gallons left. They're finicky and I got tired of dropping the tanks so close enough for me.

I replaced the upper cable as well, speedometer is still bouncing. I need to crawl under the truck and try to drive the cable with a drill or something. I'll check the gears when I do as well. From what I can remember the gear on the cable is pink or a very faded red. I have no idea what the gear in the transfercase is, I still need to try and look. I also had the start, run for a bit then die problem resurface. I ended up jumpering the oil pressure switch and the problem seems to have gone away, but I've only started it twice since doing that. I haven't been able to find a direct replacement switch so I'm likely going to install a universal one.

I have a scabbed together compressor as well! Mine is a 60 gallon tank with a 1HP 120V motor running a compressor off of a 30 Gallon Craftsman paint sprayer. I can fill from empty to 125psi in ~10 minutes. While I haven't tried a DA sander or a paint sprayer, I do use a die grinder frequently. I'll try and snap a picture in a bit.

I know it's been a long time since I last posted. The cable ended up snapping right at the transfercase so I replaced the lower cable. It's still bouncing like crazy so I have an upper cable on order. I didn't drive it much between my last post and now, so I had to do some mold remediation from it sitting. Now I run an AC dehumidifier in the truck when it sits so that I can hopefully pull out all the excess moisture. All in all the truck is running well.

unfortunately, I added 10% to the mileage before calculating lol. I do notice the needle bouncing so I might also try lubricating it. What should I use? Graphite dry lubricant or Lithium grease?

I ended up just replacing the front tank as well, so now I have both tanks new and new fill necks. It ended up working well, though I have to angle the nozzle a certain way when filling the front tank or it will spit back at me. Truck did well on another road trip to Canada. I picked up some car parts that I had left at my moms. 3 boxes of parts from my 1968 BMW 2000CS that I had to scrap and 2 7.25 drum to drum rear ends for my dart. During the trip we drove from Victoria to Parksville and the truck managed ~11mpg Next up on stuff to fix, speedometer is ~10% slower than actual speed. I suspect it's a bad cable since the rear end ratios are the same, but there's a chance that the PO didn't change the gear on the cable and I don't know if the drive gear is the same between the ZF5 and the original C6(?)

Should be able to test drive the truck tonight. I finished swapping the rear tank, I didn't have to do anything with my sending unit tabs, they lined up just fine, not sure what was going on there, but it was a nice surprise. I for sure ordered a sending unit for pre 87 from LMC so I don't know why it worked out. If you're standing looking at the tank with the pump assembly closest to you, the fuel outlet was at ~5 O'clock and the return was at ~7:30 This was the same on both tanks. I did have to bend the float rod a bit to get it to land on E with 5 gallons in the tank. After that I wrestled it back into place. New fill neck fit nicely and it all bolted together fine. I also reconnected power to the in tank pumps and bypassed the aftermarket pump on the frame rail. I started the truck and it ran without shutting off. Tried both tanks, it didn't die. We'll see how it goes when I can putter around a bit though. I think I was right in the the frame mounted pump was losing it's prime while sitting and sometimes wasn't able to reprime before the float bowls would run empty. This pump is mounted on the frame rail up by the transfer case so there is quite a bit of fuel line that it would have to pull through to reprime.

I will have a look! I have another 87+ tank that has a pump assembly so I will compare it with my current one. good to know the lower end of the hose isn't constrained. I probably didn't need to replace the tank then, oh well may as well now since I have it. The filler neck I have has the inner hose already attached at the top, I'll take a closer look. If I can get away with just removing a tab on the assembly, even better.

ok, I just dropped the rear tank and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that my dishwasher drain hose has survived acting as a vent. It hadn't swelled or gotten spongy at all. I also opened the box for the new tank. This tank is a later model, '87 I believe. It has nothing in the fill neck opening to support the inner hose for the replacement fill neck. I'm tempted to try to 3D print something out of nylon to slip over the inner hose and hold it near the top of the filler opening. Not sure yet if there is supposed to be some kind of support there or not. I also have to see how far off the tabs make the pump assembly sit. I might cut new notches to fit the old assembly.

alright, I dropped the front tank and used a bench power supply to run the in tank pump to drain the gas that was in it. I replaced the fill neck and the roll over vent and I adjusted the float to read just over E with 5 gallons in it. Put it all back in place and it seemed to fill reasonably well from the gas cans. I still have to deal with the rear tank and replumbing the fuel lines to go around the aftermarket pump. I also have to fix the wiring to connect the in tank pumps back up. I was able to drain ~14 gallons out of the rear tank using the in tank pump and bench supply and with any luck I should be able to drop the tank today.