Gary Lewis

I don't have a pic of one installed as they are behind the instrument bezel. But here's where it goes:

Before buying a regulator I'd call Edelbrock's tech support and tell them what carb and pump you have and see if they think it can be too much pressure. They may say I'm all wet, in which case don't spend the money.

David - Nope, no casserole. But we had rice this morning since it is cool and rainy. Rob - It did work out well in the end, but it took a bowl of spicy soup and lots of crackers to get the taste out of my mouth. Mostly. Anyway, I got the yoke cleaned and re-installed and the ATF in the t-case topped up. Pretty sure it won't leak. The factory shop manual says: And looking at what I took off, I didn't see sealer on the threads, although there might have been some on the face of the nut. After cleaning all the parts with brake cleaner to ensure there wasn't ATF on the surfaces that would prevent the sealer from adhering, I put Loctite 567 Thread Sealant on the first inch of the splines of both the output shaft and the yoke, and slid the yoke home. Then I put the "anti-spill oil seal" in place, and put 567 on the threads of the nut and the output shaft as well as on the faces of the washer and nut. There was plenty of thread sealer. After torquing the nut on the yoke I installed the driveshaft and then the skid plate, and topped up the t-case. And we are ready for 4-wheeling!

Gary, why not wait until after the trip? That will lessen the variables and minimize the chance of something unforeseen with the new electronic device acting up. The current setup doesn't give much "range" on the gauge. With the tank full the gauge reads well below Empty, and it stays there for a loooooong time. Then it starts moving and with five gallons in the tank it reads just shy of 1/2. And an empty tank reads about 7/8 on the gauge. And all of this is with lots of interpolation and consternation on my part. So I'd like to get a bit better reading on the gauge to feel more comfortable as we drive. I'll have both tanks full, but still..... Anyway, back to work on the t-case. The brownie appears to have taken most of the ATF taste out of my mouth. (Yes, Janey made brownies on Saturday, show day. )

Ok, the TechnoVersions MeterMatch is now on order and should be here Thursday. Maybe in time to install it for Friday's trip. But, that came after a huge comedy of errors! You can't make this stuff up! Last night I sent the gentleman at TechnoVersions a note and asked him to call me soonest this morning so I could see that he has them in stock and that he might be able to get it here quickly. This morning I needed to drain maybe a quart of ATF out of the t-case in order to be able to pull the front output yoke to seal it. So I got an empty quart bottle and put a funnel in it and pulled the plug on the t-case. Out shot a bright red stream of ATF and I was catching it nicely with the bottle/funnel combo in one hand and the wrench and plug in the other. Until I dropped the plug into the funnel. The funnel QUICKLY filled up as the plug stuck in the outlet to the funnel, so I put my thumb over the outlet on the t-case. And there I stood with a tall, ungainly bottle with a full funnel on top of it in one hand and a wrench in the other, but with that thumb over the drain hole. And the phone rang. Obviously I didn't answer it. But I did realize that I was going to be there a LONG time as the level in the funnel was not going down at all. Then I realized that the funnel was tightly sealed to the top of the bottle, both being round and one having a taper, and there was no way for air to get out. So I lifted the funnel with my teeth. YUK!!!! That started the ATF dripping, and I mean D.R.I.P.P.I.N.G. out of the funnel. So I stood there contemplating my next move. I decided that if I was VERY careful I could set the bottle and funnel on the arm of the lift and it might not spill. And then, with a free hand, I could pull the fill plug out of the t-case and put it in the drain hole. That worked, but not without another stream of ATF shooting out of the t-case before I could get the plug in. So, here's a shot of the carnage. You can see the pile of paper towels that I used to sop up the ATF. And on the arm of the lift is the bottle and funnel. And here's a somewhat before and after of the ATF in the funnel. On the left is the level after maybe 15 minutes of dripping - after I'd put the paper towels down, called TechnoVersions back, and placed the order. And on the right is the plug in the funnel after another 15 minutes of dripping. Now back to the Coke to get the taste out of my mouth!

Glad you have everything else working. On the wires, if you'll look at the schematic on Page 27 closely you'll see that the Bk/LG says 8 CYL ONLY. That's a ground and it tells the tach to go into 8 cylinder mode. But with a 6 you don't want to connect that. Here's a snippet of Page 27 marked up from our page at Documentation/Electrical/Tachometers that may help: But you do need DG/Y as it is the trigger to the tach from the ignition. As for where it goes, this picture from the same page may help. You want the terminal marked SIG. But some tachs have a plastic cover over them and don't have the same labels showing. However the layout is the same on all tachs, so you want the one in the upper left when viewed from the rear.

Yes, it means I won't need the Arduino. But it also means that if I do an Arduino it won't have to have a high-current driver to handle the gauge. So it simplifies the Arduino and makes it less expensive. There's no way to call TechnoVersions, you have to email with them. So I have and asked them to call me ASAP.

Well, this is a game changer! I just started a new thread about MeterMatch by TechnoVersions. It looks like it is what we need to interface Bricknose senders to Bullnose gauges, and it is only $65, shipped. I suspect that is less than I'd pay for the Arduino I've been planning, and it is apparently available now. Four wires (power, ground, sending unit, and gauge) and you are ready for setup. And that's quite flexible as you can set it to what the sending unit is supposed to give and then fine tune it to what it really gives if you want. Having said that, I was planning on doing some other things with the Arduino, like replacing the aftermarket gauges for one. And maybe reading outside air temp. And providing alarms if the battery voltage gets too high or low. Ditto on oil pressure or gas level. But, this would get me on the road, quite literally, and I could come back and do the Arduino later. In fact, the Arduino wouldn't even have to drive the fuel gauge then, so I wouldn't have to include a high-current driver. Thoughts, please!

Ok sports fans, someone is making the interface I need to make Bricknose sending units work with Bullnose gauges! It is called MeterMatch and it is made by TechnoVersions. At $64.95 inc shipping it isn't expensive, and I'm quite interested. The instructions are included below, and from what I've read it appears that not only will it do the job, but it provides the ability to fine tune things if you want. Still thinking about it, but may order one tomorrow. Thoughts?

Man, that's gotta be "fun" to work on. This was the first double-cardan I've worked on and I'm glad it is done. It takes 3 1/2 hands to push the spider in against the spring, line up the last u-joint, and start the bearing cap w/o knocking a needle or two over. Third time was a charm.

Bill - I probably have an extra of the electrical module. So hang on to that one as someone will need it.

If you have the idle fuel mix screws shut and it is still idling there is certainly a problem. In my experience that can come one of two ways. First, if you left the check ball or weight out of the accelerator pump setup. Second, too much fuel pressure. Is your pump adjustable for pressure? If so, dial it down to see if you can get the thing to idle properly.

Gary, Personally, I think that is just a coincidence. Troy's truck came in second in overall votes-per-truck and he is exactly half way on the list. I thought he was going to win two classes there for a while. His truck is gorgeous after all. If there was a simple way to do it Gary, it would be nice if you could select the class(es) you wanted to enter your truck in. The Ugliest Truck class comes to mind...at least if you entered it on purpose, you wouldn't be too surprised if people agreed with you. I had a wee bit of trouble with that one and actually left it a day or two until the very end. There are some guys on here with some really REALLY nice trucks. I see hideously ugly ones on Facebook all the time, but I must say, there are a lot of nice trucks in this Garagemahal crowd. There were some difficult choices. Have you ever done a 50/50 draw Gary? I notice a lot of the local car shows do this, and donate it to a charity of some sort. I think the vendor prizes/gifts that were donated are outstanding. Yes, I thought Troy was going to win as well. That truck is to die for! And you are right that his wasn't at the top. So maybe it is a coinkydink. You are absolutely right that there are some really nice trucks on here. I think we could allow people to pick their categories. But, save for Ugliest Truck, why wouldn't they want to enter all of them? There's no disadvantage and your odds of winning are infinitely better if you do. I guess we could limit the people to X number of categories? But might that tend to keep people from entering at all? If so, would that take away from the fun of reading about everyone's truck(s)? What's a 50/50 draw?

I did the order simply the way they came in, chronologically. But we could mix them up later. Boy, those entries were good! It was fun reading them.

The speed control module of which you speak is the electrical one under the dash or the servo under the hood? Or are you talking about the later electric version?

You came sooooooo close! I thought you had two of the classes. Man, the competition was fierce, particularly in People's Favorite and Closest To Stock.

Good point, Rob. But there's another side to the coin. Chris Tubutis/ctubutis comes every year and the late-September date has cause some concerns with fog on his return to Denver. An advantage to the holiday is that people would have more time off. But that could be a disadvantage as they may have family plans. George - It is in Skiatook, OK. Just north of Tulsa.

Ok, let's kick off this discussion.. First, I think I want to move the date forward as Janey and I want to travel in mid to late September. So, why do you think about holding it on Labor Day weekend? Next, have you noticed that all of the winners were in the first few entries? Does that say something about our attention span? Does it imply that our entries are too long? If so, do we need to limit the words? Pictures? Videos? Another idea is to have a two-phased approach with all the entries people can come up with, and then a group of people pare them down to a subset that all of us vote on. And what about having a face-to-face and a virtual show? Maybe at the same time? We could do the entries in advance, maybe a couple of weeks ahead, and then turn the voting on the week of the show and let it run for the week. Let's see those ideas!

Ok, got the front driveshaft done today. Replaced all the u-joints and whatever the thing in the middle of the double-cardan is called. Boy, that double-cardan sure complicates things. But, it is done. Tomorrow I'll see if I can fix the leak in the output shaft.

Edelbrocks don't like more than ~5 psi of fuel pressure so it is possible that the pump is giving you too much. Is it adjustable? As for the gasket, you should be running both gaskets and the plate. That may well be the cause of the problem.

I can't confirm the use of that mat in 90 - 96, but it is correct from 83 to 89 when my catalog ends. So the guy is probably right.

I need to thank all those that voted for my trucks. THANK YOU! These are the first of the Garagemahal trophies that my trucks have ever won. It was fun. But it was also missing the personal bit of seeing many of you face-to-face. So, for next year maybe we can do things differently? I don't want to take away from the celebrations here, so will start another thread about that. However, I'll be getting the trophies and certificates in the mail ASAP. But I need addresses. I probably have Bill's but don't know that I have Matthew's and I'm pretty sure I don't have Cory's nor Jochen's. Help, folks! Please email me your addresses.

David - I will keep track of MPG, but as Rob said I still need to seat the rings. Yes, with Janey in the truck. At 150 miles there's still a lot of seating to be done. Rob - I hope to remember to take some pics. Bill - Thanks for that. Oddly enough, David found that post and pic this morn and sent it to me via email, but it is good to have it on here. I still need to confirm I don't have either of those before the hunt gets serious.

David & I were talking about this via email so I thought I'd post the plans here. Janey and I are hoping to have a BIG day on Friday taking Big Blue to Kendall's Restaurant in Noble, Ok. We've been drooling over pictures of their chicken-fried stakes, and now that BB is together and needs an outing...... So in the interim I'm hoping to get several things done on the truck, including: Front driveshaft installed, which will require installing the new u-joints on it awa fixing the leak, if the t-case is still leaking Have the alignment checked and, if needed, fixed Align the headlights Here's the planned route, which is essentially all back roads, including as much of Route 66 that we can.

Welcome, Bill. How's Darth feeling about his award?