Fixing up a '71 Grand Safari

Discussion in 'General Station Wagon Discussions' started by Vetteman61, Jul 10, 2012.

  1. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    I thought I was going to, but there was a Christmas parade, and then a Christmas party and then my parents wanted to have Christmas this weekend and then it rained, so I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. I also still need to determine what size fuses for all the sockets in the fuse box i've created.
     
  2. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    Start with 5A in each, work your way up.
     
  3. Poison_Ivy

    Poison_Ivy Dogzilla Fan

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    How far up?
     
  4. OrthmannJ

    OrthmannJ Always looking for old ford crew cabs

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    It sounds like you're getting closer by the day, even with the busy schedule.
     
  5. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    Another bout of weather and sicknesses in the household prolonged progress yet again. I also had to divert some attention to some issues with the Lumina which had to be fixed.



    There was a plastic tab on the mass air flow senor that apparently fit into a grove to clock the sensor in the correct rotation on the original application. Here, it prevented me from clamping down the MAF sensor straight.

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    I used the dremel and ground the tab off.

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    I also needed to make a bracket to support the filter end of the intake.

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    I remembered to drill the holes prior to bending this time.

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    The bracket ended up looking like this. I have yet to paint the bracket in the pictures below.

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    The intake setup ended up like this. The filter is positioned under the fuse and pcm panel. I later plan to block off the side of the panel to create an airbox. I need to find out how much heat the pcm put off to make sure it won't heatsoak the intake.

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    The day I finished up the wiring under the dash it was very, very cold. I had several layers of clothing and coveralls on, so it was really difficult to lay in the floor and reach under the dash to work with the wires. Also, the metal floorboard was so cold it would come through the layers. There was a Christmas parade that day and I wanted to be there with the girls so my workday got cut a little short.



    I took the glove box out so I could mount the OBDII port. The wire for the glovebox light was barely hanging on and it broke off when I removed it so I soldered it back in place.

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    Fortunately there was already a large hole in the glove box so I routed my wires through that. Here I'm finding the alignment of the holes to be drilled. I also mounted the Dakota Digital OBDII box on the back of the glove box which is not shown in the picture below.

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    This is where I mounted OBDII port. The two screw heads on the back of the glove box is where I mounted the OBDII controller.

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    The harness that connects the Dakota Digital brain box to the OBDII controller wasn't long enough so I had to order a longer one.

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    I had previously made a diagram of where each wire should go and used the 1978 Caprice wiring diagrams to determine which wires I needed to splice into, which made finding and hooking everything up much quicker.

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    These are T-clamp wire splice connectors. This was the first time I've used them and I really preferred them to the previous kind I had been using. I actually didn't even understand how to use them at first. You just clamp this onto the wire you need to splice into and then insert a blade connector into a small hole in the folded over end, that way you can disconnect the splice if you ever need to.

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    The instructions with the Dakota Digital dash were a bit confusing and caused some delay. In short, Dakota Digital used to provide two push button switches with their units that each had two wires. Now they provide one rocker switch that has three wires and has two functions, up and down. The wiring diagram has been updated to reflect this change, but the written instructions have not, so they were conflicting. Also, Dakota accidentally sent me two separate switches and they were only supposed to send me one, so it was very confusing trying to find out how everything was supposed to be wired. I called the company and we finally worked out the issue.

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    At long last it was time to install the cluster.

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    There are only two bolts that mount the cluster to the dash so it was a pretty straight forward and easy install. The stock lens installs over the top of what is shown below. My original lens was in poor shape with some of the tabs broken off from various people working on it over the years. Over the Christmas holiday I went up to the farm where I have a parts car in the barn and I got a lens that was in better shape.

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    I finished connecting the remainder of the wires. I attached the battery negative cable where the compressor was mounted on the 5.3.

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    I used some of the original clamps to route the cables.

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    I finally fixed the broken ground strap that came out of the heater core box and I also cleaned up all of the ground mounting locations with a wire brush dremel.

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    I still had some soldering that needed to be completed on the car. Now that the air intake system was complete I could determine how long the MAF sensor wires needed to be and also some of the wires for the AC sensors and switches. My father-in-law was in town for the Christmas holiday and helped with soldering all the remaining wires on the car.

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    I got the AC hardline rebent and installed. I had an issue with installing the accumulator and I essentially ruined the threads to the evaporator. I'll most likely have to install a new evaporator and get a new accumulator, but all that will have to wait until after I get the car running.



    Before I started the car I wanted to get the dash working so I would have gauges to monitor. At first the dash wasn't working but then I later realized I had put some of the fuses in the wrong location. I left some gaps in the fuse locations that can be used to power future relays if I chose to install them. When I put all the fuses in I forgot to include the gaps. I was finally able to start the engine after putting some gas in the tank. I could hear the fuel pump working and the engine didn't crank over very long before it fired up. It is way louder than I wanted so I'll have to take it back and get quieter mufflers put on. When the engine started there was no response from the gas pedal. At the very beginning the engine would idle around 800 rpm, but now idles around 1250 rpm. I was scared at first because when I first start the car it will quickly rev to 2000 rpm and after a couple of tries I found that once it gets to 2000 rpm it will come back down to 1250 or so. I was also getting a code for a MAP sensor. The probable causes for this seem to be a vacuum leak, but I have yet to find a leak. Below are all of the places I've looked to try to find a vacuum leak.

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    I also had a small fuel leak. I tightened the connector marked below and it so far seems to have eliminated the leak.

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    I filled the upper radiator hose and then filled the radiator and there appears to be no air left in the cooling system, however the engine slowly overheats. I also noticed after letting the engine run for about two minutes that the exhaust manifolds were glowing red hot. Given the pedal having no response, the glowing manifolds and overheating it seems as though it would be best to have a computer hooked to the computer to see what's going on with the tune before I go further. The PCM is a 2003 Express Van tuned with a 2004 Tahoe tune. With the Holidays here I am somewhat stuck until I can get a tuner hooked up and see what's happening.
     
  6. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    You won't need to worry about the heat from the PCM, as the airflow moving through, once you build a bulkhead, will keep it cooled without combining with heat coming from the engine. I've seen Caddies with the PCM incorporated into the airbox exactly for that reason.
     
  7. zzzizxz

    zzzizxz Well-Known Member

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    NOOOO!!!!
    While you always have to assume that you will have to work out some kinks when doing such a massive swap, it sure would be nice if you just turn the key and it runs like it should, wouldn't it???
     
  8. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    Exhaust glowing red-hot? In older engines, anything that retarded either ignition timing or cam timing (such as jumping a tooth on the timing chain) can cause that, but this doesn't have a distributor, or a way to 'correlate' cam and crank sensor offset. Could you have a large internal vacuum leak, causing the engine to be dead lean? Are all the clamps on the air intake hoses properly set and snugged? Timing chain jumped? Having either a tuner or just a scan tool with live data hopefully will uncover what's going on.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2018
  9. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    Well, I got it running and I got the pedal working. It was a tuning issues with the operating software. I also stripped out a transmission line trying to fix a leak. I had a sinus infection and was trying to at least get it finished while it was a Saturday. I didn't make it.
     
  10. Silvertwinkiehobo

    Silvertwinkiehobo "Everything that breaks starts with 'F.'"

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    Damn. But, did you at least run the shifter through the full quadrant to ensure all gears engaged/filled?
     
  11. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I did run the car through the gears and they did all engage.
     
  12. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    After a lot of fuss I finally determined the problem with the car. As I mentioned earlier I changed the stock 2004 Avalanche PCM to a 2004 Express Van because of it's capability to work with the the AC system I will have installed. The tuner was unaware that the Chevrolet Express Van was somewhat of an anomaly compared to most other vehicles of those years. The Van used a drive by cable setup, but also did a few other things different. Just one small example, the PCM does not control the alternator as it does on most other vehicles. With this understanding I took the computer out and took it to the tuner and he was able to change a few things. This ended up fixing many of the issues I was having with the idle and overheating.



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    Unfortunately the pedal was still not working. I tested the sensors on the pedals and I tested the TAC module and found them to both be working properly. Since I had de-pinned the TAC module connector to fit it through the firewall I suspected that may have been my problem. Even though I had taken detailed notes which seemed to be correct I searched and searched to find the correct pinout for this connector. As it turns out they were all correct. Shortly before I began tearing into all the other components, like the throttle body and motors, all the wiring, the pedals sensors and the TAC module and related wires and connectors, I happened to read online one persons experience of having a non-functional pedal because they hooked the pedal wires up after the battery was connected. I had connected the battery first as well so I decided to give this a try and disconnected the battery and hooked all the pedal wires up before reconnecting the battery and sure enough, the pedal worked perfectly. That was a huge relief. Below is the TAC module connector from the PCM which I had de-pinned.

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    I went over and over these wires time and again trying to find my mistake.

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    I haven't driven the car yet, but just idling in the driveway I find it to be way too loud. I'm going to wait until I drive it to see what it sounds like, but I've been looking into other muffler options. I will say that I seem to be in the minority in that I really hate the way new LS Corvettes, Camaros and basically anything new sounds at all, even when quiet. The true-duals with no crossover give the exhaust behind the car a sound I kind of like. Hearing each pipe on it's own gives a stereo sound that reminds me a bit of old small block Chevy's from the 60s.

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    It was so cold on Saturday that paint wouldn't adhere properly and it definitely wouldn't dry in any kind of timely manner so I cooked up a batch of air intake brackets.... and April says I can't cook! This was the first time I've ever heated paint in the oven, but it did worked very well, even though it didn't smell super great in the kitchen.

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    Friday night, when we took the PCM to the tuners, I began feeling sick. Saturday morning I felt really bad, but I was so close to having the car finished enough to drive around the block I was determined to finish. Despite my determination I had given up on fixing the pedal so I took all the layers of clothes off, no small feat, and sat at the computer trying to research why the pedal wasn't working. When I found the battery connection issue I had to suit back up and go give it a try. When it actually worked I was determined to get back out and at least drive the car around the block. I was doing the typical rounds of addressing any of the existing leaks one by one. Both transmission lines were leaking from the case. I got the top one stopped, but they were very hard to get to and it was really hard to tell from the odd angles I was at how hard I was pushing, and I also felt really really bad. The very last thing on the entire car I had to do before I could test drive it around the block was tighten the lower line. The thought of actually getting to drive the car seemed like too much fun, so I decided to strip out the threads on the transmission case. Needless to say, that ended any chance of driving the car that day.

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    After being sick over New Years I was able to get back to work on the car the following weekend. After work one night I double checked to make sure it was the case that stripped. If I was lucky, maybe just the fitting stripped and I could replace it. I had no such luck and the case was in fact stripped. I realized it would take me a long time to remove the entire transmission and fix the threads so I called a local shop and asked if they could do it. I ended up ordering a helicoil kid and they said they could drop the transmission and fix the threads. This will probably take them a day, where as it would probably take me a month or better to completely finish this project given the time I have available. I decided to add some connectors on the transmission line so that I won't have to remove the lines from the case anymore. Since the threads were stripped on the lower line I was able to cut the line and pull it out from the case. Then I put a double flare and connector on the line.

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    I know I sound like a commercial for this tool but I really love this thing. I was worth every dollar. I was able to flare all of the lines on the car, even in the cramped quarters, and every flare turned out practically perfect. I even remembered to put fittings on all the lines before I flared them, though I did have a close call.

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    The pressure line from the transmission had fluid running out of it while I was trying to flare it. It looked like a scene from the movie Psycho.

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    Now the transmission shop will have an easier time with the installation and I won't have to worry about this problem ever again. Of course I could just not do something stupid like strip the lines out anymore, but that's probably far too high of an expectation.

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    Before the PCM was reprogrammed the computer was causing the engine to do all kinds of bad things, one of which was run super lean, which caused the exhaust manifolds to glow bright cherry red. All the paint I had spent time applying to them was burned off immediately. Also, all of the loom I had installed that was anywhere near the exhaust melted. I didn't have any loom or wires touching the exhaust, but it still melted it anyway. Nothing is more fun to remove than melted plastic. The black tape seemed to hold up decently in several places.

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    After removing all of the old charcoal I went to two franchised parts houses which have become practically useless. Our last independent parts out went out of business recently and I really miss it. After my third stop I was able to find some heat wrap tape. I applied it to the areas which run near the exhaust and manifolds. I removed the starter to make getting the oil sender wire easier. This is absolutely faster than trying to get it disconnected with the starter still in place. These LS starters are much easier to take off and put on than the old small block starters were.

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    The pipes hopefully won't ever be getting that hot again, but just in case they do this stuff should protect it. The wires themselves and their insulation was not damaged. For the price they charge for the small amount of this stuff you get it had better work.

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    I finally made a decision on what kind of vapor filter to get for the gas tank. The one I found that I liked best was a stock filter from a 2nd generation F-Body Camaro or Firebird, but I also found that those have been discontinued and are hard to come by. I ended up running the hose up and over the frame and in between the frame and body like the fuel lines are run and then mounting up high between the frame and body. This is also a rollover valve, so if the greasy side ever goes up all the fuel won't run out and cause me and the car to look like the wire loom above.

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    It finally stopped raining so I went and got the trailer and hope to load the car soon so I can drop it off and the transmission shop one day in the upcoming week. I got the insurance updated to reflect the new modifications and if everything works as planned I hope next weekend to take the car to get new tires and then the catalytic converters installed. I also need to take it back the tuner's so we can fine tune everything while the car is running. After that I can get it emissions tested (scam) and then licensed. I have noticed some rust under the old vinyl top, which itself is in really bad shape. I talked to the body guy that repaired it last time when April totaled it and he has moved about 3 1/2 hours away. I'll drive the car for a few days to get the bugs out and then I plan to drive it to him so he can repair the roof before I have a new vinyl top installed. I still have a leak in the passenger side floorboard which I can't locate. At this point I suspect it may be coming in a hole rusted in the roof, running down the interior of the A-pillar and behind the dash, so I'm not going to install any of the carpeting or insulation until I get the roof fixed and then locate and repair the leak.
     
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  13. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    Progress has been very, very slow. Overtime at work as well as weather and a host of other issues on the weekends has prevented me from doing much more than walk around the car for a few weeks. We found out one of our daughters has a food allergy and spent the day in the emergency room. I'm so close to having the car finished that I'm really anxious to get time to finish up these final details. After I have confidence the bugs have been worked out on the mechanical side I'm going to drive the car about 4 hours to a body shop and he is going to fix the rust under the old vinyl top. I got the car to a transmission shop and they fixed the stripped threads on the transmission case, so all of the transmission lines are now complete without leaks. I hauled the car to the transmission shop and April dropped me off late one night after work to pick the car up. It had yet to have moved under its own power at this point. My very first test drive was through town in lots of traffic straight to the tire shop, where it got new tires and an alignment. Unfortunately, 15 inch tires (255/60r15, raised white letter of course) are not very common anymore and that means they aren't as cheap as they used to be. After the tire shop the car went back to the exhaust shop where the catalytic converters were installed.



    A couple of the lights were out and the turn signal light was burning all of the time. I am used to flashers flashing quickly when a light burns out, but apparently this one causes the light to stay on. I was expecting this to be a short because of the creek I submerged the car in the last time I drove it before the engine swap. When I replaced the bulb for the front parking light both parking lights started working correctly and the blinker worked correctly as well. The fuel gauge is still not working but I haven't had a chance to chase that down yet. I used a multi-meter to check the overcharging issue. According to the dash the car is charging at 15 volts, but checking at the alternator shows a max of 14.6 and 14.5 with all accessories on, so it seems the dash gauge is just reading .4 volts too high.



    I lost one weekend because a friend was supposed to use one of his cars at a charity event and then couldn't make it so he asked me if I could fill in so I took the '31. Getting the car out and ready to haul to the event and then attending used up one whole weekend of progress. Fortunately The Caprice was mobile at that point so I didn't have to push it out of the way.



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    I haven't gotten a picture of the new exhaust system since it has been installed.

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    It has been raining a lot and the temperature has been in the teens so I haven't been able to work on the car during the weekdays. This Saturday, I started out addressing the exhaust manifold contacting the frame. I removed the exhaust from the manifold and was glad to find that it isn't actually contacting the frame, it just looks like it from the view from underneath, so I reinstalled the exhaust and put everything back. There were a couple small leaks resulting from the heat cycles so I got all of those tightened up.



    The original gas tank filler neck was all steel so it didn't have a mount near the cap. The new gas tank has a rubber tube connecting the filler neck to the tank so it needs to be mounted near the cap. I don't want to weld brackets to the original body, which would work fine, but isn't really my preferred method.

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    I had been looking at this area for quite a while hoping a good solution would come to me but there just isn't a good place to make a clean looking mount. I finally decided to make a mount that would screw into the existing holes in the top of the bumper and would then have two arms that would come up and mount to the tabs on the filler neck. The flat white piece in the picture below is a piece of aluminum siding trimmed and painted body color on top. These cars had a filler piece between the bumper and body made of rubber and almost all of them have crumbled and disappeared over time. This solution seems to work pretty good and unless you knew differently it appears stock from the top side. The bolts I'll be using for the mount are directly under the aluminum piece and hold the inner structure of the bumper to the outer chrome shell.

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    I started with a cardboard template. I didn't have a scrap piece of metal long enough to make the piece so I had to weld a couple pieces together.

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    I normally like to grind all welds smooth and flat but on this piece I decided to only grind the outside. If this piece ends up with too much lateral flex I'll add a couple gussets. I had to stop here because things didn't go quite to plan. I will eventually have two arms coming off of this piece that will mount to the top of the filler neck but I had trouble getting one of the bolts out of the bumper.

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    The first bolt came out fine but the second bolt wouldn't come out. They thread into place with metal clips that clamp inside the bumper, but this clip broke and is spinning inside the bumper. It's impossible to accurately explain but because of the way the inner structure of the bumper is made it is impossible to access this clip. The only way would be to remove the bumper and take all of the bolts out to remove the inner structure, which would mean grinding the head off of the afflicted bolt. This isn't a good option because I'm sure many more of these bolts will have the same problem of the clip breaking. Looking back at the picture from under the car will show that the inner structure of the bumper had a couple holes cut in it. I used a hole saw of a similar size to drill a hole in the appropriate place to give me at least some kind of access. Even then because of the unnecessarily intricate structure on the inside of the bumper it is not a straight shot. That is as far as I was able to get and I have yet to remove the clip. Even with the access hole it is very difficult to reach but I think if I can grind the head off and remove the bolt I can get my fingers in there to install a new bolt with a nut.



    I took the car to pass emissions and it failed. It failed because the testing station said they could not get enough of a reading from the tailpipe. Essentially, they said that there isn't enough puff coming out of the tailpipe. I asked the guy if I could hold my foot on the gas and he said no. I have no exhaust leaks and the car is idling where it should. This entire emissions scam is such a waste of time and money and is super frustrating. I suppose I should be happy we don't have full inspections like some states do. I did make sure there was a probe in both tailpipes. I'll have to find another testing station where they aren't so ridiculous and I guess just hold my foot on the gas while they have the probes in.



    I took the car to the tuner's house and he's going to drive it into his shop and tune it on the dyno. At 70 miles per house the car is turning 1450 rpm, which is way too low. The gearing, 2:41 I think, is way too high. I'm barely able to keep it at 65 because you can barely sit your foot on the gas and it speeds up. I did confirm that the torque converter is locking up and disengaging with the brake, so that's a relief. When I was in town this past weekend I heard a clicking noise when I had the hood up. I tracked the noise down to coming from the PMC/Relay/Air box. I looked into the issue and found that it is most likely a relay clicking, which was a relief because my first fear was that it was the PCM. The frequency was about 1 click per second. This is most likely due to the tune and the double fan. We knew that the fans would need to be addressed in the final tune but I didn't realize it could cause the fan relay to click. I'm not sure yet but from what I've read the PCM is trying to activate the recirculate door from the old Avalanche and a setting will need to be manually changed to the "fan 2" setting with the laptop. The good news is that the car ran great on the trip to the tuners, which was about 15 miles, some of that at interstate speeds. It doesn't seem to be overheating, has good oil pressure and voltage and currently doesn't have any leaks. The tuner is going to address some things like shift points, fans and throttle lag in the drive by wire. I'm anxious to see how the car will be after the final tune on the dyno.
     
  14. OrthmannJ

    OrthmannJ Always looking for old ford crew cabs

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    Well, it sounds like this build is in the home stretch. Pretty exciting. Thanks for the update.
     
  15. Vetteman61

    Vetteman61 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks. I'm anxious to get this done as I've really been hitting this project hard because this is a daily driver and not a weekend toy. I'm really looking forward to taking a break for a few weekends. My next project (other than a few around the house) will be to get the wagon back together.
     

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