FJ4overland

[RamRod]

Lookin good

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[SuperBuickGuy]

decisions.... so I finally got an answer from Howell - 10 degrees is what they recommend. It'll be awesome when I get another timing light; my craftsman hasn't been that awesome, but it got decidedly worse when I burned the clamp (yeah, plastic clamp).

in talking with Howell's tech (for those of you counting, email before christmas asking the question along with a promise to respond to my email by the 27th - I gave up and called them today). it's another $250 to get a chip burned by them.... for an archaic system. Adding it up, $100 for the swap meet special, $325 for the wire harness, $250 for another chip.... I'm thinking it's beyond time to simply by a(nother) holley efi system. I had an EZ system, sold it because it couldn't handle the cam that was in my Corvette.... now they have a stand-alone system that takes the feedback I (and others) gave them for less then $1000.... I suspect I can sell this system (or what's left) and get my money back - though it came with so many parts that even if I keep it, it will be useful in the future as parts.

But what utterly killed it for Howells is their terrible customer service. I'll circle back to this.

The alternator was bad, more specifically the rectifier. According to the alternator guy I hit the pulley with a hammer and caused all the problems.... only problem is it didn't happen. There are days when I wished I lived the exciting life alleged by others.

Which circles back to. if the rectifier was bad, that could be one of the reasons I kept killing Modules. Anyone want to guess what's I'm not doing with the 'fixed' version of this alternator?

Or say screw it and put the diesel and automatic transmission in here....

 

[JPaul]

You don't hit your alternator's on the pulley with a hammer before installing them? I thought everyone did that, it's to knock any gremlins from the factory out before you install it. Or if you did, then you clearly didn't use a big enough hammer and ended up with some gremlins still in there...

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

I was laughing at that the accusation - to hit the alternator would require quite an amazing (and impossible) swing. With that said, I haven't seen it yet - perhaps he was whining because it flopped around a bit in the trip back to the builder.... if that's true, my attitude may become decidedly unfriendly towards him because it wouldn't have the ding if he'd built an alternator that lasted more then a month (and had not cut short a perfect day of wheeling in the mountains).

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

So I went to pick it up yesterday and the builder claimed that a dent on the pulley cause the regulator to fail. Only a couple problems with that. 1st, there were wear marks where the belt had worn off the paint on the dent.... oh, and the paint was still intact at the impact point. I honestly don't get it - schmidt happens and regulators fail, no big deal. But now it is a big deal because this guy is making excuses that aren't supported by the evidence.... where I'd continue buying from him if he was honest; now I can't buy from or recommend him to others. Not just that, the guy who recommended him is reconsidering using him... all for a failed regulator that was most likely not his fault.

A lot of people read this across the 'net, never comment and it's to them I say this - if you think honesty is expensive, wait until you see what it costs to be thought dishonest. I want to confront the guy because I like small businesses - but in the end, he isn't paying me to do this and I have lots of people who are willing to pay for the help. Too bad, there's no chance he'll survive. He did so good at the start getting me an alternator outside of his normal schedule.... but I'm not going to miss another day of wheeling trusting him again.

 

[JPaul]

Sounds like he's just blowing smoke, hitting the pulley wouldn't do anything to the regulator, but it could cause problems with the bearings if you hit it hard enough. That's pretty pathetic lying he's trying there. one of the many lessons I learned during my time in retail and customer service, is that if you lie to the customer about something, you eventually will get caught and it just becomes incredibly embarrassing as you try to dig yourself out of the hole you created. It drives me nuts when I can tell someone is lying to me or simply being unwilling to provide certain bits of information, particularly if it's because they think I don't know enough about the topic to be able to tell.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

I'm a cynic, I appreciate people who lie about stuff that doesn't matter - means that when it comes time to trust something said; I already know they're lying because they lie about the stuff that doesn't matter....

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

I cleaned it, and now the alternator doesn't work again.... that said, I'm not 100% sure this alternator was good in the beginning...


(random picture)

so in other news, I added some dash lights

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Irritation time. I hate it when I know about something, then rationalize that knowledge away. What happened today? So I'm ordering the bits to redo the electrical system because of the blown alternator - and something simply isn't making sense. I've run countless battery-in-the-trunk set ups without a problem. Never needed to do the monitor wire to the battery.... then I start blowing alternators.... the common thought is that I have too much resistance between the batteries and the alternator so the alternator is working full time then overheats and fries stuff....

when I put the painless system in, I thought "I hope they put a resistor wire in the switch-to-alternator wire. I was going to put the typical 80 ohm, 5 watt (instead of a light bulb) inline but I then thought "well, they don't say it needs it only to protect it from backfeed from the coil".... yeah, stupid me. there is no resistor in the wire - thus the system overcharges, I'd really be lit if it had destroyed my two Optima Yellowtop batteries.... as it is. I'm still pissed. Moral of the story... even the pros who've done this a billion times miss something. *cussing*

​

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

coming soon....


time to wire the resistor in


and worked on the rest of the wiring.... I need to protect the connections and make it look a little more pro rather then pirate.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

A gift from a friend


I hate wiring


oh look, corrosion.... wonder why the alternator failed?

I drove this thing for quite awhile before the alternators started failing - it needs a good signal from the battery, of course, corrosion would kill that signal.

finished the install of the jumper cable connection


and back




while I'm at this, might as well clean up the ground that runs through the firewall

imagine a hole there... will happen Sunday (I hope)

 

[JPaul]

Are you running that PA speaker through an amp or something? i have mine hooked directly to my CB radio but apparently it's pretty quiet, plus I have to turn the volume up when using it to make it any kind of loud.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

it's not hooked up at all at the moment, for some reason whether or not the PA button is on or off the CB uses the PA as the speaker.... which is entertaining but hard to hear.

 

[High Five H2]

Are you running that PA speaker through an amp or something? i have mine hooked directly to my CB radio but apparently it's pretty quiet, plus I have to turn the volume up when using it to make it any kind of loud.

I have a PA speaker with an internal amp that's pretty loud. I'll look up who makes it if you're interested.

 

[JPaul]

That'd be great. The speaker is decently loud but apparently once it's inside the engine bay it's quite muffled, and I don't know where else to put it. It handles up to 12 watts I think, and at most the CB puts out 5 watts into the PA feed. So either I get an amp for it or get another speaker that has a built in amp.

 

[High Five H2]

That'd be great. The speaker is decently loud but apparently once it's inside the engine bay it's quite muffled, and I don't know where else to put it. It handles up to 12 watts I think, and at most the CB puts out 5 watts into the PA feed. So either I get an amp for it or get another speaker that has a built in amp.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D6K90/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

finished up the wiring and about a zillion other things today... fortunately, it's now mobile again



​

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

More parts for the stupidest, most boring build ever



Buick isn't sure
​

best part of the parts and the build... it's mine and I don't hear the suckers because of how awesome it is.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Amazon stole my tires
see?


so I paid extra to get valve stems delivered today.... so I took the tires and raced down to the tire shop to get them dismounted....


but of course they don't get delivered today.... now sometime before the 7th. So let's recap (yeah, a pun). No stems, no tires. I'll go buy some replacements tomorrow and unload on some poor call center chick... fortunately I've been saving my angst so it should be good... except that I go buy more parts. I could have even gotten them from the tire shop - but no, ugh. Still beats the local shops.

 

[JPaul]

What is that old girl in that last picture?

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[SuperBuickGuy]

a long, long, long term project. It's a 1950 Buick Sedanet. Eventually it'll get a pancake, chop, and a twin turbo 455 (I have the motor). I've already put a rack and pinion front end and a 4 link w/panhard in the back.

 

[JPaul]

Very nice! One of these days I'm going to be able to afford having a project like that. And the space.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Very nice! One of these days I'm going to be able to afford having a project like that. And the space.

I look forward to that day too (when I can afford my projects and have the space for them )

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Spare removal system completed



I'm quite sure there were 2 billion billion billion bolts - all needing to be tightened evenly...


dynamic weight inserts here

dynamic weights

this is a first for me, so we'll see if I'm next fishing them out with a magnet

hmmm, not too shabby


so after a bit of trial and error - I figured putting taps in roughly quadrants would help... it did. A lot


so light it doesn't even touch the ground


and there it is.


a bit wider track, which is a bit unfortunate because I think I'm on the wrong side of the line to do the narrower trails... ah well, it does look good and gives me a better turning circle.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

storage for coming attraction
[video=youtube_share;d7BESAD_EIY]https://youtu.be/d7BESAD_EIY[/video]