That thing where you see faces in things.

You know what I mean?

All

Damn

Day

And even a couple days ago.  Ladies as gentlemen, it is my privilege, pleasure, and honor to introduce the one and only, the cold and lonely, the holy, mole-y, prime bologna,

Fart
Pipe
Pete!

That makes a lot of unexpected visitors. At least for me, anyway.

It's cool, though -- I can deal with seeing imaginary faces that are friendly for a change.  Especially since these can be photographed.

Despite what it might look like, I haven't been screwing around by making metal "sculptures" all day.  With the exception of Fart Pipe Pete, these were taken during the course of the latest phase of exhaust development.  Let me get you caught up real quick:

When we last saw our adventurer, he was plumb tired of plumbing the depths of his car's plumbing.  Terribly terribly welded plumbing.

The driver's side was run out as far as it would go without needing the sidepipe to be installed, while the right side needed a total 90° bend and run to the flex pipe for it to be at the same point as it's peer.  I have the pie cuts sliced, diced, and prepped for  welding, then set aside so I could make more cutgrindnoise.

Got the measurements to find the length of straight pipe needed after the bend, got it whipped out and welded up with the flex section, then determined that I needed to get the hangers squared away.  Without them I wasn't going to be able to keep the pipe runs square, and I'll be damned if I'm going to invite chances to cut and reweld stuff after I think I've got it all figured out.  That kind of thing doesn't need an invitation.  It invites itself.

Since I'm not PUTTING GOD DAMNED LAG SCREWS THROUGH MY FLOOR, I've got to use a different hanger design for my pipes.  Since I have no end of poly bushings from my rear suspension madness, I decided to crib the design used by the burrito supreme.  Here's a section of pipe from a fatty wagon that shows how they did it, Chrysler style.

Forgot to get a picture of the hanger mount, but it's basically the same thing as my shackle hangers.

I've got plenty of bushings, u channel, and round bar stock, all in compatible dimensions, to do this and not have to buy hangers.  The alternative would be to pay way too much for pre-made parts, then put in the same amount of effort to make them work for my vehicle as it would take to make some from scratch (scrap).

I wanted to split the difference and pick up some 1" ID tube, then cut segments of that to use for the bushing sleeves.  Well, guess what local steel stock sellers (with a storefront) don't sell?  Yep, the ointment was onioned, so I had to figure out a solution with no appropriate sleeve material and only 2 hours of power tool time left.

This is the result:

I'm really, really pleased with this, considering I don't usually come up with on-the-fly solutions that do anything but waste time and money.  It took me getting some 1/8" bar stock for the sleeves and a 3/4" black oxide pipe nipple to use as a mandrel.  The only other stuff I needed was in the shop, either as available stock or piled trash.

The 3/4" nipple was chosen for its OD matching that of the bushings I planned to use.  As mentioned, the nipple was used as a mandrel, so the plan was to cut a slot in it to fit the bar stock inside, then basically roll the bar stock over the nipple until I had something like what I ended up with.  Knowing it wouldn't be as easy as it sounded, I made sure to keep time and number of objects needed for tooling and materials as low as possible.  That way I'd still be in a reasonable spot when stuff went off the rails like always.

[NOTE: This is the point where I fell asleep while writing.  I'll finish the description of how to do this stuff when I write my next update.]

Bad pictures of bad welding

Alright, so I think the (vehicle) left down pipe is shown pretty clearly, but not the right.  Kind of a bummer, since it's the right that was such a curly, winding beast and probably ate up about 75% of the time spent on this so far.

You may notice that our helpful speciality tool is keeping the left pipe in place.  That's because I can't get the pipe oriented as it fits when totally fastened in place.  That's because I somehow managed to lose one of it's two manifold bolts.

That's all for now. Time to take a nap for a couple hours.

Lord of This World

A carmine demon creeps and crawls over the face of the Earth, observing no border or boundaries (or maybe just hangs around some aisles in various flavors of cheap tool depots), waiting for it's chance to seduce your mind with tantalizing offers of power and success. 

The lies it offers are bold and powerful, unbelievable to the rational mind, and so alluring that sense and experience are crippled against rebuffing the calls that assure you of "up to 10X faster material removal when compared to standard grinding wheels."

I spent easily 3 goddamned hours longer removing weld garbage using one of those friggin' flap discs yesterday than it would've taken me if I had thought to use a grinding wheel.  Total waste of time.  Sure, I'm partly to blame for giving marketing garbage a chance, but I think all regular users of power tools are constantly looking for that next little trick to give them an edge.  You know -- like performance tuners, or drug-addicted athletes.

Today's first round of grinding saw me removing material in about 1/3 the time as yesterday by using a grinder wheel to hog and a flap disc to finish, as usual.  The downside, however, is I totally drained both available battery packs in that span of time, just grinding, whereas I only did one recharge cycle all day yesterday and made heavy use of the angle and die grinders, as well as the bandsaw.

This doesn't come as a surprise, since the mass of a flap disc is considerably less than a grinding wheel, meaning more work has to be done by the grinder's motor to get that sucker spinning.  Working harder means the motor draws a greater amount of current.  It also gets hotter.  Getting hotter means the motor's internal resistance gets higher, which means, yep -- it needs more electrons to do the same amount of work and eats the battery as quickly as the power supply circuit will allow.

Now here's the part where things get tricky: if you're using air or (corded) power tools, it's kind of a no-brainer situation.  You don't need to even bother with any tonic to boost your grind time performance.  Use a grinding wheel and be on your way. 

It may not be that simple when using battery power, though.  Consider a scenario where a job getting done faster doesn't outweigh needing to recharge your battery.  It might be beneficial to spend extra minutes/hours on grinding something if it means you can still use your impact when you're done.  Something worth considering at the yard, roadside, or asbestos caverns.

I'm curious as to which has the greater impact on battery consumption with my tools.  I assumed it would be the act of spinning up the wheel to operating speed, since it takes more energy to get something moving than to keep it going.  Battery use seemed to be the same, even when making it a point to minimize spin-up cycles.  Either way, I don't really care enough to actually get scientific on this and doing boring stuff like "measuring" and "maintaining consistency".

I'm just going to chalk it up to electricity being weird today.  Even the welder's hotter than it was yesterday.  I keep burning the shit out of myself and catching things on fire.  Yeah, that's gotta be it.  Something funky in the electricity coming from the zap factory today.

(I'll have some exhaust update pics up later tonight.)

Ultrastition: LARPing meaning from daily life

I think it's only natural for people to come up with small personal rituals and superstitions over the course of their lives.  A lot of them can be handy little tools to bolster confidence and reassure oneself in times of stress or doubt.  I like to think that I have developed a fairly extensive toolset when it comes to this kind of gris-gris -- it's actually a deeply developed hobby of mine.

In case you don't have the slightest clue what I'm talking about, let's take a look at some omens, curses, and other elements of juju that I look out for.

1. "Is it for sale?", or "I'll buy that from you right now.  How much do you want?"

A terrible, potent curse to lay on someone with an old vehicle that is not being advertised for sale, especially if it is their daily-driver.  Assaulting the owner of the car with these questions is sure to bring them misfortune, most likely related to mechanical failure, a short period of time after your offer has been declined.

If you are the recipient of this curse, I have bad news: the only way to break it is to negotiate with the awful fucker that has hexed you and sell them the car.  While no guarantee that you will totally avoid it's effects ("You sold it for how much?!?  Man, I would've paid you twice that!  I was actually planning to make an offer when you got ready to get rid of it!"), you stand a small chance of redirecting the curse to it's caster (see below).  If you don't sell, you're guaranteed to find yourself in a situation where you wish you had, and soon.

2. "Driven daily for years, never had a problem with it!  Reliable and rock-solid!"

Buying an old car that has any variations of these phrases used to describe it is sure to spell doom and constant unscheduled parts store trips.  The phrases don't even have to be used, which makes this particular curse even more dangerous.  A solid, trouble-free test drive will most often work as a serviceable proxy.

3. "It shouldn't X"

The curse one casts on themselves, and also the most consistent in manifesting.  Saying this phrase while replacing 'X' with, "be too difficult", "take too long", "be hard to find a replacement for", and/or "cost that much", destroys all hope for any of those things being true.  Sadness, despair, and pain are likely to be your reward for uttering these foul words that were almost certainly put into the minds of men by the most evil of demons.

4. Broken Window Cranks

The surest sign of debilitating illness lurking within the vehicle.  Since it's all downhill from the point of that crank breaking/stripping/whatever, window crank problems should be treated as a condition that's as equally serious as a rod knock.



If you think I'm crazy now, just wait!  Here are a couple examples of common entities I recognize as bringers of pain or glory:

1. The MOLligator -

Fig. 1: MOLligatus Bargetoteus

Gentle, holy soul, blessed being, and best of friends, encountering any instance of the image of this friendly gator is assurance of success and the winds of luck blowing in your favor.  No matter the weight of the load you're carrying, this big lizard is all too happy to help and provide a hearty handshake and a smile.  Negates all curses, provides good fortune.  Will not let you down.

2. Truckula(, Curse of the) -

Fig. 2: Dumbass pseudo-fangs

The Truckula is a bastard of aggravation.  A sure sign that you are about to encounter some level of irritation, minor misfortune, or general complication of traffic, the Truckula is a creature best avoided due to this curse they indiscriminately radiate.  Their appearance is similar to what is depicted in Fig. 2, though with the cone fangs pointed downward, like. . . fangs.  Fangs for nothing, Truckula.

3. Fortune Cookie -

Fig. 3: Deliciously litigious

Luciferian sugar shell.  The fortune cookie provides a snack, but on it's terms.  Eating the cookie establishes a binding legal contract, the terms of which are printed on the bargain ribbon that the starch armor protects.  Read it before you sign, don't eat it if the fortune isn't something you agree to.

So that's a quick intro to the world as I see it.  If you're wondering why I'm sharing this, I felt the need to use far too many words to say that Eagle's window crank knob came off yesterday, and I am gravely concerned.

Back to the welder!

How do you spell "relief"? I spell it "3-2-space-O-h-m-s"

Which is probably why I never made it past the first round of any spelling bee that I participated in.

Lucky for me, I don't need to spell to use an ohmmeter.  I finally got around to checking the resistance of the sender unit I got from American Parts Depot today, and was delighted to find that they actually sell a sender that's in spec.  The empty reading was a little high at 282 Ohms or so, and full was resting neatly around 32.  Got it installed, empty and full then read about 20 Ohms lower than the out-of-tank reads, which was fine by me!

Here we are, set and happy.  I think that ring needs to be tapped a little more to get the dimples centered under the lock tabs, but I'm going to wait until the tank is secured a little better before doing that.

I also noticed something that didn't really set well with me.  Once again, chips in the POR-15 coating revealed some rust on the metal underneath.  That's a little concerning, considering this thing was shining like the sun before I slathered it in chemical nasty.  It was bone dry, all prep work done per directions, and so on.  I'm getting to the point where I don't trust this product, to be honest.

Aside from that, we had more exhaust cuts and welds to get sorted out.  I don't have time or materials to screw around with flanges for the flex sections, so I'll just deal with that when it's time to redo the exhaust at some point (hell, they'll probably need replacing by then anyway).

Test fit of the downpipes revealed some  incorrect test fitting had occurred prior to, and some drifting during assembly.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect to find that.  I was pleased to see that it didn't turn out to be anything requiring drastic re-measuring to correct.  I got most of the revisions made and tacked together, so that should all be squared away within the first hour of work tomorrow.

This evening brought some overdue work changing out the HID bulbs in an '08 Prius.  It took two hours.  That's the amount of time it took to fit, measure, cut, refit, cut more, grind, and weld my downpipes.  One of the $50 bulbs turned out to be dead  out of the box.  The other seems to have been mispacked and  intended for use in a lighthouse.  That's really all I have to say about that.

This'll be a real thin soup

Not a whole lot to share today, except that I got the really involved part of the exhaust finished.

I had to spend a ton of time doing the grind-and-fill routine, on account of having the "end of a spool blues", followed by the "beginning of a spool boogie."  Both arrangements really dick with my wire feed rate, which I figure is from the difference of weight on the spool at those times compared to when I last adjusted it. 

As a result, I had a ton of burn-through (though some of that was just a result of having too wide a gap between pieces), so I got to take a stroll down floorpan lane for a while, grinding away filler and replacing it so I could grind it away again.

As I was clocking out for the evening, it occurred to me that I can't just weld this whole shebang from end to end.  Even if I raised the Gremlin on the lift, the crossbars for said lift would block the pipes from being installed.  Looks like I'm going to need to fab up a few flanges.  Sure am glad I noticed that now instead of later.

All things considered, I can manage if the rest of the exhaust keeps going how it has so far.  So long as I don't get anymore spatter travelling directly down my ear canal, that is.  Chalk one up for not cleaning my ears this morning!

When you lack the knowledge, tools, and skills, you can accomplish anything

If you can honestly answer in the affirmative when asking yourself if you as a kid would like who you are as a person now, you're doing something wrong.  This is an indisputable fact, backed up by another universal truth: you were an idiot when you were a kid.  We all were.  Many of us still are.

For instance, if I were to tell my younger self that there would come a day where he would look back and seen some potential use in not dropping out of school before taking a trig course (or at least to put some measure of effort into remembering more than the most basic elements of geometry), I probably wouldn't make it through half a breath before he was walking off to go do something dumb.

Pie cuts.  That's where I'm heading with this.  Today I made pie cuts using strips of paper and without the aid of a miter, chop saw, or even a protractor worth a damn.  It wasn't too easy at first, basically because I lacked some knowledge that required a visit to internet academy.  I don't think they turned out too awful, either.  Here's a look:

I know they aren't the thin cuts you see people making for headers and turbo plumbing and all that mess.  That's because I'm not making a performance exhaust for a track car.  I'm just trying to save money because fittings that are worth buying set off my penny pincers.  Here they are tacked in place and ready for welding tomorrow:

Like I said, I didn't have the protractor at the shop.  What I ended up having to do was draw out X+Y lines on a piece of graph paper, then center the angle finder I was using for checking my pinion angle over it.  That let me mark the 7.5° point, then plot the line from the center.

I cut the paper out into a strip with the desired angle at the end, marked the lengths for each piece I'd be cutting from the pipe (first batch was 3" lengths, second was 1-1/2").  Then I marked the center down the length of the pipe on each side (so, opposite or 180° of one another).  Then I lined up the paper strip and the marks I'd made, like so (but straight).

That left me with this when I was done.

These longer ones from the first attempt were cut using my angle grinder, mainly because I've been having a hell of a time cutting tubing straight through with the portable bandsaw.  

I wasn't too impressed with the results with the grinder.  The next batch was done with the bandsaw, which actually did what I wanted it to for a change.  All of the pieces ended up being usable when I crawled under the Gremlin and started test fitting them to the downpipes.  Actually, I'm one piece short to make both of the pipes totally done and ready for final welding.  

When that's all out of the way, 75% of the exhaust work will be done.  I'm in kind of a state of disbelief, because doing the exhaust has been looming over me since I realized I wasn't going to be able to farm it out.  Can't say I mind it, though.

Breathe out. Things are in flux. It's the way of the road.

The shop water man needs to come by for a pick-up something fierce.  With my subscription container long ready for a service call, the old beverage containers are stacking up like cord wood.  Times like these make me start eyeing a more substantial solution. . .

Enough about my forgetfulness, though.  When I haven't been complaining about bad replacement parts today, I've been doing exhaust fab work.

After a few runs to O'Partsy's to make some  exchanges for the right adapters, I got prep work on said adapters, some pipe, and the side pipe inlet sections done.  The side pipe parts were the most demanding, because they are thoroughly chromed and I wanted to make sure I got every bit of that mess off my welding points before starting.

In an uncharacteristic display of regard for proper safety procedures, I actually made sure to not only keep my respirator on at all times, but I also had a big ass fan blowing smoke towards the door (though, unfortunately I would later find that it didn't actually send any of it out the door.  Guess my not noticing means the respirator works).  I also took the time to do a practice run on a couple rings I cut off from the stick of pipe I bought yesterday.

Here's the first shot:

Far from what I'd prefer, but not as bad as I expected.  Penetration left a little to be desired, though.  This was also my first chance to check out these butt weld clamps I've had for. . . Two years?  I had lost them during the time I was working on the floor, but boy, would they have been handy.  I really appreciate that they set the gap between pieces to where it needs to be and keeps it there.

I think things went better on the second attempt, both in the spatter not being so ridiculous, and how thoroughly it seems the weld penetrated this time.

Sadly, I found myself back in familiar territory once I started to work on the important stuff.  While all was weld and dandy with my butts, there was trouble to be had in my lap.  I didn't get any pictures yet, but they were a little disappointing.  Still a substantial improvement from when I last tried to weld exhaust pipe sections last winter, but the welds themselves are much more proud than I am of the result.

Either way, it works.  I think I'm doing fine, considering it's flux core wire and I'm not exactly an expert in the craft.

Get what you pay for. You know, except for when you don't.

I had a choice between which sender to buy when deciding what to replace the old one with after it relieved itself of its integrity.  I could've gone with the $150 unit from a known and well regarded parts source with an established history of providing original and repro AMC parts, or I could go with a unit sold by someone with a fairly respectable reputation on eBay for $50 less.  The way I figured it, the eBay option didn't seem too bad.  The price was in the "different supplier, lower markup" range, and it appeared to mostly match the defining details of an appropriate sender, aside from the length of the filter sock.

What I received today left me a little bit underwhelmed.  For one, there's no ground terminal on this new part.  This is a little irritating, since it means that the producers either have no idea at all about how this part actually works, or they're too cheap to provide this basic connection.  Maybe both.  Who knows?

What's more concerning is the rheostat assembly itself.  Look at this.

As I'm sure you're aware by this point, my phone camera isn't the best.  All the same, you can still see that the resistor wire is already unwinding from the board.

Don't get me wrong - I didn't have any expectations of getting a part that was the same quality as one that costs a third more.  I did, however, expect to get a unit that was worth the price I paid.  Fresh from the box, and using this means I'm back to having to repair a sender.

But wait - there's more!  Dig this.

Here we have a wire that is bent in such a way as to guarantee fitment problems, since it interferes with the flange that is supposed to seat in the fuel tank opening.  Since the ring terminal is soldered to the base of the post, using this sender means I'll need to either desolder and reposition the terminal, or loosen the post and twist the wire out of the way.  Not a serious task, but also not a task I should be bothered with after spending $100 on a sender.  Once again, does the manufacturer have a clue how this part works?  Do they care?  I think we both know the answer. . .

So now we're back in the shop, where I can take some readings with my meter.  At least it's going to be usable once these kinks get worked out.  Right?

Haha!  Nice try, buddy!  Max resistance range for this rheostat is 80 Ohms!  Empty reads 10 Ohms and full gets you just under the 80 Ohms shown above.  Meaning, they've put the older year resistance board in a '78 package.

I was grudgingly willing to fix the lack of a ground terminal, the wire wrapping, and the obstructed flange, but as we've seen so far, there's not a lot that I'm prepared to do for the incorrect resistance range.  While I may conceivably be able to rewrap the board with the resistance wire from the Dorman unit, that's going to be really fiddly work with no real demonstrated history of success on my part.  I'd also be fighting against the guide ridges in the edges of this board, since the spacing and relief is for a lower gauge wire.  That's a lot of time, effort, and expense for no guaranteed payoff.

Looking at the packaging that the part arrived in, I assume that this is an upstream problem, and not a matter of the seller trying to pull a fast one.

Having seen my fair share of boxed goodies from overseas, I imagine this is one unit from a box of many that are similarly packaged for easy distribution.  Based on that, I'm willing to give the seller the benefit of the doubt and expect that they'll be willing to handle the problem amicably.  We'll see how far that gets me.

For now, though, I'll need to get what I probably should have in the first place so I can get my car running. 

I understand the words, but I think I'm missing something

Because it sounds like good news.

I spent most of yesterday on the exhaust - cutting my downpipes, making stuff for making the mock-ups, bending brake line to make the mock up segments needed, and enjoying being under the car without having to lift it. 

Once quitting time rolled around, I figured I'd show my tender green belly and publicly post some questions on the AMC forum.  I had a number of things that I needed clarification on; basically, what was and was not important to consider for my exhaust design.  While it might be kind of embarrassing to demonstrate just how little I know about this stuff, doing things the wrong way isn't going to produce any work I can be proud of.

I'm glad I took the time to ask, because it didn't take long at all before one of the members (who I've picked up a lot of info from by just reading old posts on the forum) set me straight on a number of assumptions and misunderstandings I had that would've cost me quite a bit in time, money, and concessions of preference.  Long/short, I don't have any need to concern myself with stepping up pipe diameter, nor do I have to trouble myself with running equal lengths of pipe for each cylinder bank with a true dual setup for my configuration.

The biggest thing that I took away from the exchange was a different perspective on what I'm actually working with.  Instead of thinking of this as a single 6-cylinder engine, I should've been thinking about it as a pair of 3-cylinder engines.  I was already getting part of this when I'd initially decided on a true dual exhaust, namely how the firing order would work with cylinders 1-3 and 4-6 segmented into two groups.  A dual setup like I'm installing will have the exhaust alternating through each pipe, so each run can be viewed in isolation (more or less). 

As usual, I was making things harder for myself than I needed to.  That brings us to today, which was largely uneventful.  I spent a good amount of time sourcing and picking up materials (a 7-1/2' stick of 2" pipe from the yellow muffler place, adapters to fit to the mufflers, and a couple of flex adapters to fit to the downpipes), mostly because of how goddamned long it takes to do even the most simple tasks in this used sharps container they call a city. 

Since I haven't taken a day off in about a month, I made the decision to take a nap and eat for the remainder of the afternoon.  Better than my usual pattern of working until I get sick and collapse for a week.

Tunnels for tears, passageways of accomplishment

With the exception of the rear suspension, I feel like I've spent more time thinking about and working with plumbing for the Gremlin than I have anything else. 

When I went to O'Partsy's for the line I'd be using for the transmission return, the counter guy directed me to the back while joking that I knew more about what they have than they do.  After about 10 seconds, I had what I needed and returned to the front, explaining that the only reason I'm that familiar is because I don't have sense enough to do things right the first time.

After a trip to the hardware store for a female flare nut and a flare to NPT adapter, I got to the shop and managed to get the flare crushed on my first attempt.  I wish the same could be said for my power steering hose.  While cutting, cussing, and torching, I thought about what garbage flaring tools are (at least the sub-$100 ones I've used, but the expensive ones are probably crap, too).  I figure you probably get around 10 good flares out of a tool before something breaks, wallers, strips, or vanishes.  Luckily, only 1 or 2 of the flares I've made have been worth a damn, so I reckon mine has still got some life left.

I pulled some old 3/16" brake line out of the scrap metal pile and rolled it out straight before heading over to the transmission.  It's great material for making a mock-up, since wire coat hangers have become a rarity.  The only real problem with using it is the chance of work-hardening any sections that you need to make bends in (though that's easy enough to take care of if you want to spend a couple minutes annealing it).

In the end, the power steering hose was all taken care of, the cooler line was bent into shape, and the exhaust mock-up was started before I needed to cut out early and keep my cat company through the fireworks.  Now it's time to get back at it.

Meet the Jettisons

When you're on a ship that's going down and don't have the sense to be a rat, you might manage to wring out a few drops of time by identifying dead weight and cutting it free.  I think.  I'm not a sailor.

Point is, Santa quit without notice, so there's not going to be any sender tutorial this year, Timmy.  The real, final, actual last straw came last night, at the last step of me getting the sender done, when the tack welds that fixed the rheo backing plate to the sender body popped.  Then the whole damn thing came apart.  Again.

I decided to concede this fight to the demons Luck and Fate once I compared what it would cost me to start over again again, versus buying a '78 sender.  Maybe one day I'll get better at assessing whether or not a fight is one I'll be likely to win, but for now I've decided to pick on things smaller than me.

Don't worry, I've got a ton of happenings to keep things busy while we wait for the working sender to arrive.

I got the right oil light sender the other day, so I finished getting that stuff plumbed.

I took a minute to sweat the joints since I didn't want any of the several fittings I used vibrating loose.  I also used a little h-ightemp thread sealant at the block and senders (though not as much as the picture would make it seem).  Now I should be able to have a pressure read, an idiot light, AND an electric choke that will stop getting current when the oil's not pumping.

The exhaust work is now underway, though my plan to use PVC fittings didn't pan out.  The street elbows I got don't fit worth a damn.  That means I've been using some extra 3/16 line to do things the old-fashioned way, i.e. following the centerline the exhaust plumbing will follow.

I also began tying the trans cooler lines in (finally.  FINALLY.), though made an unpleasant discovery: the Grand Latte's return line doesn't fit.  It needs 1/4" of clearance in the trans tunnel to line up with the quick disconnect fitting, and will interfere with the shifter lever.  Somehow.  I don't know how; maybe there was some kind of revision in the valve body housing design that set things on different planes.  Maybe the line is bent.  Maybe I need to start looking for any lifeboats that may still be onboard.

13 hours in, only 35 to go

I've been told I have a talent for identifying the worst potential outcome in a situation, as well as a problem with always voicing it.  That's fine by me, at least most of the time. Though sometimes it can be a little bit of a burden.

Take yesterday, for instance: all it took to send me fleeing the shop was a little bit of zinc residue.  See, I was tack welding the fuel sender together.  I inspected one of the points I had hit and saw a canary yellow residue I'd not encountered before.  My train of thought was pretty much,

"Huh.  Interesting.  I haven't seen that before.  I wonder what I just made.

WAIT. 

I HAVEN'T SEEN THAT BEFORE.

I WONDER WHAT THE HELL ELSE I JUST MADE."

At that point, I flew out of the shop like a hurricane while holding my breath (after fumbling with the hook latch that secures the doors, of course).

Now, I was pretty confident I was fine, and nothing dangerous was released.  I thought, "The bad shit gets made when chlorinated hydrocarbons are hit with high current/heat/UV.  You're fine."  Then I thought about the flux I had used to desolder the sender parts and realized that I may have had a weld point that was contaminated (despite cleaning the hell out of everything.  In my experience, once flux heats up, it's like trans fluid and goes wherever it wants).

Hoping to convince myself that all was well, I looked up the MSDS for the flux I used.

"Oh, okay.  Zinc chloride.  Yellow, zinc.  No prob.  

WAIT.

ZINC. 

CHLORIDE.

WHERE THE HELL DID THE CHLORINE GO, AND WHAT DID IT DO WHEN IT TOOK OFF FROM THE ZINC?!?!"

Panicked research ensued for the next 45 minutes or so, while I desperately tried to find something that would explain whether or not I was about to die a horrible death.  Being far from even a remedial level study of chemistry, I looked in the hopes of finding something that would confirm or deny my fears being warranted.  I found nothing.

Eventually, I decided there were two ways to take that lack of discovery: 'yes, you're doomed.  You're not finding anything because nobody has been dumb enough to put themselves in the situation where the question had to be asked', or 'nah, you're good.  You're not finding anything because there's nothing to find'.

I decided to go with the latter, partly because it made me feel better, and partly because it doesn't really matter.  I mean, even if I did get my trench warfare on, what the hell is anyone gonna do about it anyway?  It's not like there's an antidote or anything.

I feel fine, not even any freak out "are you sure this feeling is normal?" kind of stuff.  While that's generally all I'd need to put any concerns to rest, thing about that kind of poisoning is that it can take 48 hours for symptoms to manifest (or longer, sometimes).  I'll start to worry if I start coughing up strawberry yogurt, but for now I have work to do.

Enough about my neurosis, though.  Let's take a look at the sender!  Here's the sender components, ready for desoldering:

And here's everything all reassembled and tacked together.  I realize the welds look like total garbage, but give me a break.  I was wearing a mask with a lense so dark that I literally could not see my hand in front of my face.  I think I did pretty good, considering I was shooting blind.

Oh, I have the radiator in place, too.  It's not final, since a hole needs to be realigned and the brackets painted to keep them from rusting off, but I'm doing that when I paint the exhaust.

Okay.  Got to get this sender done before I hit my deadline.

Soldering off when under fire

So the sender unit's assembled by solder.  Huh.  Never would've guessed. . .

See, my plan was to braze the new sender's backing plate to this.  That was obviously before it came apart entirely.  This is the kind of event that registers with me in a way similar to how Fred Flintstone processes the sound of screaming from an injured bird, so I called it a day and thought about what to do as I made my way back to the house.

Shortly after posting a "wanted" ad for a sender on an AMC group, it occurred to me that I can get things reassembled and cleaned, then just tack it all together.  It's all pretty thin stuff, but I should be able to give them a quick zap here and there without reducing the whole thing to a pile of slag.  Actually, let me try that again: I think someone else could do it, but in my case, the pile of slag is probably the better outcome than what I'm sure I'll manage to do.

In other news, the radiator has brackets now.  Finally.  I have nothing to offer as an explanation for why so much time and work only managed to result in this, but at least it's done.

Exhaust is pulled, though not yet cut.  I'm considering tacking a crossbar or something to the collectors so they'll retain their orientation when away from the manifolds.  For an illustration of how far down the exhaust pipe was hanging, check this out.

See the yellow lines that begin near my wrist?  That represents the underside of the oil pan.  The lowest point was still higher up than that of the diff, but only barely, meaning it dipped way too far past the subframe rails for me to be comfortable.

I'm holding off on making any cuts until I've got the side pipes positioned, just like I'm keeping that ad up until I have a working sender.

Gauge of interest

The sender is turning out to be a little less cut-and-paste than I'd hoped.  Most of it has to do with the difference in form factor, as might be expected.  Turned out that I'd actually have to cut some spot welds to get a workable solution in place, providing me with a stopping point last night because of concerns about volume and waking people up.  All that kind of stuff.

While this means I don't have the sender completed and installed, it also means I at least have a good idea of where things need to go from here.  The plan will make more sense once I've got you caught up on the other details, though.

First thing first, I wanted to check if the sweep of the new rheostat lined up with the '78 sender's sweep.  This came first because I was almost certain it wouldn't, so wanted to get that out of the way before I started trying to get smart.  As the picture below shows (left), it doesn't match with the pivot points centered.  I decided to check it against the pre-'78 sender (right), and found it was even further off.

With that confirmed, my next thought was to see whether I'd be able to trim the new resistor strip to fit the original sender's rheostat housing.  Here's a comparison of lengths.

I figured I'd have some excess I could trim, since my read of the resistor value at max resistance was a little over 270 Ohms.  I measured the strip for the desired range (between roughly 30 and 250 Ohms) and found that the winding pattern used didn't allow for me to trim off the 15/32" or so that would be needed for the board to fit without sacrificing a fair amount of resistance wire and usable gauge travel.

Left: point where R value is approximately 30 Ohms.
Right: point where R is slightly over 248 Ohms.

At that point, I had officially ruled out all easy answers.  I wasn't going to be able to effectively transplant the rheostat assembly or resistor strip into the '78 sender and the sweep was all wrong for the older sender (which wouldn't have been as easy, anyway, since I would need to further modify it to work with my '78 tank). 

As I was getting ready to shut things down for the day, I took one more look at the sweep of the new sender against my '78 unit.  I found that, by lowering the pivot point about half an inch, the sweep actually did match.  Having figured that out, the plan is to cut the backing of the rheostat housing off its mounting strip, then trim the housing on the '78 sender to accommodate the new one.  I'll have to make some adjustments to the float arm to compensate for the different pivot point, but I think it should work out alright.

That's all going to be done later, though.  Right now I need to finish this radiator and cut the exhaust down. 

Hell is other brackets

So aside from the starter, which was finished yesterday, I've been working to get this radiator situation resolved.  Brackets are finally done, and the radiator mounting straps have been appropriately trimmed.  Space availability demanded this to be done in somewhat close quarters, so I made sure to wear the appropriate PPE.

My new brackets are already drilled where needed to attach to the straps, as well as many places where it's completely unnecessary.  Next step is to drill the straps without ruining the radiator, assuming I've not done that already.  

Since I've gotten more than a little tired of working on this, I'm now moving on to getting the sender completed so I can check fuel delivery and return off the list of systems still unfinished (minus the carb, of course. We're waiting on a choke coil and a spacer/insulator plate before that's ready to go).

Exhaust is pending, though the side pipes are assembled and awaiting final fitment.  The Y pipe is slated to be pulled and cut, both because it hangs down lower than the frame rails (which could spell bad times in high-centering situations), and because the path it follows is making the routing for the left side much more difficult than it needs to be.  I won't know for sure until after the sides are mounted, but there's a distinct chance that we may still end up being able to run true dual exhaust without sacrificing time, work, or cost.  I'm hoping that this ends up being the case, if for no other reason than to allow purpose to be given to the otherwise-useless stock of 2" material I've accumulated.

Once I've pulled the Y pipe, I'll be able to finish installing the trans cooler lines.  They're actually just dangling kind of in place for now, because there's no way to get them around the Y pipe with it in place.  I'll go ahead and get them tied in and the starter reinstalled, in keeping with my policy of minimizing the number of times I have to get under and out from under the car.

I expect the work with the sender to result in a more-detailed post, since I'm going to need to figure out how to sensibly marry the different designs.  I'll save that for once it's done.  Hopefully tomorrow?

Johnald Mnemonic, part 2: Startering to Finish

Before I get into wrapping up the starter repair, I wanted to share something I thought of a little bit ago.

I was draw filing some steel stock so that I could get a 45° bevel to use for a sheet brake, when I started thinking about how keeping "bevel" and "chamfer" straight can be tricky for some folks (I know it was for me for a while).  Then I remembered a trick a friend taught me to remember "port" from "starboard" ("Port" is "left", because both words have four letters").  I wondered if there was some similar letter counting trick that I could come up with.

What I came up with was, "There are two "e"s and two faces with a bevel.".  I was kinda on the fence about how useful that was, so I just summed it up as, "Bevel is simple.  Complex chamfer."  Either or both may only make sense to me, but whatever.  I'm not a teacher.

Anyway, here's the Earth-shattering conclusion to the starter repair!

As you recall, we last left off with the starter torn apart and stuffed away in a box to await it's new drive assembly.  Here's a picture of the old and new, side by side.

Having the new drive gear right next to the old did a lot to justify spending the time and effort to replace this.  So did my inspection of the other parts of the motor, all of which
looked a-okay, minus a little bit of rust that had collected inside the case.  Note that I haven't had any concerns about the electrical integrity of the motor, so I didn't pull the meter out to verify coil values and such.  Since the drive gear was the only concern, I was satisfied with giving everything else a visual inspection.

While looking things over, I cleaned up the parts that needed it with a nylon brush (instead of one with brass or steel bristles).  This was to make sure I didn't damage any insulation or leave any conductive material/broken bristles behind, since they could cause shorts or other problems.

I wiped the dirt and a good portion of the grease from the armature shaft, so needed to get the splines slick.  The service manual says to use Dow Corning 33 silicone grease or equivalent when lubricating the armature shaft splines, though I didn't have either.  What I ended up using was STP moly EP grease, which seemed an okay "close enough'.  Between that grease being designed to stay put, and the small amount needed, I felt safe under the assumption that it won't cause the car to blow up.

Assembly was the reverse, but there were a few things I noticed:

• The washer that fits over the retaining ring was very motivated to get away at any opportunity.  Keep an eye on it until you have the armature shaft fully seated in the bellhouse and the yoke arm pin in place.
• Don't forget the yoke return spring, which is surprisingly well-behaved as far as springs go when assembling a thing.
• The ground brush is a little tricky to get seated.  I'd wait to do it last, once the other brushes are seated and retained.  Just make sure to check it regularly while arranging the insulator and seating the other brushes so that you don't fray the braided conductor.

And here's our buddy, all fixed up and back together:

At this point, you'll have to decide how much you feel like gambling.  If your luck is good enough to rely on, just go ahead and get the starter back in and you're done.  If you're like me, at least in the sense that you make every effort not to waste your short supply of good fortune, then you'll probably want to test your work before going through with reinstalling the motor.

Even though I'm sure you know or could figure out a good testing procedure, I'll include mine for the sake of completeness.

1. Forcibly restrain your starter.  I used ratchet straps to keep it from escaping.
2. Car battery.
3. Connect car battery positive terminal to the copper terminal tab at the rear of the case.
4. Connect battery negative terminal to any exposed spot on the case.  The starter gets its ground from the mounting bolts to the block, so ear's a good place.

Remember at all times, but especially while testing, that no part of you is harder than ring gear teeth, and that clothing is a direct express route to injury if it meets a drive gear.  This is why I test my starter while nude, with the exception of a piece of composite armor I've fashioned from scrap metal, cardboard, and an old flexplate to guard my nether regions.  Fool me once, starter. . .

Let me brake it down. Dear god, please let me brake it down. Also, re-nerd to sender.

Nobody carries 18 gauge sheet.  I get it; you can't carry everything, so you have to pick the closest gudnuff option with some things.  It still sucks when I'm trying to bend brackets without a brake and the price is right option is 16 gauge.  That small numeric gap makes quite a difference under those circumstances.

You'll probably tell me that I should consider buying a metal brake.  Lucky for you, I have a very good reason for not having one:

I don't feel like it.

That's enough of my totally reasonable and justified complaining.  We have fuel senders to discuss!

Pictured above is the rheostat portion of part number 55818, made by the Door Man himself.  Details on the product mention that it is designed for several makes, with AMC being one.  That's pretty neat.

I find it kind of interesting that they specify the late model sender resistance range, while using a rheo housing and resistor element form factor that's the style of the older senders.  It'd be really convenient if they had used late model packaging, but I can't expect everything for $20.

The internals surprised me somewhat, since it looks as though they decided on the other design path with their wiper (vs what I described a few posts back, where the OE wiper was designed with multiple roles in mind).

My blurry-ass picture illustrates that Mr. Man opted to use multiple components to perform isolated tasks: the conductor is a simple brass piece (an uncompressed rivet, by the looks of it), and the contact tension is loaded by a spring that's fitted over it.  The wiper arm is an extension of the float arm, which sources its retaining tension from a second spring.

I wasn't expecting to see a wire-wound resistor strip when I bought the part. I had fully expected it to be a PCB design, like I had mentioned previously.  All in all, I'm not sure what to think.  I'm a little suspicious of how long-lived these little springs are going to be, especially given how senders like to rust up.

I really don't know if there's a right answer, to be honest.  Maybe a design that uses peizo elements to determine weight of the tank?  Might work if you only drove a certain speed on smooth, flat terrain.  Or put a computer to the task.  Neither idea works for me.  There are probably a number of equally viable and complicated solutions that could be implemented, but I don't think we'll beat the electric toilet model for simplicity.

Oh! How about a sight glass, LEDs, and a camera?

What's Lincoln Thinkin'?

Aside from writing my update about the starter repair, I spent the entire day fighting the sheet metal flanges on the radiator to correct the depth offset and allow my shroud to fit.  It didn't go well.

After my sender and starter drive were delivered, I went and picked up some sheet steel to make some proper radiator mounting flanges/tabs/ears/whateverthehell.  That said, today's agenda is shown here:

Let's see how many I actually get done.

I'll be adding an update later that will include an analysis of the Dorman fuel level sender and how it compares to the original design.  There are a few interesting differences, though all the same, I think it'll work out okay.

Until then, some friendly advice from Door Man:

Not All Teeth Can Be Crowned: Your Guide To Starting Preventative Care, Pt. 1

Hey, who wants to rebuild a starter?  Kinda.  When I saw my drive gear was messed up, I searched around the parts haus sites in my region and found that starter parts and rebuild kits aren't something the stores keep in their inventory.

That leads me to consider the possibility that people repairing starters (vs just buying a new one) is becoming a thing of the past, so I decided to put a walk-through of my efforts to replace the drive assembly in my starter.  Maybe this can one day be useful reference for some technophobe to find on the ultranet in the dim, robot-infested hell world we forge as the days go on.

We're going to be using the info in the '78 AMC technical service manual for reference, but the info should be generally applicable to starter designs that predate gear reduction drives, whether they be the Ford-type used on many AMC vehicles, or others.

Here's the exploded diagram of the motor we're working with:

And our disassembly, inspection, and assembly instructions (I'm not going to try uniformly formatting my images on a phone, and I'm not sorry):

Note that I've omitted the steps for other service procedures that are unrelated to replacing the drive assembly.  I've also gone ahead and posted the replacement and assembly instructions, since it's a good idea to review the steps for the entire process, start-to-finish, before beginning.  This helps to head off a lot of mistakes that can be expensive in both hours and cash.

Alright, so we've preheated our oven and measured out our ingredients, so all we need now is a starter.

As you can see, I've already taken his hat off, which is retained by the single screw that's resting inside it.  Next, the through bolts are removed.

The bolt on the left actually has a rubber sleeve under all the rust.  I brushed it off and kept it fitted on the bolt shaft.  The next step is to remove the brush end plate, springs, and holder/insulator.

Note that there are slots in the brushes that the springs seat in.  Be careful when pulling the springs to make sure that you don't yank the brush out with it.  The brush coming out isn't a problem, but you don't want to chip the brush, or damage the braided conductor.

Also pay attention to the position of the recessed slot in the insulator.  That's a helpful keying reference during reassembly.

With the brushes and insulator removed, it's time to take the bellhouse off.  Mine required a couple light taps with a deadblow to the ears.  Not much; just enough for the seam where it mates with the case to spread just a bit.  After that, I took a flathead, set it in the slot in the picture below, and carefully rotated the tool to ease the bellhouse away from the case.

From there, everything comes apart pretty easily.  Make sure to watch out for the washers/bushing in the nose, shown next.

Pull the armature out and set the housing aside to inspect later.  I tested the clutch of the drive assembly as described in the manual - locked solid counter clockwise, rotated freely the other way.

To remove the drive assembly, you'll need to slip the lock ring off from the end of the armature shaft.  You'll then be left with the following parts.

Here's what my gear teeth looked like.  Surely not the worst, but I didn't want to go jamming that into my new flexplate.

The next step from here is to wait for the replacement drive assembly to be delivered at some point tomorrow.  If that happens as scheduled, I'll do a 2nd part to cover inspecting the other components and any gotchas for assembly.