John S's Journal

The steering wheel that I bought from a very nice chap on the BST forum
arrived today and after a couple minutes of gentle coaxing, it is now installed. The old one had a long split in the rubber and would turn a bit while driving. Barry had removed this wheel from a ‘70 GT project and placed it on a shelf years ago until I saw it in the background of a picture he posted. He was happy to sell it to someone that was going to use it and I was happy to have it. The one I removed will get a leather wrap that I purchased from a company in the UK.

Car is running well since the last carb tweaking. Starts right up with a little choke and smooths out fairly quickly when off the choke. I’ve been accumulating some radio console parts to replace the one in the car which has seen better days. It sticks out like a sore thumb next to the new dash. Currently waiting on a couple of new “chrome” bezels before I can proceed so I’ve been using the car on errands and for evening drives after the sun retreats a little. Glad to live in a fairly moderate climate where the car can be driven on Summer days although we did have a stretch of mid to high 90’s.

I’ve got plans to go through the suspension after the weather turns as it has been reminding me on some of the less than smooth roads. Took it for a short jaunt on the expressway for the first time a couple of days ago. Hard to tell my actual speed due to the bouncing speedo which is also on my list. Suffice it to say that there was a significant increase in vibration with the increase in speed.. Attributed the wheel vibration to worn out bushings until the expressway run where it became obvious that at least one wheel was out of round/true. Confirmed this by swapping front to back and test driving. I had noticed when I was going through the brakes awhile back that one wheel had, what looked to be, a flat spot on the rim and 3 weights opposite that spot. Just need to find a shop to swap the one wheel out with the spare. Not really wanting to spend $900+ on new wheels but it might come down to that...

Had our 3 grandkids for a few days, ages 7, 5, and almost 2 so nothing got done but wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Took the car out for a short drive and it was definitely smoother so the bump in fuel mixture and re-gapping the plugs helped. Leaving it alone for now but aiding think the throttle shaft on the rear carb is suspect after hitting it with some carb cleaner the other day. Not horrible but I might be rebuilding the HIF’s that I have sitting around when the weather turns.

Fixed a bubble in the used radio console I sourced. Slid a thin blade knife around the radio opening to open it up some and then applied some adhesive underneath the vinyl and clamped it up. This is a GT console so it has an extra switch opening and light opening so a fog light or DRL switch and an indicator light should fill the extra holes. An extra relay is already in place.

Stripped off the harness tape on my donor harness to glean some wires for a third brake light project that I’m going to try. It’s actually a low profile LED light meant for motorcycles. Lit it up with a battery charger to test it and it seems bright. We’ll see...

Decided to enrich the carbs some after yesterday’s experience. Got the caliper out and set the jets to .074 front and rear and then went for a good long drive. Pulled the plugs immediately after and they look good with the exception of number one which looked like the gap was too small. Re-gapped all plugs to .32 but didn’t get a chance to drive it. Just a little to warm for my taste. Hopefully all of this will smooth things out a bit.

Received my new old radio console from a fellow member and looking forward to putting it in. Also got a replacement timing light in the mail today. Never did find my old one but that’s probably a blessing in disguise as the new one has a dial back feature and a tach readout.

Decided to change up the Cooper filter mounting arrangement. Picked up some 5/16-24 all thread and some nuts,washers, etc. while I was out and proceeded to cut four 5 1/4” studs, removed the inner tubes on the Coopers, and fixed the nuts behind the carbs and ahead of the velocity stacks. The studs project 3 5/8” from the face of the stack which leaves enough thread to put a washer and a dome nut atop the rubber grommets to secure the cans. Way better set up than the fiddly original lash up.

Put the new timing light to use and set the timing to 20 BTDC and 32 BTDC all in at 3500 rpm. Will take it out tomorrow and see what that does. I might have leaned it out too much yesterday. Popping a little on decel.

I picked up some 14GA soft copper wire while I was out today with the thought that I would make myself some SU piston lift indicators to check the synchronization of the carbs. Cost me a whopping 52 cents for 2 feet.
Followed Herb Adler’s tuning guide illustration and spent a few minutes bending them into the appropriate shape. Pulled the dampers and lined up the two wires and checked to see if the old tube to the ear method that I had done on them when I initially got the car going, was in the ballpark.

Pleasantly surprised that no further tweaking was needed there. I did lean them both out some and went for a test drive. It seems to have cured some of the surging that was going on. I’m expecting a nice dial back timing light to show up tomorrow so it will be interesting to try it out and see how well I did with the old school one that I had used previously.