# Getting There...



## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

With some luck and effort, the Beast should be drivable again by this weekend.






Bear


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## gjones (Oct 8, 2012)

*Sing baby sing*

So good to hear it running the way she used to! My teeth have been gnashing whilst I held my breath... D I know that you must be grinning from ear to ear!!!!!


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## Rukee (Feb 8, 2007)

Did you ever find the cause of the fire??


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Rukee said:


> Did you ever find the cause of the fire??


Not definitively. I found one fitting that seemed loose while taking things apart, but that's all. I completely redid all the fuel system in the engine compartment. I moved the regulator and mounted it differently, added another filter, and every line is now either hard tubing or braided steel AN hose - even on the vapor return (which used to have 2 short pieces of rubber flex hose). With luck it'll be drivable by the weekend, maybe even tonight. I'm leaning towards not redoing the paint on the hood until after the Power Tour - we'll see.

Bear


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## FlambeauHO (Nov 24, 2011)

Nice! Glad to have the Beast almost mobile again! Good excuse to beef up the fuel system.


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Indeed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed to find out if I've "accidentally" fixed the fuel delivery problem I was working on the day of the fire. The only significant things I've changed in the system are the braided hose from the fuel line to the pump (it used to have a pretty tight "S" bend in it with two 180's, now it just makes a single round loop. The pump is too close to the fuel line to be able to make it a straight shot), and the line from the regulator to the carb (it was about 4 inches of 3/8" hard line, now it's -8AN braided hose). I sent my big RobbMc pump back to them so they could go over it and make sure it was good - and it was - they tested it and said it should be good for 650 HP the way I had it set and I'm not making that much power.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

Bear


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## 68GTO4004Spd (Jun 19, 2008)

Get R Done!! I bet I could guest what will be riding along with you from now on, or at least THERE BETTER BE. Did you get a red one or a chrome one?


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

You've really covered all the bases, especially getting the fuel pump re-certified. I'm betting you will not have another fuel leak/fire issue with this car. Great going on the repairs!!!


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

68GTO4004Spd said:


> Get R Done!! I bet I could guest what will be riding along with you from now on, or at least THERE BETTER BE. Did you get a red one or a chrome one?


A red one.  I'm going to mount it on the floor pan just below the edge of the passenger side rear seat so that I can turn and grab it while still sitting in the driver's seat.

I got one of these:
H3R Performance | HG250R - Halotron Fire Extinguisher - Red

I'm thinking about mounting a larger dry chemical unit in the trunk also.

Bear


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

Bear, because of you, I threw a fire extinguisher in the back seat floor area of my '65 the other week when I went on an out of town trip. I didn't need it,(thankfully!) but it was THERE. It's coming along now for the ride in whatever goat I'm driving. Just makes sense.


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## Oldeboy (Sep 17, 2012)

Glad to hear you almost have it all back together!

Plus one on the fire extinguisher


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## ALKYGTO (Mar 29, 2010)

Glad to hear the "Beast" is almost back on the road. Nice going. :cheers






A fire extinguisher should be manditory equipment on any car, new or old. If you've ever experienced the loss and horror of an unintentional fire you'll have one in your vehicle.


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## leeklm (Mar 11, 2012)

Until I get by Menards to pick up an extinguisher for the gto, I have been grabbing the one off the garage wall when I take the car out since reading Bears story. Of course since this one is laying on the back floor, I will roll the car, and it will klonk me on the head...


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Well, I drove it some tonight. 

The oil pressure gauge is "funny" and a couple of times it also shifted "funny", so I'm guessing the sending unit and the modulator are hurt. I know there was a good bit of fire down there too.

I'm not liking this repop throttle cable -at all-. It's stiff and seems ready to bind up at any second. Man I hate that the fire got my original one. The GM ones have been discontinued - I'd sure like to find one somewhere.

Still need to get the idle dialed in too - something going on there as well. Maybe I need to pull the carb back apart, pull the idle vent tubes, and clean all the passages out again.

Bear


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

Bear, hopefully you can find a 'good used' throttle cable. The repop ones are absolute junk and feel like a cable saw from an emergency kit. Terrible. Put one in a friend's car and had to take it back out and install an original that he actually had lying around. I don't like the 'shifts funny' part, either. Is your trans cable/shifter adjusted according to Hoyle? If not, your manual valve can be slightly off, and cause all kinds of weird behavior. The modulator is easy enough to pull and check, though. What's the idle doing....surging?


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Yeah Jeff - it's surging a little. I hooked up my LM-2 this morning thinking I was going to really get it dialed in, and discovered that apparently the fire cooked the sensor too. (I had it in the car when "it happened"). So, after a night's sleep I hooked up the trusty vacuum gauge and had a go at it "the old fashioned way", which can be somewhat of a challenge with this cam.  It's a lot better now. Last night I kept finding things like vacuum lines/ports I'd left open by mistake - tired I guess, or senile, or a combination of both. You can bet though I double-checked every single joint on that fuel line from one end of the car to the other!

The shift cable is adjusted ok, and I spent the bucks to get a real GM cable. I went ahead and swapped the modulator this morning, and found that amazingly enough Autozone had an oil pressure sending unit. Cheap, Taiwan version but the price was right - but the big thing was that it meant I didn't have to wait for a good replacement to ship. When I hopped under the car to swap it and the modulator, I saw the wire harness to the sender was just hanging loose - duh. So I connected it and gave it a shot - sure enough, it was reading exactly the same as it was prior so I'm leaving it in and keeping the cheapie in reserve as a spare.

I just got back from filling it up with fuel and driving it. It's actually running pretty good now. Shifting just like it was before, driving like it was before (mostly, except for that infernal repop cable), and for two "tests" at least, it didn't run out of gas when I hammered it down an on-ramp. The torque-generation gate capacitor unit is still quite functional 
I pokey'ed through a crowded mall and it pretty much behaved. It didn't surge at idle in gear but it did a few times start slowly dropping rpm like maybe it was loading up or something. A light tap on the throttle would clean it right up though. Maybe I need to bump the speed a little, or lean it just a teensy. I still haven't done anything with the hood paint and probably won't until after the Power Tour.

Mrs. Bear and I are headed out to 'Rancho Garrette" here in a little bit and we're thinking of driving it out there as sort of a pre-Power Tour shake-down. It's about a two hour drive from here.

Bear


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

Congrats! Have fun over at the new place, and enjoy the drive, too. What I do to dial in the idle mixture on a carb: Set the parking brake and have someone sit in the driver's seat with their foot firmly on the brake pedal with the car idling in drive. SLOWLY turn one mixture screw inward until the engine gets 'rough' (you can feel it thru your leg,against the fender). At that point, slowly back the screw out a hair until it's smooth as it's going to get. Same on the other side. Doing this adjustment while in gear is much more effective than in neutral, at least for me. Also, you can see for sure where the curb idle speed wants/needs to be.


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## SlamminGears65Goat (Apr 29, 2012)

I'll second what Guy said..I'm hoping the frame off resto on mine will be done
(or mostly done) by Father's Day, I just wrote myself a note to be sure
to put one inside also.
Great to hear she's about ready Bear!!


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Well, we made it out to the ranch and back, but the idle still isn't right. I'm having to turn the idle speed screw in way too far to keep it running, and when I get it "about" right in neutral (right at 1000 rpm) it drops way down - below 500 - in gear and wants to die. Carb's coming back off here in a few minutes for another teardown, inspection, cleaning, whatever.
... and, watching the oil pressure gauge on the trip, I've decided the sending unit is probably bad after all.

Bear

Bear


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## geeteeohguy (Feb 2, 2008)

It sounds like it may be a bit lean. Does it pick up and clean up if you drift a little carb cleaner down the carb? The fact that you took it on a 4 hr round trip tells me that the basics are pretty solid, though.


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## Geeza71 (Apr 22, 2013)

Just my 2 cents on the fire extinguishers. 
Don't assume it'll work after sitting in your car for a few years. The powder type tend to settle after a while and lose pressure. The small ones are cheap enough to replace every couple of years. 
A few years ago some "fool" in our workshop decided to use an angle grinder next to a truck battery that was on charge. We tried 3 different extinguishers before one worked as they'd been hanging on the wall for years without being checked. Scary to say the least. People just assume they'll work. 
My 2c for what it's worth


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

Yessir, I've been told that the dry-chem units need to be shaken vigorously every so often to keep the powder loose. The one I bought for the car though was an H3R Halgaurd unit that's supposed to be non-corrosive on electrical and paint. That one is now mounted to the floor behind the passenger seat so all I have to do is reach back and grab it. I'll probably carry a big dry-chem in the trunk too. If I can't deal with it with those, then it's too big for an amateur to fight.

Bear


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## BearGFR (Aug 25, 2008)

geeteeohguy said:


> It sounds like it may be a bit lean. Does it pick up and clean up if you drift a little carb cleaner down the carb? The fact that you took it on a 4 hr round trip tells me that the basics are pretty solid, though.


Another symptom I noticed yesterday was having to turn the idle speed screw in a lot farther than usual to keep it running even in neutral, and then adding any load at all caused it to fall on its butt. That made me suspect that maybe it was actually idling on the mains.

So I pulled the carb tonight and re-cleaned every passage in it. Pulled the idle tubes, everything... put it all back together and it's now idling like it's 'sposed to. 

We're going to make the Power Tour yet :cheers

Bear


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## jmt455 (Mar 26, 2012)

BearGFR said:


> Another symptom I noticed yesterday was having to turn the idle speed screw in a lot farther than usual to keep it running even in neutral, and then adding any load at all caused it to fall on its butt. That made me suspect that maybe it was actually idling on the mains.
> 
> So I pulled the carb tonight and re-cleaned every passage in it. Pulled the idle tubes, everything... put it all back together and it's now idling like it's 'sposed to.
> 
> ...


Glad to hear about the progress, Bear!
Enjoy the Power Tour.


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