• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

Jared's '79 5.3 244 Project: The Qwikbrik

Ordered up what I need to make the oil pressure and oil temperature gauges work again. Fo9und an M16 temp sensor that'll thread into the factory spot on the motor where the original (unused) oil pressure sender is, and I'll put a pressure sensor down where the dummy light switch is now.

I'd like to run a VDO water temp gauge too, but I think I'm using both the easily available coolant temp ports now. One has the sender for the ECU in it, the other has a sender that runs the mystery meat gauge in the cluster.
 
Sweet photos, car is looking awesome! Sounds like a blast to drive too. I’d have to agree with the others that the quad rounds really work well on your car, but I’m sure the single rounds and fog grill would look great too.

Regarding your fender issues: looks like what I’ve seen happen to some people before. Probably only rubs/makes contact under full or really heavy compression, at which point the tire catches the inner lip and “un-rolls” or pulls the lip back out during rebound.
 
I have no words for these tires.

No more. I can come into a corner signed for 25mph at 50, and it just stays planted. It's unbelievable. The only time I get spinning coming out of a turn is if I purposely unload the suspension or give it a flick. Other than that, the car is just glued to the pavement. It's kinda wild.

I recognize those tires! 200 treadwear on the street is completely ridiculous. At speeds that would get me into plenty of trouble I can just throw the car in and it just happens. The 142 does need an alignment but the tires just seem to paper over any problems.
 
Sweet photos, car is looking awesome! Sounds like a blast to drive too. I?d have to agree with the others that the quad rounds really work well on your car, but I?m sure the single rounds and fog grill would look great too.

Regarding your fender issues: looks like what I?ve seen happen to some people before. Probably only rubs/makes contact under full or really heavy compression, at which point the tire catches the inner lip and ?un-rolls? or pulls the lip back out during rebound.

Yeah, I just cut basically everything out in that area. Screw it. I'm not dealing with it again.

I dropped the car down about an inch in the back to try and get rid of the muscle car rake I have going on. That, coupled with bashing the wheel house some more has given me most of the room I need at this point. I get some rubbing still under hard compression, but it's on the flat surface up inside the wheel house, not on the lip itself. It doesn't hurt the tire or anything, just makes a brief noise. I'll try and move the metal some more and I may also have a stiffer set of springs (the rear is a little soft anyway I think) so that should help there.

The only real issue I have left is it wants to stall out instead of drop to idle. JD spent a couple hours messing with it last weekend and we actually got it working well, and then I drove home and it started pooping out again.

The values he was seeing from the MAP sensor didn't make sense, so I ordered a new GM one. He said he'll poke at it some more at MountainMeet.

I'm also headed to a junkyard in Winston this weekend to grab a spare steering rack and a few other bits and pieces. I'll hunt up a decent power steering cooler too, and swap the ATF I have in there now for the GM fluid or some other fluid I guess.
 
Ran out to the Winston Pull-a-Part yesterday and grabbed a steering rack, a cooler that'll work out perfect, and some other odds and ends. Got the rack swapped out this morning, and it feels way better than it did. The old rack has some tight spots in it, plus the power steering reservoir had glitter in it. Figured it was best to just swap everything out.

Back to the alignment shop sometime this week, and then hopefully we'll be ready for MountainMeet.

Cooler mounted:
Yfgv9hph.jpg


Current state of the car:
BppiTEUh.jpg
 
Last edited:
Aight, I think at long last I may actually have the power steering issue sorted. I wound up putting another Camaro pump I had in the shop on it on account of the metal shavings in the reservoir, put the Volvo regulator/piston/spring in the pump, swapped on a "new" rack from a '92 in the yard, added the cooler, and filled the system with about 2qt of Royal Purple power steering fluid.

I only got to drive it for about 30 minutes this evening, but I picked a hard uphill road with a lot of switchbacks, and at the top I didn't have any fluid puking out of the reservoir and the fluid itself wasn't all foamy.

I really hope this is the end of the issues with the steering. We'll see.

I did find however that on the highway, I again had a shimmy in the wheel when applying slight pressure to the left. I thought the lower control arm bolt had loosened up again, so I jacked it back up when I got home. Wasn't the control arm bolt...the strut gland nut on the passenger side had worked it's way loose. Come to think of it, I didn't check those for tightness when I put the struts on, so it may have very well been that way before. Oh well.

Dropped the strut out the top, popped the spring off, and gave the gland nut some blue thread locker and 18" pipe wrench lovin'. I think that'll hold.

For sanity's sake, I checked the drivers side too. That seemed fine.

Anywho, also found my long lost trailer hitch hardware, so I can set about getting that mounted tomorrow in order to drag either the utility trailer or the smoker up to the lodge for MountainMeet. Trailer lights are not gonna happen, I can tell you that much right now.

I'm hoping to get back by the alignment shop late this week and have the alignment checked, but if I don't make it, it drives straight enough that I'll just send it.
 
Anywho, also found my long lost trailer hitch hardware, so I can set about getting that mounted tomorrow in order to drag either the utility trailer or the smoker up to the lodge for MountainMeet. Trailer lights are not gonna happen, I can tell you that much right now.

I'm hoping to get back by the alignment shop late this week and have the alignment checked, but if I don't make it, it drives straight enough that I'll just send it.

The people want smoker burnouts.
 
Got the hitch installed tonight, exhaust shortened up a touch and painted black so it's not so noticeable.

The rear spring adjusters keep backing down on me which is annoying, so I'm going to add some T-bolt clamps under the plates as a temporary measure.

For my own future reference, I've currently got 400lb springs in the front and 250lb in the rear. I think the rear could stand to go up to 300 or 325. The front feels about right to me.
 
Can't win for losing today. What should've been an easy operation to put an oil pressure sender on wound up eating up 8 hours of back and forth to Asheville, parts hunting, and ultimate defeat.

Oh well. I have a working low oil pressure dash light, just no gauge. That'll do for now.
 
3 hour shakedown cruise tonight revealed precisely...zero issues!

Got an appointment at the alignment shop this afternoon, gonna throw a quick oil change on it probably this evening, and try and get my oil temp sender hooked up in the right spot.

I'm also very happy that the power steering issues seems to be fixed. I'm not sure what the actual fix was, if it was the cooler or the fancy fluid, but either way I'm no longer having PS fluid puking out of the reservoir and coating everything, so I'll call that a win.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top