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mmitchell57

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About mmitchell57

  • Birthday 08/26/1979

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    North Carolina
  • Cars
    85' 720 2wd, 2016 Ford Escape
  • Interests
    Stuff, stuff, and more stuff.
  • Occupation
    Working mon-fri.

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  1. Good info. Thank you. The ordering processes will commence shortly.
  2. So I'll mark off the pitman arm then. Most of the parts are Moog prices, but I don't recall 100%. WIthout the pittman, I think I save around 40 bucks. Outside of that, i'm guessing I got everything covered so I'll picking things up. Any of these bearings require a press fit or are they all just a tap in and out w/ a hammer?
  3. I'm looking at replacement parts for the suspension and here is the list i've come up with. Let me know if this makes sense or if I'm missing something. -Upper Driver Side Ball Joint -Upper Passenger Side Ball Joint -Lower Driver Side Ball Joint -Lower Passenger side Ball Joint -Control Arm Bushings -Pittmant Arm -Tie Rod Ends -Wheel Bearing -Strut Rod Bushings -Sway Bar and End Link Bushings
  4. Datzenmike, Thank you for the heads up. I went ahead and tightened up the steering box a bit. It's ok, but like you said, it didn't to a ton to help. I'm scouting out ball joints, pittmans, and bushings for the front end. Found a ton of good diagrams. Thanks for the heads up on not getting too wacky with it.
  5. I have an 85 that I have some steering concerns with. The steering wheel is sloppy and floppy. When driving the wheel can move about 2in in either direction before it affects the direction of the vehicle. I was out there cleaning it yesterday and went to twist the steering shaft from the steering wheel and there was a lot of movement. I'm guessing it should not have any rotational movement at all. On top of the steering box i see a bolt around a flat head screw. Looks like it's an adjustment of some type. Would that effect the play in the steering column? Any help is appreciated. :)
  6. The install manual that came with mine was not anywhere near as nice. I only had a 2 page (front and back) sheet of paper to work with and a bunch of parts to figure out how they worked. I originally hooked up my distributor to that port and i wasn't getting any advance so I moved the vacuum and noticed there was none coming from the port. Maybe we have different models or something to that effect. If the picture is the one you have, we have very different models. The core looks the same but all the auxillery items look very different.
  7. Makes sense guys, no issues. It's nothing that's going to happen next week. Just a long view down. Short term goal which is this weekend, install the 2" drop blocks I picked up. Install new outer headlights. Start working on a new switch panel. I picked up some much nicer stock metal that I can fix up to sit nicely into the area where the original stereo was. We'll see if I can get to it this weekend.
  8. I decided I'll got with the drop blocks for now. I went and measured and it looks like I'm going to pull 2 inches out to make it look good. Then i'll stick with the stock out diameter of the tire while going up in wheel diameter. That should make it look pretty good and level it out. I'm looking at going through the entire front suspension and replacing everything I can within reason. Control arms, bushings, ball joints, endlinks, pittmans, and all that crap. Right now I've pretty much finished the interior of the truck. I fixed the seats so they feel good, cleaned up the floor pan. Installed new sound deadening material. The last couple things is to finish up on the stick shift extension, redo my switch panel, and figure out wtf is up with my gauge lights. They still don't love me and I belive it's the rheostat but I don't know how to bypass right now or test everything. I get power to the rheostat but beyond that is beyond my brain power right now. So, next on the books.... Suspension repair and stiffening, brakes need to be maintenance/upgraded from the top down, upgrade the seats, clean and modify the bed, Run cold air intake to the carb through a very nice plenum, 4-link the ass end, and plan engine upgrades for the down the road plan. Assuming nothing bad happens to the truck, I hope to have it another 4 or 5 years and doing some stupid stuff with it. Beyond 5 years I'm not sure yet. Maybe a 240sx w/ an ls3, maybe drops a big block in the truck... meh.. what ever happens. Fun times. :)
  9. The vaccume port on the side of the card on a 38/38 progressive is not functional. It's noted in the installation manual. You have to pull vacuum from the intake manifold for your distributor vacuum. I used the solid lines that were already bolted to the engine. There are three of them that run from the distributor area to the area close to the front of the engine near the carb. Just need one of the lines for vacuum. The 38/38 you should adjust to 2.5 screws on the mixture and adjust your time a degree or 2 on timing to get it to run smooth. From there do minor adjustments on fast and slow idles. Evertime you adjust timing or vacuum you will need to adjust your idles. Once you get all dandy, you can adjust your mixtures but make sure you adjust both the same at the same time if you are running a 38/38. Only adjust a quarter to a half turn at a time max. Then run it for a day or 2 to see how it does for you. I have both mine at 2.25 turns, low idle is 800, high idle is 1800, and timing is 5 degrees if I remember right. Runs like a raped ape now and when I get on it the engine sounds nice and angry. it will drink your gas, but meh, it's fun enough to where I don't care. Runs nice and smooth, no issues. The first gear lag I read about through the forums I don't have. I'm in a 85 2.4 with a 5 speed so maybe I out rev it when going into first.
  10. It's been a bit since I've been on here. Been super busy with the holidays and truck. Since last posted I've done a ton of work. I am learning to weld now since I got hold of a flux core welder. nothing crazy, just the basics. I gutted the interior of the truck to find all the holes I could and I came across 3, 2 of which were fairly large. One was right below the gas pedal. It was about a 4 inch diameter hole. Another was at the base of the front part of the driver seat near the transmission tunnel. The last one was up where the firewall met up with upper most corner on the cab. On the first two I welded in 22 gauge sheet metal to seal the holes after I ground out all the rust with some airtools. They cleaned up really well. The third one I cleaned up as best I could and wrapped in tar based flashing from all sides in hopes it would seal it until I eventually get the sheet metal done by a pro. I also extended the shift stick. Was a bit short so I added about 6 inches to it. I wish it was the easy for all sticks.... wait... I then sound deadend the whole interior and started putting it back together. I also stripped the seats down. Had bad metal in the drivers seat base. I created a new base for the wires to spread across and weaved in some material to make it strong. I also broke the back support. So I pulled it, stripped down to metal frame, welded what broke, and put it back together. With both parts I put in a layer of burlap to add support which appears to have helped out. Seat's all nice and comfy now. They should hold out until I pick up new seats. Outside of that, nothing else has been tinkered with. It's running pretty damn well. Oh, I did find I was only pulling 50% throttle on the weber carb due to an adjustment on the gas pedal. I adjusted both the throttle pedal and the cable at the carb side. Now I have double the pull and get about 95% when the pedal it to the metal. Huge different in acceleration. Makes for a fun drive to work and around the country.
  11. Another question would be, can I drop the rear by 2 inches by changing the shackles rather then blocks? When doing the suspension lift on the GMC I had before the shackle / spring switch was better then going with blocks. I still went blocks because I couldn't afford springs at the time, but I know the risk. Is that still the same with lower?
  12. So, looking at drop blocks and drop spindles so I can pull about 2 inches out of the suspension. Any recommendations? I may head over to summitracing.com and take a look. May also pick up some head lamps. I realized the other day that the outter lights that are a 3 wire setup do both and high and low. The inner two wire lights are only high beams. This is good since I want to get away from the inner lights and setup a cold ram air setup. Get as cold air to the filter as possible. Should be an easy win but I need to buy some new lights and make sure they are stupid bright. Got the whole front clip back on the truck with exception of the inner fender plastics. I'll get those on soon. The lower spoiler has been slightly modified. I still need to clean up the work because it's still a bit lumpy but I have it primer sealed. Looks good. I need to work the bed here soon but I can't take it off yet since I need to run some Christmas stuff down. Also, Guam, I cleaned out the radiator overflow and it looks great now. Surprised how dirty the inside was. Pulled the vacuum valve off and it looks better. I'll try and grab pictures this weekend, but it's going to be a busy one.
  13. Looks better every time I see it. Good work man! I like the plug wires. You measure and cut them yourself?
  14. Yesterday I managed to get a switch panel installed in the place where the stereo used to be located. I made it out of an old license plate and it works. I don't know if I'm a fan, but it's my first shot at any real metal modification. I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I should be out there for a bit knocking out some other things. Since I got my hands on a welder I may pull the seats apart and fix some jerry rigging I did a while back. One long pole in the tent, pull the bed and clean it up / fix it up. Damn thing looks like a cheese grater.
  15. So, yesterday ended up a being a day with the kiddos, wife, and grandma. No truck work. Hopefully this week or next weekend. Did managed to knock out a oil change on the DD and fixed some electrical issues on my BIL's Nissan 720.
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