70 duster: updating, and a no-dough pro-touring makeover
so a month has gone by without an update. between the holidays, work, family, etc i haven't had much of a chance to mess with the car. o have gotten a little time here and there to tinker.
found the problem with my power brake conversion: something in the booster had gone bad, causing it to lock up when vacuum was applied. so 97 bones later, i had another one on order from my local advance. (they beat everyone else's price) shot some clear on it to keep that nice bare steel look it had going on.
also, notice the prop rod is finally gone! wound up pre-loading the hood hinge springs 1 full turn to get the right tension for the fiberglass hood.
once the brakes were working properly, i went to fire it up for a test drive. and smelled gas.
turned out that the regulator mount had vibrated one of the screws out that held the regulator on, causing the bracket to crack by the other screw. this allowed the brass fittings to smack against the block, causing them to leak. advance honored the one year warranty on the holley parts, and got me a new regulator, bracket, and screws under warranty. cool. also raided my coffee can of fitting to do away with the crush sleeve brass ones that were on there. i don't like having more rubber on the car, but for right now it works. maybe next fall when i pull the motor for the oil pan gasket and a fresh coat of color ill fix it.
so then i went on a test drive. the throttle hung on me, and i could not get it to idle at any LESS than 4500 RPM. couldn't get it fixed on the side of the road, so i limped it back home. pretty scary ride through the neighborhood....
what happened was that the 4 hole carb gasket used when i put the nitrous plate on was smaller than the throttle plates on the eddy carb. the butterflies went through the holes out, but wouldn't come back in. THAT one took me a while to figure out.
so today i had to run some errands for the wife (and decompress after a rough week at work) and decided to try it again. after adjusting the choke and setting the idle, she ran great. didn't leave my block until i KNEW it wouldn't hang up again. then i ran some errands, and went for some alone time at the top of morrow mountain. while i was up there, i snapped a couple of pictures. dont mind the car, its filthy.
gotta say the car ran and stopped great.
budget total is 1665.06
michael
so a month has gone by without an update. between the holidays, work, family, etc i haven't had much of a chance to mess with the car. o have gotten a little time here and there to tinker.
found the problem with my power brake conversion: something in the booster had gone bad, causing it to lock up when vacuum was applied. so 97 bones later, i had another one on order from my local advance. (they beat everyone else's price) shot some clear on it to keep that nice bare steel look it had going on.
also, notice the prop rod is finally gone! wound up pre-loading the hood hinge springs 1 full turn to get the right tension for the fiberglass hood.
once the brakes were working properly, i went to fire it up for a test drive. and smelled gas.
turned out that the regulator mount had vibrated one of the screws out that held the regulator on, causing the bracket to crack by the other screw. this allowed the brass fittings to smack against the block, causing them to leak. advance honored the one year warranty on the holley parts, and got me a new regulator, bracket, and screws under warranty. cool. also raided my coffee can of fitting to do away with the crush sleeve brass ones that were on there. i don't like having more rubber on the car, but for right now it works. maybe next fall when i pull the motor for the oil pan gasket and a fresh coat of color ill fix it.
so then i went on a test drive. the throttle hung on me, and i could not get it to idle at any LESS than 4500 RPM. couldn't get it fixed on the side of the road, so i limped it back home. pretty scary ride through the neighborhood....
what happened was that the 4 hole carb gasket used when i put the nitrous plate on was smaller than the throttle plates on the eddy carb. the butterflies went through the holes out, but wouldn't come back in. THAT one took me a while to figure out.
so today i had to run some errands for the wife (and decompress after a rough week at work) and decided to try it again. after adjusting the choke and setting the idle, she ran great. didn't leave my block until i KNEW it wouldn't hang up again. then i ran some errands, and went for some alone time at the top of morrow mountain. while i was up there, i snapped a couple of pictures. dont mind the car, its filthy.
gotta say the car ran and stopped great.
budget total is 1665.06
michael