BooYAH! Mike

Awesome Dr Mike! Sounds very 911ish. Just noticed how fat (and phat) your wheels are. Those look wider than stock... I'm too lazy to comb through the 76 pages and find out for sure.

Special 15" ( or 16, I forget) wheels with truck tires on them.

Better, longer video with no squeal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RjV6nA76ss

That's killer Mike!

Just took it for a drive! It hauls ASS! It has good stable power up to 3.5K, then it really throws you back into the seat

However, it will not shift out of first. I may have the vac hose hooked up to the wrong spot. I need to check on this tomorrow. I hope to have it inspected tomorrow, then I will be legal.

Just in time for me to get there! PERFECT!

Just passed inspection! Woot! Still not shifting into 2nd, but I can figure that out.

I love it! Dr. Evil with a tranny stuck in first

I was just going through the manual and I think I have a misadjuted low band. I did rebuild the tranz, and I thought I adjusted it correctly, but it is a place to look. It is a weird method:
- First you tq the adjuster to 40 in/lb
- Then you back off EXACTLY 4 full turns

Simple enough.

Well, now it is acting up and pissing fluid on the driveway. Break time.

I talked with a corvair guru today to help focus my thoughts and he made some valid points that talked me out of just buying a rebuilt and slapping it in.

Here is the evolution of events:
- Had forward in low only, and reverse worked. Possible cause is low pressure due to pump not working correctly.

- Lost all forward, maintained reverse. Same possible cause as above.

- Lost all gears. Further shows that pressure to the whole system was lost.

There is a pump shaft coupling in the nose that is fairly easy to get to. This will show me the pump and if there is something cheap to fix it. Man, I hope so. I have to drain it and remove the pan anyway. This will just be a little delay in time. I hope to figure it out more tomorrow. I need time, no rain, and a place to work. It broke down on my inclined driveway. Good times

I guess it's safe to assume it's not the loss of vacuum modulator or an out of adjustment Modulator? That effects shifting into high gear in a powerglide. Also there is a band adjustment you can make too. The other probability is the pump is dead. If you have an out of alignment converter it will take out the pump. I've also seen the converter spacing incorrect and the converter wipe out the pump dogs. (converter not fully engaged)

I will check with Jim at work...his family owned corvair ranch.....

he really knows them....

Funny you should mention Corvair Ranch. The guru I spoke to was Jeff Stonesifer, the owner Nice guy and we have had lots of talks in the past.

new owner. old owner is Goulden...jim's father..he grew up there...

Jeff still works there and answers the phone, then.

Well, I dropped the front of the tranz today and pulled the front cover to expose the main pump. It is easy to see the wear on the pump drive dogs. The pump shaft was OK and the C clip was in place. The primer piston was stuck in its slot and the drain plug had nice fine metal on it.

I am wondering if I missed a measurement and the pump drive dogs were too big. I did have two trannies to choose from when I was rebuilding.

At this point, I am shorter on time than $$ so I am going to spend for a rebuilt and hope it can get here fast so I can throw it in and GO.

which trans? torqueflight or th350?

Could be sealing rings on main shaft....

It is a corvair, so powerglide. They only came with the powerglide as an automatic.

I put all new seals in. I am pretty sure I did not screw that up as it is straight forward.

oops, that is what i was thinking of.....been a long time since I have rebuilt one...last one was done in my living room...

Well, looks like the universe is conspiring to make me rebuild my transmission. Clark's is our of rebuilds and cores so would need mine. Corvair ranch has no good used that they would trust to sell me. Gonna be an enlightening weekend.

Nice work getting it running!

You'll get the tranny licked soon.

Wait that sounds wrong.

John

I hope to drop the tranz tomorrow and to figure out what is wrong with it and fix it this weekend.

Wish me luck

Are you sure you don't want to drag it over to the new place first?

Bud, I dont see how. I would love to work on it here, but the parking in back is tight and getting it on the parking area would be a feat in and of itself.

The folks at the corvair forum pointed me to California Corvair and I just scored a rebuilt transmission for less than the competition and it will ship tomorrow FedEx. Next week I hope to have this all resolved.

Went over to the old house tonight and with four bolts removed the transmission came right off. It is pretty easy to do, actually. And now, I wait for the rebuilt one. It should only take about ~1hr to get the new one in and running. Fingers crossed.

Aaaaaaand, its back on the road. What happened to the other tranz? I forgot to put the governor drive gear on the diff so it would never up shift and likely burnt the damn thing out

It now has all gears and can cruise at 65 and 2700RPM all day (so far).

The first trip today was to the gas station. The second, I loaded it up and hauled stuff to the new house. All of this fit, and even some not pictured.

Great work!

Oh, and some Norsemen want to stop by later to compose an epic saga about your restoration.

John

WOOHOO !!

You need to do a video of the driving so we can see how it drives and shifts.

I look forward to seeing it in person next weekend.

And then helping to fix what broke on it.

And then possibly towing it to PA.

Nice!

You all saw it here! Dave offered to tow me back to PA. I am driving without fear on the Canada trip.

Video to come. I need to repair the speedo.....the lens fell in

Right.

Which means you'll have to ride with him.

Trapped in the cab of a pick-up truck.

Dave.

With his A.D.D.

And O.C.D.

And my bad gas

By the time you roll into PA the two of you will have mutated into an entirely new strain of humanoid . . .

Fixed it for ya.

Dawn Rick, that's cold.

WAAHHHHH!

Interesting developments. This AM I attempted to adjust the timing as I realized I had not dont this and under load it pings pretty bad. I did this on my way to work....I forgot to pull and plug the vac advance hose so that explained why it got worse. I fixed it over lunch. The timing was right to begin with.

But, it was still detonating under load. So, I tried some octane boost and the noise went away. Crap. I guess I will need high octane after all.

Another interesting thing that has been developing, before I was monkeying around with the timing, is that the bus was stalling when I shifted it into gear. No idea. I adjusted the air bypass for a higher idle and it seems to be doing well now.

With the pinging figured out and treated (for this tank of gas) I can now clearing hear the exhaust leaks I am not surprised. I did not paste the header to the gaskets like last time.

The windshield wipers stopped working today, after it rained so yay me. The fairly new Dakota Digital voltmeter has some of the LEDs burned out so it is not readable.

Looking good for Canada

Due to the bus requiring higher octane, will this change the admittance fee for the workshop?

Nah, I am about to be a well paid doctor.

So it is like driving my Ford Falcon up hill over Snoqualmie Pass in the snow. Vacuum all used up getting you up the hill, thank you very much. When you close the throttle there will be some for the wipers. But not in a bus I suppose...

Is this a testimony for Dakota Digital?

Residency about over?

Dakota Digital will probably fix that for you under warranty if you call them.

Glad to hear its running!

I have been driving it all week. No real issues. It was pinging, I tried mid grade in this helped. I did some reading and found that the vac advance on the dizzy actually tends to cause this. I pulled and plugged the vac line and the bus ran better. It still pings under load above 3.5K so I need to retard the timing a little, I think. I do not like the 3.27 R/P as it places the power band out of reach in 2nd until about 75mph. Sounds weird, but the engine can produce pretty well until I change back in the winter.

As for other parameters, the engine maxed out at 315* head temp in up hill, stop and go traffic with 85* ambient temps. Pretty good. It is just in need of some fine tuning.

Well, I have a few days off and nice weather so I figured it is a good enough time to drop the tranz/diff and change the R/P to a shorter gearing. It is nice to work on a paved, flat surface for once

I found a ripped and pissing CV boot so that needs to be addressed while I am in there.

Probably see about getting a custom throttle cable.

Figure out why my oil temp is not registering......

I really hate working on auto trannys. There is fluid everywhere, no matter what you do.

I am letting the TC drain.......trickling down.......soooo fucking slowly. Then, I will pull the diff and I can get to business.

A new throttle cable was $4 form BusDepot. The one I have is frayed as it needed to be cut short and has been molested numerous times. It has kinks in it as well so out it comes. I hope to be able to engineer a better throttle pull system in the next few days while working on the rest of this stuff.

I am thinking of growing my tool inventory and being that I have two CIS vehicles and like to tweak with them, and neither is running right, is it a wide band O2 sensor that is needed to adjust these? I am interested in a handheld unit, if so.

No, you need to check the fuel pressure. That is the key to CIS. Search Adjusting CIS. If the fuel pressure is off you will never make any adjustment that will be meaningful using an 02 sensor. I ended up using a Volvo turbo warm up regulator with the guts from my 928 regulator. You need to take a cold reading and a warm reading and adjust the fuel pressure accordingly. The Volvo regulator had an adjustment bolt that my 928 one didn't. You can make them adjustable but it requires drilling, tapping and such. It was easier to just source a Volvo part and change the guts over.