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What have you done to your El Camino today!

718K views 7K replies 689 participants last post by  Indianjohn 
Installed the Antique Auto tag, and took her out for a test drive. Maintenance issues, just had to goto autoparts store for correct screws to attach the tag 😁
 
Today I tore the top off the carburetor. Idiot prior owner had rebuilt the carb himself, but failed to reattach a couple things, like the spring for the secondaries was just floating loose, the secondary plates were not adjusted right so scraped the sides of the frame, basically would have taken a miricle to open them up under WOT.

Might just have to send it out, I'm almost scared to delve any further lol.
 
Working on car audio Alot as a kid, I got very familiar with the old fashioned wire coat hanger. Probably the most useful tool ever invented for pushing/pulling wires through a car firewall, under carpets, through grommets or even trim that didn't require or was too much of an issue to remove.
 
Ooh. Went to Hobby Lobby today, to get some Testors to paint the back of the housing. No white, not flat nor gloss. No silver, no light blue, no chrome, no nothing. Figures Covid would have everyone who ever wanted to paint a model quarantined. Found 1 bottle of steel metallic gloss stuffed halfway down a line of medium camo brown flat. Hope it works.

Cheers to the kid who never puts stuff back where they got it from!

Tomorrow, tear apart the dash...
 
Tore apart the dash today, painted the back of the housing and a bunch of the inside next to the bulbs, which all got replaced with upgrade bulbs. Added a metal bracket that finally showed up for the headlight switch, the old plastic one was held in/together by black zipties. Oof, I can see the dash again!

Finally got time to get busy on the OPGI rear swaybar. Kinda disappointed in that whole thing. Shipped in a busted box with zero padding or wrapping, whole thing is scuffed and a few spots of chipped paint. The tips are kinda krusty, like it was pulled from a muddy vehicle and painted over, no wash, no sand, nothing nice and smooth. Holes look like they were cut with a plasma torch, just plain seriously ugly all around. They did supply 4x each 7/16x20x2.75 gr8 bolts and locknuts and washers, but I doubt those were real gr8 bolts as they stripped/broke threads just pushing them though the trailing arm and into the swaybar holes which needed to be widened as they would only fit a 3/8 bolt, not the supplied 7/16.

Go figure nobody had gr8 7/16x20 anything, finally found gr8 7/16x14x2.75 and matching locknuts at Tractor Supply and tossed everything else.
 
Doing some yard renovation at the wife's request. So the driveway is full of rock and railroad ties. After a spin around the block in the '87, found myself at the back of the driveway. Ehh no biggie. Then it rained. And rained. And rained some more. Found out (to my chagrin) because of the bedliner, the bed is water tight. All the way up to the rails. The grandkids figured that out too. So I spent the day watching them climb in/out of what they nicknamed the '******* swimming pool'. Surprisingly enough, also found out the cheapo airshocks that are still on it will absolutely hold the weight of a full bed of water and 3 energetic youngsters.
 
I saw one of Kanji Ricers today. Had dual pipes that looked like they belonged on a Turbo Diesel. Sad part was it was all show and no 'go' because the Titan powered work van I drive laughed at him from the line, at the 30,60,90mph marks too.

Guess his yellow Kanji wasn't big enough, or all the Hello Kitty decals across the rear window were dragging him down.
 
Changed out the starter today, old one was grinding something fierce. Turned out the nose piece was cracked from tip to longbolt, so was allowing shaft flex, resulting in some serious chatter.

What sux is the sticker on the topside said "New", but other than a 'triple tested' sticker, that was it. No idea where it came from, just knew where it went. O'Reilly auto, swapped for a refurb Ultima and lifetime warranty.

Sometimes it pays off to live in a small 'hick' town, the autoparts stores stock a bunch of stuff for older pickups/cars and not all the new fangled stuff. Wife wanted to get the starter while she was in the city, 10 auto stores later and all of them required having it shipped. Crazy.
 
I watched my baby back my Baby out of the driveway while her mother gave her a driving lesson. Wife said 'take your pick, the Charger R/T which does 0-60 in 5 seconds flat and has over 400HP, or Blu' (which has south of 130Hp and a carb that chokes under WOT). I get the feeling that hesitation is gonna cost me somewhere down the road...
 
Made a kid choke today. He says 'like the Camino', I says it's GMC not Chevy, it's a Caballero, only made 1800 of them, so it's really rare. He says 'how much you want for it?' as he takes a swig of his Coke. $20k I says, it's that rare. When he sprayed the Coke back out of his nose, at least he was considerate enough to turn his head away from the car. Poor kid, that stuff gotta burn...
 
Went to pull the carb from my 87 yesterday. Wouldn't you know whomever worked on it prior was 99¢ short of a Dollar. The fuel line to filter nut was twisted and angled, and seriously over-tightened to stop any resultant leak. Needless to say, moment I touched it with a wrench, the 90° on the hard pipe twisted up like a pretzel, forcing me to break out the Sawzall. Fun times on a gas line full of fuel.

Naturally, the carb is off to MountainMan, but that carb supposedly had a fresh rebuild. Yeah, don't think so from the looks underneath and the way it is behaving, or it was done by someone clueless about Quadrajets.

Hoping it doesn't take a miracle, be nice to keep it original.
 
Stared at my baby sitting in the driveway until I couldn't stand it any longer, so took her out for a spin. And spin I did, left a really nice long black streak thanks to a Mt-man rebuild on the carb. Discovered 2 things I'm not thrilled about, being the length of time it took to get her started (assuming no gas in the bowl) and the hesitation from idle at any temp. Back to tweaking I go...
 
Finally fixed the timing, OP had it set at @ 6°, so now it's back at 0° where it's supposed to be. Wish they'd put that tab anywhere else but at 12 o'clock, right behind the water pump.

Ordered new plugs, wires, cap + rotor and coil, hopefully that'll solve the stalling at idle after she warm up.
 
Oooo Shiney 👍Any plans on dropping that nose some?

All I did today was replace the t-stat, OP had stuck a 160 in there like it was a good thing. New plugs, wires, cap and coil, hopefully this weekend. Jegs did awesome at communication and shipping, wires are sitting here waiting on the rest from Rockauto. These 8mm Taylor's should do a better job than the Dollar store 7mm that's on there now.
 
She's gonna be a work of art when she's done, should take a bunch of pics and post them in a build log, it's always cool to see custom made stuff and how it looks when it's finished, but the process is far more interesting. And there's always someone who has a neat little trick or word of advice, to help out.
 
R45TS plugs gapped @ 44, Taylor wires correct under exhaust, WVE Cap/rotor, Standard BlueStreak coil.
Not entirely sure how it'd run. Plugs I took out without needing a wrench, finger tight. Cap was sooo corroded and pitted its a wonder electricity could actually pass. The rotor tip looked like a chunk of burnt plastic. Plug wires were not only mismatched, wrong lengths, but had half a dozen burns in them from bad routing. The coil fell apart after removing the stock brackets.

What a difference....

For those whom haven't changed plugs on the stock 305 yet, leave plenty of time for #8. It's underneath everything and blocked by the blower. Get yourself a 3ft extension and a knuckle, you'll need it to go through the fender well or be prepared to pull the wheel entirely.
 
Ran out of gas at just over half a tank left. Very sudden development. Rather irritating to say the least. 131 ohm from pink/black to ground at @ ¾ of a tank across the sending unit. Figured I'd check the guage to see if that was also bungled. So tore into the dash.

Previously did the whole dash lighting upgrade, made a world of difference, I can actually see the guages at night again. But the speedo remained quite dark. Figured out why. I have an OD tranny and GM was nice enough to slap in a metal tag over the standard guage dial. Unfortunately they made it too large by half, so it blocks the light output from the bottom bulb. Took the dremel and chopped a good half-inch out of the bottom edge, problem solved, speedo nice and lit up now.

151 ohm at the guage. Guess I'll take her for a drive, burn off some of that weight in the tank...
 
I'm partially OCD about some stuff, so gotta say I'm loving the fact the colors on the radio seem to match up exactly with the dash lighting. Seems like a little thing to most ppl, I guess, but to me it adds a lot to bring everything together. Looks great, but gotta fix those cords lol, that'd drive me crazy.
 
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