----Given the day and the fact that I have a bunch of Irish in me the beers won't be virtual tonight......Bill S

We've had 3 snowfalls in the last 2 weeks here so they salted up the roads again as recently as yesterday - which means I have not been able to test drive yet. Lots of rain forecast this week to hopefully clean things up and warmer temps next week - so it won't be long.

I am working on another minor issue in that the rear defogger blower has not been working. Yesterday I got out the old test light and verified I have power all the way through the switch and back to the blower plug in part of the harness at both high and low speeds. The motor gets warm when power is applied to it but does not spin. I took the motor (still the original 2/72 dated unit) out of the defogger housing and it will spin by hand but seems overly tight. I dropped it off at my local electric motor rebuilder and he will take a look at it. Hopefully an easy fix.

Two steps forward and one step back .............I decided to move the cars around yesterday and work on getting the garage set up for warmer weather. Roads are also now clean enough to allow for some behind the wheel time. Chevelle brakes work great but found another "minor" issue. The trans will not shift out of first gear. I assume this was a vacuum issue even though everything was hooked up - or so I thought. I sent Eric a picture of vacuum hose routing on the new carb, which I thought was the same as my old speed shop Holley it replaced - but it's not. I have the vacuum modulator and vacuum advance hooked up to the TCS port (this is a 70 specific carb) and there is not sufficient vacuum on the TCS port. Eric was kind enough to call me and walk me through how to get things re-routed. I need to search through my parts to see if I have the proper intake manifold fitting with another port to hood up the vacuum modulator line and then "T" into the choke line for the vacuum advance. To be clear this is not an issue on Eric's end - I had it plumbed incorrectly. I sent him the picture at 7:15 this morning and by 7:45 he had it diagnosed and solved. Onward!

----Jake,,,,So many variations of that vacuum fitting. I have several different ones so if you can find a picture of the right one I may be able to give you one!.....Bill S

Thanks for the offer Bill - I've got one coming.

My intake manifold fitting arrived yesterday and I installed it before I left to go do the tires on the 409. Took it for a quick test drive and the trans shifts as it should now. Also got a call from the electric motor guy and the defogger motor is ready to pick up - so I will get that on Monday. Finally coming together.

Finally back on the road - went over to the airport museum next door and snapped some pics with the evening sun.

Some video if it running while I was taking the pictures.

https://youtu.be/10BCHxwihHo

Proof that it runs well (way better actually) and the new Uniroyals produce much more smoke. If I only could figure out how to rotate the picture correctly. :stupid:

3gears.gif

Looks and sounds great Jake!! Now it runs as good as it looks!

Wow !! The pics at the airport are way cool !! The car looks great...:worship:

----You have it nailed, Jake! The wheels, the drivetrain, the lack of an SS hood (which I love). A beautiful semi-sleeper. It's so cool that you resisted the trmptation to slap a hood on your ride. So many others have it's rediculous. There are probably 6-cylinder Chevelles running aound with SS hoods.....Bill S

As I just posted in the thread about replacement washer pumps, I ordered a replacement windshield washer pump assembly from Ground Up and will take my time rebuilding the original to avoid further down time. This past Sunday I replaced the spark plugs for the first time in 20 years. Today I purchased a new NAPA RR165 distributor cap (black with the copper terminals and still made is USA) along with a new rotor.

My reproduction washer pump arrived over the weekend - so I swapped it out this evening. Not a bad repro part - does not have the Delco Remy stamp on the bottom of the stamped steel base and the plastic cover is slightly different. I was able to swap the original cover on the repro unit for now.

https://youtu.be/DrF1zx8_3_4

Also swapped out a throttle return spring to hopefully cure an issue with not returning to normal idle (weak spring). Slowly but surely getting things dialed in.

FYI on wiper blade inserts for these old cars which are getting harder to source.......NAPA carries a "classic" replacement line. This line includes an assembly with the rubber insert already installed on an arm blade that sorta-kinda looks correct - from far away. Not going to pass any judging, but fine for a generic replacement if you need the whole assembly. I bought a set and just removed the insert and then re-installed the rubber insert on my original arm blades. They are only $10 each. Maybe other solutions out there - doing a quick Google search of the reproduction parts houses for 16" 72 Chevelle wiper blades yields results for a reproduction assembly from Ground Up for $17 each plus shipping which usually runs $25. This was quick, easy, relatively inexpensive and looks great. :beers:

Finally put some miles on the Chevelle this weekend. Given all of the new replacement/rebuilt parts I wanted to slowly extend the miles away from home before I committed to a longer trip. I've primarily been doing a 5 mile loop around the area I live for testing and have had no issues. Last week I took it to a cruise night locally which was about 10 miles round trip (that's when I found the A/C issue). On Friday the wife and I took a longer run up to Clinton, WI for dinner - about a 50 mile round trip with no issues. With that under our belt we drove it down to my parent's on Saturday for Father's Day which is about 120 miles round trip. Ran great with no issues - so I think we're good. Nice to enjoy as it was intended.

Awesome!

So.....the bench seat had developed some wear and tear(s) over the years and with the cruising season over here for the year I decided to look at fixing it. There was one significant tear at a pleat/panel joint and it was getting worse as I drove the car this summer. In addition I could see where there were 4-5 other spots on the seat bottom that were starting to come apart as well. I really did not want to buy a reproduction seat cover as most of the original seat cover was still in pretty good shape (or so I thought). I found a local upholstery shop and he was knowledgeable enough about buying the NOS material from SMS as he had previous experience in doing so. He pointed out to me the the drivers side of the seat cover had already been repaired with a close but non matching material (I've owned the car since 1987 - so it was a while back) He ordered the NOS material from SMS and got it in a couple of weeks. I dropped of the seat about a month ago and picked it up today. He replaced the bottom main (pleated) areas on both sides and the drivers seat back (pleated area) with the SMS materials. I was pleased to be able to save the original seat cover and use the SMS material to retain the correct original appearance as the car retains its born with carpet, all door panels, and rear seat.

I also installed the NOS radio knobs I picked up from Rick at MCACN this past weekend. Winter project already completed.

Well Done, I love the floor mats!!

Looks great Jake!

----Love the original carpet, Jake!....Bill S

Turned out great!

Spent some time with Jeff Ashen at MCACN and he convinced me to buy one of his original restored RC-15 radiator caps and get rid of the reproduction cap on the Chevelle. Never looked at one side by side - but there is a huge difference. The cap condition matches the age of the rest of the under hood look. Thanks Jeff!

----Jeff spent a lot of time in our booth, but was all over the place as well. Talked to him when I got home and he really had a good time.....Bill S

Like most of us here understand, it seems a constant effort to constantly improve and sort out/dial in our cars. The minutia of the small/relatively obscure parts can be both fun and mind numbing once you dive in (see previous post about the radiator cap). As I noted in a separate update post about our Regal and restoring an original horn for it, we met Gary from The Horn Works as our swap space neighbor at MCACN last fall and got talking about the correct horn(s) for my Chevelle. All the time I have owned the car (since 1987) it has always had dual horns. I was aware they were not original to the car but assumed it was supposed to have 2 horns. Gary let me know that it was supposed to have only a single horn. As luck would have it when I dropped of the Regal horn to be restored he looked through his stash of horn cores and found the correct (and dated) horn for the Chevelle. He restored it at the same time as the Regal horn and I installed it this evening when I got home. Thanks again Gary.

Last fall before I put the car away for the winter I noticed a small gas leak coming from the top front of the tank, which probably explained the fuel smell in the garage...............I drove enough gas out of it and it went away, so I let it be over the winter as it was safe.

I brought the car back home last weekend and in between the various 409 projects I have going I decided to tear into the tank and see what the deal was . Dad and I made a minor repair to a couple of pinholes on the top of the tank after I acquired the car almost 40 years ago and I assumed that patch had finally failed.

I think the leak was actually the original rubber hoses on the fuel sender that had finally dried up as there did not appear to be any other leaks and the gas stain location lined up with the bad hoses. Since I have the tank out anyways I am thinking it might be time to just replace it with a Spectra one and be done with it (the top side of the original tank is pretty crusty) in addition to having the sender rebuilt (or replaced as it is crusty too). Another option is to take the original tank to my radiator guy who can clean it up and check it out, but the low costs of the replacements seem to make that a tough choice even though I'd like to retain original parts...........

Instrument Services who is local to me does the sender rebuilds so I might run up there to see what they think on the sender first and go from there.

While under the car it reminded of what a good candidate this thing might be for dry ice blasting as it was undercoated early in its life...............might have to look into that some more.

OK..........learned a bit today - sharing for others knowledge if you didn't already know.

Instrument Specialties https://www.clocksandgauges.com/ is about 10 weeks out on their sender restorations and cost is about $350. I can't wait that long, (I brought the Chevelle up for the summer cruise season since the 409 won't be running for a bit) so I ordered a reproduction sender for $50 and going to see how that goes. Based on others experiences with the repro's I suspect after a while it will eventually quit so I'll get my original rebuilt and have it ready on the shelf when the repro gives up.

I picked up the freshly made 409 radiator this afternoon and brought my original gas tank for him to look at. With a fair amount of work (and expense) he can clean it up. The top is crusty enough that he is worried about not having enough metal after the clean up. It won't look original on the outside any longer and it will cost about 2x-3x a new Spectra one, so I ordered the new Spectra Precision OEM galvanized steel tank (Summit actually had the best pricing) this evening and it will be here by the end of the week with the sender. With any luck I'll be up and running again this weekend.

One thing to note - the radiator guy mentioned that on an original gas tank the filler neck extends into the baffle adding stability to the neck. Evidently on the repro tanks the filler neck doesn't always extend to the baffle therefore it tends to be less stable. :scholar:

Hoping everything fits and works :confused2:

Received the tank and sender yesterday so I decided to put everything back together last night.

The tanks look pretty similar but defintely not identical. Good news is the filler neck extends into the middle baffle like the originals.

I tested new sender prior to install. Hung it off the tank straps and hooked up power wire to sender then hooked up ground, moved the float up and down and the gauge in the car worked as it should. Installed everything and put 5 gallons of gas in car and the gauge reads empty.

If I disconnect the power lead to the sender the gauge reads full. I had to drill a new ground as the new sender wire was too short to make the old location work, thinking that might be the problem. Ran out of time and patience (doing this on a garage floor) at 10 PM and will try again this weekend......ugh. I love old cars!

__________________

I experienced the same thing 15 years ago when I got a repro sending unit for my old 69 SS396 convertible. They make all the rest of the sending unit correctly and then 'cheap out' by making the ground wire a few inches too short! When I called whomever I bought the repro sending unit from, they claimed they had no complaints from anyone else on that issue, which I found hard to believe. Solved the problem by returning the repro unit and sending my original to John Wolf in Ohio, who correctly restored my original sending unit. IIRC, I had the rebuilt sender back from Wolf in about 2 weeks. Total cost including shipping both ways was right at $200.

Saturday afternoon I spent 4 hours messing around with this. Ran a jumper wire from the sender ground to the negative terminal of the battery - nope. Lowered the tank again and removed the sender, re-tested out of the tank and all good. Put back together and nope. Lowered the tank again, tested the original sender after a ground wire repair and tested good. Put the original sender back in the tank and - nope. Ugh. So as I lay on the garage floor under the car defeated, thinking about what to do next, I thought to myself, what would Dad do here? He'd rig up some sort of tester to see why it wouldn't work in the car. I took some fishing line and tied it to the float on the repo sender (4th time in and out) so I could move the float up and down when in the tank to make sure it was moving. Put it all together, pulled on the wire to move the float and........bingo - the gas gauge was moving accordingly. Hmmmmm. When I was talking about this with another car guy locally he said maybe the 4-5 gallons of gas you have in the car is not enough to move the needle yet..........not sure why that would be. Once I knew the float worked in the tank I gambled that not enough gas was the issue. So I put everything back together and ran out of time last night to test. First thing this morning I ran up to the gas station and filled it up and guess what - the gauge started moving. I will run the repo sender until the original is rebuilt (I'm getting good at replacing them now :grin:).

Hoping that sharing my experiences here saves someone else some time.:beers:

You should have bent the float wire until the gauge read a quarter tank with the 5 gallons in there. They ALL seem to need bending to read anywhere near correct. They package them in the smallest box possible, which has the float up tight against the tube and it wouldn't fit like that with the wire bent out for the float to be in the correct location...

Absolutely correct - in retrospect I wish I would of.

At this point I'm just happy it works and it is all back together so I can enjoy it. Got it cleaned up and ready to driving season this morning after the fill up.

Glad you have it together to drive and enjoy in the mean time. Curiosity...what does the gauge read with the tank full ?
I'm rebuilding the seats for my '66, hoping to have it presentable for shows this summer. Found out the hard way that the GTO buckets I bought as cores 15 years ago are different than Chevelle...who knew. I'd always heard they are all the same seats, not true, Back rest springs are very different.

Reads 3/4 when full, so an adjustment to the float is in order.......

I feel your pain on the seats, just went through this with the seat backs on the 409, Impala is different than Biscayne or BelAir..........which is not what the rest of the world thought when I bought the bench seat........:dunno:

Your seat ordeal came to mind when I was informed about my seat issue... :biggthumpup:

A guy on Team Chevelle is really good with these seats and is making up new upper spring sets for me to convert the BOP springs to Chev. Very lucky to have found him and his willingness to help me out. VERY reasonable on cost too.