Recent content by rich weyand

  1. rich weyand

    Heater not very hot

    I put a cover over the center of the grille in the winter. I just used a Chevy Truck fender pad.
  2. rich weyand

    Is there such a thing as Cams for Dummies

    Couple things to bear in mind. You drive torque, you race horsepower. Racing engines always have 'a lot of cam', which is to say, they're cammed for high RPMs, because they don't race them at low RPM. They put the throttle down and keep it there. Driving, you use torque. You're usually at low...
  3. rich weyand

    Decorative front license plate poll

    The official plate. Front plate. 'Working Girl' because: 1) everything works. 2) daily driver. 3) if I buy her presents, she lets me ride her.
  4. rich weyand

    EFE, traditional Heat riser & thermac informational

    Yeah, everybody does the two chrome pie plates thing with air cleaners and then wonders why the thing runs like garbage in the winter. That's a southern California thing, people. Most of the country should be running a thermac. BTW, they do the same thing on planes, where it's called carb heat...
  5. rich weyand

    Sbc dumping oil

    Make sure you wipe the rubber seal on the oil filter with oil before you put it on. This will keep you from buggering up the seal when tightening. After the first heat cycle of the engine, get under there and retighten the oil filter. A heat cycle sometimes loosens them up a bit.
  6. rich weyand

    Disappearing coolant

    Also could be a warped head, not just a cracked head or bad gasket. On a 195 straight six, I put the head gasket on with #2 Permatex on both sides and torqued it down. What?! you say. Yes, but I got another 150K miles out of it, and it had 100K miles on it when I rebuilt it. A warped head...
  7. rich weyand

    NP203 fluid

    The first number on oil is the viscosity when cold. As the transfer case never gets hot in an engine sense, the oil will never ride the temperature curve to the second number viscosity. The first number is the effective viscosity for the transfer case application. I would prefer running...
  8. rich weyand

    How do YOU set timing?

    I run 17 BTDC at idle with the vacuum disconnected. That should be something like 52 BTDC at cruise, with mechanical all in and vacuum all in. I wrote up a detailed description of timing, including all the whys and wherefores, a while back...
  9. rich weyand

    truck runs hot

    Usually the classic big blocks run hot and the small blocks run cold. I will support the statements here: 1) check the actual water temp by reading the thermostat housing with an infrared thermometer; 2) make sure your vacuum advance is hooked to manifold vacuum. Ported vacuum is pollution...
  10. rich weyand

    Help with wiring!

    Is the ground from the rear of the passenger-side valve cover to the firewall in place? If that is missing, the cab will be floating, and all kinds of crazy stuff will happen.
  11. rich weyand

    Vac Advance - Yes or No?

    Yes, run vacuum advance, for all the reasons mentioned. And run it on manifold vacuum. Race cars usually don't have vacuum advance, because it's another thing to break and they don't run them outside the performance window where the vacuum advance would be active anyway. Vacuum advance went on...
  12. rich weyand

    New to me truck/ what should i go through and look at

    Change the master cylinder, all four slave cylinders, and the rubber brake lines at all four wheels. If you can stop, any other reliability issue is less likely to be life-threatening, and most people don't change the slaves and the rubber wheel lines. Those suckers are likely 50 years old and...
  13. rich weyand

    Electric Fan Conversion

    The small blocks all run pretty cold. I did a real simple electric fan conversion in a weekend. Here's the write-up from another forum. http://forum.73-87chevytrucks.com/smforum/index.php?topic=27899.0
  14. rich weyand

    Battery positive to ''body' ground not a good ground like frame or chassi ground

    The battery, the block, the frame, and the cab all need to agree on what 0V is. That takes three wires to connect the four things. Standard is the small one from the battery to the radiator support, the big one from the battery to the block, and a braid from the RHS valve cover to the firewall...
  15. rich weyand

    Found My High School Truck

    1978 is the sweet year, IMO. Last year with no engine computer, last year with round eyes, first year with electric oil pressure gauge. And short-box 4x4 is sweet. Most 4x4s back then were work trucks, and were long box. That's a really nice truck, and deserves your effort.
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