Progress Thread HeHateMe gets bent

I had planned to get a lot done on the car this week since I was off the entire week. Evidently my wife didn't get the memo. Between getting ready for Thanksgiving Monday thru Thursday and then yesterday removing all fall and Thanksgiving decorations and replacing with Christmas...not much has been accomplished. Other than sitting around dreaming of putting a 6r80 in it for some reason.
 
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Hey November me....you didn't work on this POS during your 2 weeks off at Christmas. Yeah, the wife had OTHER plans. I've been told by several people to just sell it. Which if anyone is interested, is an option. Unfortunately my asking price probably doesn't equal anyone's paying price, so I'll press on.

My biggest problem is my wish list is bigger than my reality. I'm very limited for the next 4-5 years because of upcoming college expenses. So I have all of these big ideas. Like new analog gauges. A 3550 or TKO. IRS or MM torque arm.

Big business calls it Analysis Paralysis. So new me is going to create a spreadsheet. Details will be noted, prices assigned, but in the mean time, I am going to not worry about a 351 swap. Just get it running as is. Biggest thing I really need to buy are some hard line adapters and an hose for some of my fuel system. The C950 is only 21psi, so for parts I just used EFI rated rubber hose and clamps to connect the throttle body to the factory hard lines. Those rubber hoses are hard as a rock now. Also, if I ever want to move to port injection, I'll need a fuel system that can handle it. So I think for now, my main goal is to upgrade the fuel system.

Everything else, I think I have to finish the rewiring/wire tuck. If not, it will just be little bits here and there. I'll go ahead and swap the C950 system for the HP, but it really wouldn't take much to get it running.

Which leads to a question...for those of you who have an "antique" car, how do you insure it? If I tag it and want to drive it, I don't want to spend a fortune on insurance for something I may only drive 5-10 days a month.
 
I like the approach you are taking! Being aware of mission creek and analysis paralysis, then coming up with a way to combat both is very important, even with more money. Doing things in an order that minimizes do overs is very helpful. The spreadsheet with costs will be even more helpful than a piece of big cardboard with a checklist.
Do you have a daily driver for you and for your spouse, if applicable? I did not want the weekend/show restriction on my antiques. Do when Allied/Nationwide tried to push them onto Hagerty, I said NO! So now the old cars are policies as “excess vehicles”, I have a stated value on each and can drive anytime or where I want, including to work or on errands. Hagerty might have been cheaper, but this is less than a regular policy. I get a discount for not being able to drive them all at once.

Hey November me....you didn't work on this POS during your 2 weeks off at Christmas. Yeah, the wife had OTHER plans. I've been told by several people to just sell it. Which if anyone is interested, is an option. Unfortunately my asking price probably doesn't equal anyone's paying price, so I'll press on.

My biggest problem is my wish list is bigger than my reality. I'm very limited for the next 4-5 years because of upcoming college expenses. So I have all of these big ideas. Like new analog gauges. A 3550 or TKO. IRS or MM torque arm.

Big business calls it Analysis Paralysis. So new me is going to create a spreadsheet. Details will be noted, prices assigned, but in the mean time, I am going to not worry about a 351 swap. Just get it running as is. Biggest thing I really need to buy are some hard line adapters and an hose for some of my fuel system. The C950 is only 21psi, so for parts I just used EFI rated rubber hose and clamps to connect the throttle body to the factory hard lines. Those rubber hoses are hard as a rock now. Also, if I ever want to move to port injection, I'll need a fuel system that can handle it. So I think for now, my main goal is to upgrade the fuel system.

Everything else, I think I have to finish the rewiring/wire tuck. If not, it will just be little bits here and there. I'll go ahead and swap the C950 system for the HP, but it really wouldn't take much to get it running.

Which leads to a question...for those of you who have an "antique" car, how do you insure it? If I tag it and want to drive it, I don't want to spend a fortune on insurance for something I may only drive 5-10 days a month.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm a long way from needing insurance, but need to go ahead and figure out what that's going to cost. Probably not going to tag it as an antique for the same driving restriction reasons.
 
Not that I want to bring up politics in this sub forum, but at least that probe is supposed to be wrapped up! I hope you have an end in site. With the Clinton investigation, they found clear wrongdoings after a much longer deep investigation/witch hunt, and then chickened out on prosecuting what they found. That’s like the dealer chasing down electrical gremlins in our first Dodge Caravan for 187,000 miles, then deciding they were not worth fixing! Life can be nuts.
BTW, Is the squeaky wheel sub forum still open?
 
for those of you who have an "antique" car, how do you insure it? If I tag it and want to drive it, I don't want to spend a fortune on insurance for something I may only drive 5-10 days a month.

I do Hagerty here. $12k replacement value, 2k mikes a year, garaged, have a daily driver, roughly $400/year including 15 miles free towing and roadside

They are flexible on things like allowed miles. If you want 5k, you can get it, you just pay a bit more. I do maybe 200-300 miles a year, so 2k for me is excessive
 
I guess I have to change the name of the thread...although in reality the Mueller Probe is FAR from over.

I would imagine if I had it running, I would be good for 3,000-5,000 per year, tops. I've got to check out Haggerty. Never looked them up.
 
Back to some piddling. Saturday and Sunday I spent at least 3 hours all told looking over my wiring mess and trying to make heads and tails of the factory stuff. I poured over the factory wiring diagrams AND the EVTM. I found a little notebook to finally WRITE DOWN the what's what and who's who under the hood. After I wrote it down, I started thumbing thru the book and found TWO other pages with the same :poo: written down.

So I have short/long term memory loss I guess. BUT, all 3 say the same things. So at least I am consistent in reading the wiring diagrams, even if I am wrong.

I did find one big boo boo that would have had me cussing more in 30 minutes than Sam Jackson did in all of Pulp Fiction.

The main underhood connector for the engine harness is all mangled up. I bought a repair piece, but the engine side of the connector is not much better. So I bought weather pack connectors and will put this in the fenderwell. When tracing wires I was totally thrown off by the blue/green dot wire for the low oil sender being where the coil + is. Which on one of my note pages I had noted that when I removed the Duraspark and wired the TFI into the Holley C950, the existing coil + was all weather checked and cracked. Since I had swapped to a Canton pan, I didn't need the low oil sender, so I de-pinned it and used that for the coil +. Not the boo boo though. The chassis side of the connector is missing the coil - or tach feed. WTF?

I looked and looked...then thought, I de-pinned and removed a lot of stuff with the TSAD harness...sure enough the green/yellow dots wire I am looking for is in there and cut off. No big deal. I am running aftermarket gauges and will just run a new wire to the tach.

Where the cussing comes in, is if I hadn't found that and just wired the tach of the MSD into the engine side of the harness. No tach signal, no injector firing. So I would have been stumped trying to figure out why that pig won't fire. I'd have dropped the tank, checked the pump, the pump relay, jumpered the pump on and still no squirty because no tach signal. So YAY me.
I also replaced the factory temp sender in the heater rail with a temp switch that comes on at 198 I think. I wired it to trigger my passenger side fan. The holley HP will trigger the driver side. I'll also wire one of these fans to come on with the A/C, if I ever get far enough to actually figure out how to wire the A/C back up, since I removed the TSAD. The sending unit is a bit longer than the Ferd piece and I was worried it would bottom out, but careful measurements with my finger on a piece of shrink wrap, precisely told me it was good!!! :lol:

AND I remembered the Nordskog temp gauge acts up and I bought a new sender for it years ago...so I found it and swapped it out. I even soldered in the ignition noise filter with a factory connector! At this rate, if I solder 3 wires a weekend, I can have it running in August.
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Totally off topic but I have to ask. Do you know what brand or who you purchased those valve covers through? I have the same covers but snapped a few bolts and need replacements. The bolts are not normal so no one has replacements and I have no idea who I bought the covers through.

I got em on Ebay. Like $57 iirc. I've seen the exact same ones for $150. I believe I got them from Skip White Performance ebay store. I could be wrong. It was like 8 years ago it seems. You could probably find the bolts on Amazon. I've given up trying to find something NOT on Amazon. Only Trump's tax returns and Obama's birth certificate are not on there. I am pretty sure you can buy a Hillary Clinton email server with Windoze 95 on there. Probably a Monica Lewinsky sweater, slightly stained with free Prime shipping is available too.

Seriously, I'll look thru my stuff and see if I find a purchase or receipt info.

I have a picture of them on my dining table taken 2-3-2010! Looks like Skip White still carries them:

Skip White fabricated Valve Covers
 
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I got em on Ebay. Like $57 iirc. I've seen the exact same ones for $150. I believe I got them from Skip White Performance ebay store. I could be wrong. It was like 8 years ago it seems. You could probably find the bolts on Amazon. I've given up trying to find something NOT on Amazon. Only Trump's tax returns and Obama's birth certificate are not on there. I am pretty sure you can buy a Hillary Clinton email server with Windoze 95 on there. Probably a Monica Lewinsky sweater, slightly stained with free Prime shipping is available too.

Seriously, I'll look thru my stuff and see if I find a purchase or receipt info.

I have a picture of them on my dining table taken 2-3-2010! Looks like Skip White still carries them:

Skip White fabricated Valve Covers


haha great reply man and thanks but don't worry about it

I've asked them already as well as a few vendors and they either have no idea who would have new bolts or they won't help because I don't have a receipt of purchase from them. I'm pretty positive I got mine from american muscle about five years ago which they won't help without a receipt. I've tried sourcing them from local fastener stores as well but no one has anything like these dinky pos bolts.

I'm going to hit up holley because they look to sell the same cover and bolt