The Black Pearl - Progress Thread

1991notchbackLX said:

i have a set of stock pullies from when i put on my underdrives pullies... i have no idea if they will work since your car is an '84 and mine is a '91... but they're yours if you need em

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Actually, if you could just measure 'em (just the outside diameter would be fine) and let me know what the specs are for each, that would be a HUGE help because that would tell me if my pullies are weird-sized or not. Right now, I'm leaning towards it being the water pump being the wrong one for my application. More than likely, the prior owner was a cheapskate that decided to save $5 by buying a reman'ed water pump that came from a different application of some kind - an F-150 or something, I dunno - and either by the difference in application or the remanufacturing process, whatever the case, the water pump's shaft is like 1/8" too short, thus offsetting the water pump pulley inward so that the belt rides up on the edge of that pulley, throws it off kilter on its way down to the crank pulley, and then that thing helps shred the piss out of it completely. Maybe. I dunno. Wish I could just pull the water pump off and lay it on a counter next to a new pump and measure the height of the thing, but it's such a PITA to swap pumps on a 302 that if I had it off, I might as well throw new one on there while I've got it all torn apart, anyway.

Sorry, not thinking straight right now. Bacardi + Coke + Me = teh silly.

Awsome! Mucho thanks! I'll compare 'em to mine and see what I come up with...

Nagging curosity got the better of me.

All of the pullies measure out to be the same size. I compared 'em to the above measurements, and also to Lynn's Capri, and everything jives as far as that goes. Soooo ... I dunno

Seeing that the water pump pulley looked too far back compared to the rest of 'em, I scored some doubled-ended studs from the hardware store and basically made the water pump the same kind of a deal as a GM setup (studs threaded into water pump hub, pulley pokes on and then washers/nuts on other side) but I stacked two flat washers onto each stud between the pump's hub and the pulley to move it out about 1/8" of an inch. The good news is now the (4-outta-6-rib) belt tracks just about right on that pulley and tracks straight on all the other accessory pullies, but it still keeps moving the belt over one rib (instead of two) forward onto the crank pulley. I don't know if this is still due to the water pump or if the crank pulley is screwed up, as well. Sure wish I had a spare belt (that wasn't shredded) that I could throw on there to see if it would keep hold of the belt or if it would try to throw it off there again. Can't afford to play the "$30 a try" gamble game with new belts, because there's no warranty on those things.

I'm not sure what to try next. I don't wanna go through the headache of replacing the water pump with a new one if that's not gonna solve anything. Maybe throw on a new crank pulley?

I did manage to fix the hanging idle issue. Stupid electric choke was engaging and making it stick at like 2,000 RPM in park/neutral on cold starts. So, just adjusted the three screws on the choke and rotated it until it would stop snagging it. I dunno if this was brought on by the change in temperature outside or what, as it never was an issue before, but at least THAT isn't a problem, now.

Here's the remains of the first belt I killed...

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And here's the first two ribs stripped off of the belt it now has...

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And lastly, here's how far it was riding forward on the water pump pulley...

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And you can kinda-sorta see how the water pump pulley is farther back than the others in this pic...

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Either the water pump pulley is still set too far back, or the water pump itself is somehow at an angle that guides the belt farther forward in such a way that when it goes on down to the crank, it's one rib forward, but by the time it goes from the crank to the smog pump, it gets back on track to the correct rib and it's fine from there all the way around 'till it gets to the stoopid water pump pulley again. I dunno. I can't do anything with it 'till Friday this week, anyhow.

UPDATE: Did a bunch of little stuff today, the most expensive being the lower radiator hose (mostly due to the cost of 2 gallons of antifreeze).

1. Replaced the lower radiator hose - it was swelling up pretty bad and feeling REALLY soft, so it was only gonna be a matter of time before it popped and left me sitting somewhere;
2. Put on a stock-sized (factory A/C - 90.5") belt and ROUTED IT CORRECTLY THIS TIME ( ). Last weekend I had fixed the pulley alignment issue by threading in four double-ended studs (a-la Chevy water pumps) and putting two flat washers on each one to move the water pump pulley forward about 1/8" to make it line up. Drove around a whole bunch today, no more fraying of the front edge of the belt, and no more catastrophic belt-shredding. Only cost me about $5 to fix this mess (cost of the new pulley studs and nuts), since I had a couple of stock-sized belts stashed in my closet;
3. FINALLY got around to bolting down that damned rear wing and sealing the bolt holes with black RTV silicone. Ugly-ugly holes had to be made in the underside of the hatch in order for me to make a hole big enough to fit in a socket for the nuts, but oh well. It works. No more rattling wing;
4. Re-installed the transmission cooler CORRECTLY, since the prior owner had it hung in a weird spot and was running the add-on plate-style cooler by itself instead of in conjunction with the stock radiator tranny fluid cooler. Another reason I did this was because the brass ferrule for the upper line fitting was letting the stupid thing leak just enough to make a little spot in the driveway, so hopefully the way I currently have it rigged (two clamps per hose connection and plenty o' Teflon tape on the threaded connection) will prevent future leaks;
5. Took off those stupid rear hatch lift struts because they were pretty much dead and what little function they did still have made it even harder to lift the hatch manually. Alas, in doing so, I had to drill the head off one of the bolt-screws because some wee-tawd at Ford thought it would be a cool idea to use frickin' Phillips head screws and then secure the damned things with blue Loctite goop on the threads, so taking these things off without stripping the head required a LOT of muscle. (I know, an impact screwdriver would probably work, but I don't have the money to throw away on one right now to help me get one friggin' screw out.) Sooooo, whenever I get around to buying new lift struts, I can just throw 'em on there in a few minutes and be done with it.

If time permits this weekend, I'm hoping to:

1. Paint the dash;
2. Remove the headliner (tired of getting crumbly bits of disintegrating foam in my hair and all over everything);
3. TRY to fix that stupid-arsed speedo cable one last time, as it's still jumpy with the brand-new cable and the damned thing randomly likes to cease functioning completely from time to time, which makes it impossible for me to ever accurately figure up my gas mileage.
4. Maybe poke some different speakers in the hatch instead of the stand-alone speakers I'm currently using, just to free up a little bit of cargo space - gotta see if I have anything that will actually fit back there in those weird-sized holes.

Speedo gear's perfectly good - you have to transfer it from the end of one cable onto the other when swapping cables (no cruise control and no VSS on my car), so I got to check that already. Awhile ago, I pushed the cable up farther in the sheath towards the dash end to see if maybe it just wasn't getting poked into the speedo fully and it was maybe backing out from time to time. I dunno. I think maybe I just got a bum cable somehow. Either that, or the speedo, itself, is screwed up. Sucks because until I get this thing working consistently, I can't ever figure up my gas mileage. No speedo reading = no miles on the trip odometer.

Earlier today it started doing that stupid surging idle thing again, bad enough that it was stalling at every other stoplight. Pulled the codes, it pointed to the EGR valve (which I've already pulled off and cleaned once), so on a whim I pulled it off again and got to playing around with it. For one thing, a whole bunch of big chunks of carbon fell out of the valve when I manually moved the plunger in and out a few times, so maybe it was getting hung up on that a little bit now and then (perhaps explaining the surge at cruise). I also pulled off the EVP (position sensor) and found there was a brass bushing piece that goes to the underside of the sensor that had fallen off and was just kinda rolling around inside that little "cage" where the EGR valve's spring sits. Poked it back on there and it clicked into place. Yayyyy. Probably fixed. Buuuuuut, just to be sure, and just to satisfy my own morbig curiosity, I took an old EGR valve and EVP that I'd saved from Teh Notch and found that it bolted right on there and even had the same sensor connection. Started it up, and ta-daaaaa, no more surging idle. Soooo, I'm just gonna keep the stock CFI's EGR valve and EVP stashed away and drive around on the Notch's valve/sensor for awhile to see how that goes.

5.0Droptop said:

Dave, Has the book I sent you been any help with the car?

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Definitely! Had a lot of info on CFI systmes that I haven't been able to find anywhere else. I found some info on setting the base idle and adjusting the choke, which for some reason was not in any of my Chilton or Haynes manuals. Only thing I can't find anywhere now (so far) is how I can modify the throttle butterflies (if possible) to actually open all the way when the linkage is pulled back to WOT - it's still only like 4/5 of the way open at that point (not due to the cable, but the CFI linkage, itself). I figure I might be able to eke out just a wee bit more oomph from this thing if I can actually get the throttle fully opened - after all, I am basically operating a 2-barrel setup on this thing, so every little bit of extra flow improvement helps.

Yayyyy, yayyyyy, paint!

Did the passenger side door's upper part to match the driver's side door that the prior owner had already done, and I finally decided to do something about the dash. Glad that I went with black instead of red, as it seems to tie in a lot better with the rest of the other parts...

View attachment 289210

WTF is up with Photobucket? All of a sudden, the only way I can get the URL address for my pics is by doing the drag-and-drop thing from a tiny-arsed window to the larger Stangnet window - I can't just left-click once on the picture and then paste it in the Quick Reply box anymore, and I can't even right-click and copy/paste, either. Grrrr ... friggin' people can't leave web page designs well enough alone.

5.0Droptop said:

Looking real nice Dave.

You need to find an SVO or 86Gt steering wheel for it.

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Thanks. Y'know, I kinda hate to say it, but I'm actually starting to kinda like the steering wheel in some weird way. I know it's hideously ugly in design, but as far as actually driving with it ... it's pretty comfy. The fact that the only two spokes to it are toward the bottom allows me to reach through the middle area to flip on the turn signal or wiper levers instead of having to awkwardly reach over a 3-and-9-o'clock spoke in the wheel like I would with other designs.

I've got my eye on the wheel out of an '86 notch, though (or another of the same design in an '85 GT). I keep forgetting to ask 'em how much they want for it at the boneyard...

stykthyn said:

looking good buddy, definitely a good choice going with the black.

seeing threads like this really makes me feel bad for not getting out there and working on my pile.

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Thanks. Driving it around last night on kind of a "date night," it was honestly probably the first time I've ever cruised around in the thing and thought, "Damn ... this thing's actually pretty fun to drive." Always before, there was something knocking/rattling/squeaking or the car was running all weird or I was afraid to park it somewhere and shut it off because the starter might not have the balls to turn over again or the car might overheat or SOMETHING. But right now ... *knocks on wood* ... it's running almost perfectly. Bumping the timing up to 12* helped a bit, too - probably gonna try moving it up to 14* today to see how it responds.

LaserSVT said:

Ugh! Damn Dave I threw away an 89 wheel just a couple weeks ago

Car looks great though Mang
I kinda liked it before but as you been working on it it is really looking like a great four eye
Havent seen a shaft style radio in a LONG time

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Bummer.

The radio is one of the many things I dug out of my dad's basement earlier this year (in MO) and sent to AZ. It's only a 15w X 2 setup (or 7.5w X 4 if I add two more speakers), but it's better than having nothing at all ... and it kinda looks period-correct for the '84. The Road Gear stereo in Stinky is equally ancient and weak, but nevertheless it sounds good for what it is, and has a groovy input jack on the front so I can plug in my MP3 player. I long for the day when I shall have enough spare cash laying around to throw a CD player of some kind in there.

UPDATE: Shredded a belt last weekend, AGAIN! My fault this time, apparently two washers behind each stud moved the pulley too far forward, so this time it frayed/shredded the belt on the back side instead of the front. Simple fix, just pulled one washer off each of the studs and tossed on another spare belt. Been DD'ing the car all week without and problems from that, so I finally decided to put a NEW belt on there (the spare I had was all cracked with age and kind of iffy) and all is good.

Today's fun:

1. Pulled out what remained of my headliner. Tried to be all nice and neat about getting the thing out, but that frickin' insulation/sound deadener sitting on top of the cardboard slid off and disintegrated at the slightest touch, so I wound up with a bunch of that crumbly crap all over the frickin' interior. A lot of vacuuming later, I took a can of some leftover semi-gloss black paint and sprayed the underside of the roof, same as I did in Teh Notch. Looks decent, doesn't stick out like a sore thumb anymore. Now I can stick magnets on my ceiling and spell out naughty words to amuse myself when I'm stuck in traffic!
2. Fixed the floppy fan-speed switch. The lower plastic post that holds the switch in place was broken off (seems to be a common four-eye thing - my '86 GT 'vert had the same issue), so I just drilled a little hole in the side and ran a screw through there. Perfectly solid again.
3. Installed some old Pioneer 6"x9" speakers in the factory rear quarter panel speaker holes so that I don't have those silly boxed speakers laying in the hatch and taking up space. The Pioneers don't sound nearly as good, almost NO treble to them at all, so I took the tiny little tweeters out of the front of Stinky and stuck 'em in the dash. Since they essentially sit right on top of the air vent ducting, I was able to just take an old pair of boxers on each side and make like a little "bed" for the tweeter to sit in so it wouldn't shift or rattle around in there - I didn't want to fart around with making custom brackets to hang them in there or anything. Sounds much better now. Not awesome by any means, but better. Shuffling around old stereo parts is cheap fun.
4. Fixed the speedometer cable AGAIN this week. Apparently the aftermarket cable I put in there to replace the bouncy-bouncy stocker is about 1/2" shorter than the OEM cable. Because the speedo gear for my AOD has this really long, hollow tip to it (whereas the ones I've seen for T-5's have a very short tip), the cable kept shifting down toward the tranny end and coming out of the back of the speedometer. I'd be driving along at 65 MPH, my speed would suddenly rocket up to 85+ MPH, then slowly drop to 25 MPH, then 20 MPH, then 15 MPH, and finally nothing. Solved this by taking a finish nail with a small head, snipping off some length with a pair of pliers (nail ended up being about 1/2" long), dropped it into the speedo gear's hollow tip, and thus the speedo cable only had about 1/4" of room to go into the gear, which is where it seems to be happiest. Basically, I just made a spacer for the thing. Now the speedo needle is MUCH more steady and works fine below 70 MPH - anything above that, unfortunately, and the damned thing starts getting bouncy and weird, and anything below 30 MPH makes it bounce, but that seems to be the norm for these old four-eye Fox speedos. (Again, my '86 GT did the same exact thing, especially when it's cold out at night.)

Other than getting an alignment for the thing, I think I'm pretty well set for basic fixes. From here on out, it's all optional upgrades as I can afford them - a CD player, either fixing the A/C or dropping in a sunroof, and eventually getting the rest of the parts I need for a dual exhaust conversion.