Quarantine Build Thread - 71 Colorado 02

[chargin]

What about sourcing a Tii brake booster?

 

[danco_]

Progress:

 

Ripped out the interior and carpet. It's unreal how not-rusty this car is. The surface rust you see on the driver side is exactly that, surface rust. I'm missing that entire piece of carpet and it's likely been missing for the last 15 years. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then a deep clean and finally, begin new carpet reassembly. While removing the under dash panels, this fell out on the passenger side. No idea how old these peanuts are. 

 

Time for gluing of the first piece. This was before I deep cleaned the rear seat area. 

 

 

 

A few solid hours and MANY adjustments later, I get this: 

 

 

 

Carnage and relief cuts:

 

 

Very happy with how it came out. The tunnel piece was probably the hardest part but once you get into it, its really just a process of elimination. I'll wrap it all up tomorrow.

 

 

 

[danco_]

6 minutes ago, chargin said:

What about sourcing a Tii brake booster?

 

Not needed. Wanted, but not needed. 

[mccusername]

Loafers... socks... rubber gloves...
I. Love. The. Look. 

[ray_]

Are you running those lil' speakers?

[danco_]

1 hour ago, mccusername said:

Loafers... socks... rubber gloves...
I. Love. The. Look. 

It's the "do I even need to shower today?" look

 

 

1 hour ago, ray_ said:

Are you running those lil' speakers?

The car runs what it wants, I'm just a passenger. 

 

[Spyke]

No reason to shower until you're done getting greasy.

 

Great work so far man, I'm probably doing the carpet job myself as well very shortly.

[02Anders]

Great progress Ryan!  Keep up the good work...  ?

 

Returning to our off-topic discussion:

 

I started with a 1982 Beechcraft Skipper. A small 100hp 2-place little airplane that tops out at 120kts. It was so much fun and the name suited it perfectly; the Skipper. I could fly from orange county to Santa Barbara in about 30 min with no wind. It was perfect. Being that it was a low-wing airplane, it sharpened me up pretty quick. Now I'm in a Piper Arrow with a complex and high performance endorsements.   Go revalidate your license! Where are you located? 

 

The little Skipper looks neat with its high T-tail.  I've never flown one myself though.  I started on PA28 Warriors about 20 years ago.  Progressed a little since that though as I'm now sat in a Boeing 747.  Based out of Luxembourg but literally circumnavigating the world.  I Fly into LAX on the odd occasion, and will have a two-day layover in Houston during the weekend after the next.  Would love to get back into the small and simple single-eng. prop aircraft again though - they're so de-stressing to bum around in...

 

[danco_]

 

I have a solution for ripped upholstery. Next up brakes and exhaust.

 

 

Guys, I’m getting close.

Edited April 9, 2020 by danco_

[ray_]

6 minutes ago, danco_ said:

 

 

 

Guys, I’m getting close.

 

Keep your distance!  :P

[danco_]

9 hours ago, Spyke said:

No reason to shower until you're done getting greasy.

 

Great work so far man, I'm probably doing the carpet job myself as well very shortly.

do it. You’ll hate it and curse many times, but once it’s done, you’ll wish you did it sooner. It’s a total stress reliever when you get into your car every time thereafter.
 

 

3 hours ago, 02Anders said:

Great progress Ryan!  Keep up the good work...  ?

 

Returning to our off-topic discussion:

 

I started with a 1982 Beechcraft Skipper. A small 100hp 2-place little airplane that tops out at 120kts. It was so much fun and the name suited it perfectly; the Skipper. I could fly from orange county to Santa Barbara in about 30 min with no wind. It was perfect. Being that it was a low-wing airplane, it sharpened me up pretty quick. Now I'm in a Piper Arrow with a complex and high performance endorsements.   Go revalidate your license! Where are you located? 

 

The little Skipper looks neat with its high T-tail.  I've never flown one myself though.  I started on PA28 Warriors about 20 years ago.  Progressed a little since that though as I'm now sat in a Boeing 747.  Based out of Luxembourg but literally circumnavigating the world.  I Fly into LAX on the odd occasion, and will have a two-day layover in Houston during the weekend after the next.  Would love to get back into the small and simple single-eng. prop aircraft again though - they're so de-stressing to bum around in...

 

I have been paying close attention to the aviation companies over the last three weeks and bought it big when they were miserably low about 1.5 weeks ago. I bought Boeing at $120/share for crying out loud. Unreal prices. 
 

That seems like a very scary industry right now. Are you doing ok, all things considered? 
 

If you have another layover in LA, feel free to reach out. I’ll pick you up and we can talk shop. I still have a lot to learn. 
 

I can always pop in with the piper as well, but I refuse to fly into LAX. Santa Monica or Torrance is much easier for a little single prop plane. 

[02Anders]

Ryan, that interior looks great!  You've done well in transforming it.  If you have a solution for the split seats, then you just need to sort out that centre console.  But please, keep the short console rather than popping it a later long one.

 

Back off-topic: Yes, the aviation industry as a whole is bleeding badly right now.  To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that it'll manage to return to what it was prior-Corona.  Don't get me wrong, the industry will make a comeback, but just not to what it used to be.  But thankfully, I've been really lucky, as I'm a freight dog on the B747.  ?  After umpteen years of flying passengers around the globe, I made the switch to freight just last November.  In hindsight, that's the best decision I've ever made in my life, as it's saved my bacon in this Corona-Apocalypse we've now been thrown into.  Freight is largely unaffected - at least for now - so I'm alright.
Anywho, I'll give you a heads up prior ro my next layover in LAX.  Would be fun to meet up...

 

[danco_]

On 4/9/2020 at 2:06 AM, 02Anders said:

Ryan, that interior looks great!  You've done well in transforming it.  If you have a solution for the split seats, then you just need to sort out that centre console.  But please, keep the short console rather than popping it a later long one.

 

Back off-topic: Yes, the aviation industry as a whole is bleeding badly right now.  To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that it'll manage to return to what it was prior-Corona.  Don't get me wrong, the industry will make a comeback, but just not to what it used to be.  But thankfully, I've been really lucky, as I'm a freight dog on the B747.  ?  After umpteen years of flying passengers around the globe, I made the switch to freight just last November.  In hindsight, that's the best decision I've ever made in my life, as it's saved my bacon in this Corona-Apocalypse we've now been thrown into.  Freight is largely unaffected - at least for now - so I'm alright.
Anywho, I'll give you a heads up prior ro my next layover in LAX.  Would be fun to meet up...

 

 

Thanks! Interior is close. Definitely need to get a better center shorty console in there and install an hidden bluetooth head unit to power the speakers. That will come in a week or three. his 

 

On the conversation of airlines, I heard Southwest is practicing social distancing on their airplanes now, which is literally insane to me. This virus is bullshit and needs to end for many reasons. 

 

 

 

 

Back on topic! I got a lot of work done on the car and it's starting to show. 

 

 

I cleaned up the gauge cluster and took some time to install a new, longer speedo cable. 

 

I then decided now is good a time as ever to get an exhaust installed. I bought an IE stainless system and a nice stock system, and ended up using the stock system because I didn't have to open up the IE box. Terrible reason to not use the IE system, but oh well. Sue me. I also grabbed a fresh meaty IE swaybar and painted it black. I got it installed but not tightened down yet. I also took some time to install fresh turbo E-Brake cables. 

 

Progress is progress.

 

 

 

 

Went ahead and decided to replace a few of the coolant lines under the intake manifold, so I started ripping everything off. That quickly spiraled into replacing every coolant and fuel hose, hose clamp, all gaskets, sending radiator out for a blessing, sending injectors out for cleaning, fresh coolant pipe, fresh starter, repaint the block, clean the hell out of all hardware and high grade where I could, etc. It was a lot. My garage was a mess for over a week. Parts sprawled out EVERYWHERE. But I had Willie Nelson and beer so it was actually pretty fun, all things considering. Special thanks to @chargin for some parts. They sure helped. 

 

Constantly high grading parts where I could. I have a lot of tii-specific parts from other cars over the years so finding better parts to swap in was sure nice. Small example: 

 

Then a friend suggested now is the time to send injectors out for testing and cleaning at a local spot in Torrance, Ca called RC Fuel Injection. They know tii injectors well. Pumps too. I sent out 8 injectors since I had spares, and they all came back in perfect order. Here is a print out of four of them: 

 

 

I continued to get the motor back together and things were lining up nicely. 

 

 

 

Finally got it all together, added water, checked oil (I replaced oil and filter a few weeks back), and let it rip. The engine started with starting fluid since the fuel system needed a good prime an to build pressure, but she ran. Not great, but ran. The cold start circuit idled at about 2k before it settled at a surging idle between 300-1400 RPM. I was stumped. I checked all the standard spots for a vacuum leak and there **might** have been a small leak by the left-most screw of the throttle body but this seemed like something different than a traditional vacuum leak. I spent an hour online and started studying past threads on surging idles specific to tii engines.  

 

One of the things I read was that the car was likely running lean and the injection system is trying to compensate, so I decided (under recommendation of Rey Rivera and @HBChris) to change plugs to BP6ES gapped to .028, and adjust valves. So I did both and the valves had absolutely no play. They were TIGHT as a rock, so both of those things helped. The engine ran smoother but still surged. 

 

I read another entry that suggested I untighten the 10mm bolt connecting the throttle body shaft to the KF pump linkage shaft and give it a little jiggle/let it relax. That did the trick. Idle settled smoothly and everything seemed to be fine (all things considered). I let the car run for about 20 minutes to watch the coolant temp/bleed the system, and checked the engine at all RPM ranges. Things seemed fine. I still want to reset timing and check dwell, followed by a proper tii tune up, but I think I'm close now. 

 

 

Plugs that came out, and plugs that went in:

Adjusting valves to .008

 

After I was comfortable with how it ran, I threw the airbox back on and it smoothed out a bit more which was a nice surprise. That came at the recommendation of @Mikepelly. Good advice! 

 

 

I scored the original tii tuning tools in a parts purchase some years ago, and we keep it in the local group of tii owners to use when we need them. It's nice that we can have access to these obscure but important tools. I haven't used them yet. I want to get a few miles on the car and see what it does before I tune. Before me, this car hadn't run in about 15 years, so anything can happen. Simply driving it can be the ticket, which is what I'll do first. 

 

 

 

Quick video of how it runs now. This was a cold start. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMv36jPPCU8

 

I don't know how to imbed a youtube video on this platform but the link above should work. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also swapped the rotors and replaced bearings/races and fresh lube. Car rolls nice. The old lube was basically a hard plastic which was bad. It needed changing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by danco_

[1936spyder]

Great progress Ryan, always enjoy your updates-

[irdave]

Amazing how clean that brake fluid made the gauge faces!