Vacuum, fan blower motor, wiper motor and surprises

This past weekend I got quite a bit done so let me break it down a bit.

The vacuum

I decided to take a look at the lack of vacuum from point a to b and started in the engine bay. I quickly located the vacuum tank and in the process the reason for the absent vacuum; there's no hose connected from the engine to the vacuum tank.

Unfortunately I have no hose available but I'll buy me some at the local parts dealer and test this out this next Saturday. I'm not quite sure why the vacuum was disconnected but I'm hoping that it's not because it's busted.

I was told that the nipple in this picture is the place to get the vacuum from. The nipple seems a bit bigger than the connection at the vacuum tank but I should be able to work that out.

The fan motor

I've been working on the car with the battery disconnected for various reasons and after figuring out how to troubleshoot the electric part of the heater control I hooked the battery back up. Imagine my suprise and joy when the fan control worked!

My only explanation is that there must have been a lot of corrosion on the connectors of the control and that me taking things apart removed the corrosion. The fan won't operate at the max speed but I was told that this is due to a faulty high speed relay. These can still be bought as a new spare which is what I'll do.

The wiper motor

I decided to take the wiper motor out as well while I was at it. This is most likely the cause for the non-operational washers as there's voltage all the way to the connectors at the motor.

These' aren't immensly expensive - around $50 if I recall correctly (I can't find the source right now though) so I'll buy one of these as well.

The bearings

I got hold of a company that can help me grind down the cam axle to correct tolerances and asked for a rough price estimate. The guy I talked to said that it could cost anything between $300 - $600 depending on the amount of work needed. Well, it's better than nothing and not too far from what I expected.

The surprises

While mucking about at the carburator in order to locate a good place to get the vacuum from I noticed something odd. The previous owner has jammed the choke valve wide open for some reason.

I've always felt like the car didn't perform as it should and used up a lot of gas - this might be why. I got a cable for this from Reijo though and after the engine is back in I'll try and fab a plate for hooking the knob up to the dash.

Rummagin about in the engine bay I also noticed that the generator and the AC compressor are misaligned. Talking to the guys over at V8Buick I learned that my generator is missing a bracket which might be the cause of the misalignment.

On top of this I discovered rust where I do not want it; right below the front windshield.

The fun never ends.

The vacuum/heater control system

I've been going through the Buick factory manual I ordered from Detroit Iron Information Systems, reading up on the controls for the heater and A/C unit. Slowly I begin to understand just how the entire thing works (or should work at least).

Now, I won't be giving away the entire manual here, just a page or two in order to illustrate how it all works. If you need the manual - buy it. It really is worth the money, even though it can seem expensive.

The controls in the dash control both vacuum as well as electronics; the vacuum controls all the various doors in the system (there are 5 doors all in all; the defroster door, the mode door, the deflector door, the temperature door and the outside-recirculated air door).

The Fan switch controls the speed of the fan motor electronically as well as being the master vacuum switch. When you move the Fan switch to any position besides the "Off" position the outside-recirculated door is partially opened via a vacuum diaphragm.

The Temperature lever controls vacuum flow to the water valve; at the leftmost position no water from the radiator flows to the heater core and at the rightmost position the valve is fully opened.

Finally, the Selector switch controls the following doors via vacuum; the defroster door, the heater-air conditioner mode door and the outside-recirculated door. It is also mechanically linked to the A/C compressor clutch switch.

Vacuum is provided from a vacuum in the engine and goes through a vacuum tank to the master vacuum switch (the Fan switch, remember). The Temperature lever also receives vacuum directly from the tank so that the temperature of the air can be controlled without running the fan.

This means that if the master switch doesn't work, there'll be no vacuum to the Selector switch. It also means that you should be able to get warm air to flow through the system if you move the Temperature lever all the way to the right as this works without the master switch.

My guess is that if you don't get warm air through the system when driving your car with the Temperature lever all the way to the right with the Fan switch in the "Off" position you might have a vacuum problem. I can't say for sure though as I haven't checked on my own car yet.

You should also be able to measure voltage at the Fan switch in order to see if you have 12 volts at the 'F' pin (Brown wire). Following the wire diagram you should have 12 V out on all the other pins as well depending on what position the switch is in. These lead to various points in the fan blower resistor and from there on to the actual motor.

As for testing the vacuum, the easiest thing would probably be to run the engine on idle and then disconnecting the hose going to the vacuum tank in the engine bay (the 'in' connection on the tank) and feel if you have a vacuum there. If not, I'd guess your vacuum pump is busted.

If you do have vacuum you just connect the hose again and keep disconnecting hoses further down the chain until you find the leak. If there's vacuum all the way to a door diaphragm and the door still isn't moving then there's not much else to do than replace the diaphragm if you ask me.

As for the fan blower motor you should try and measure the resistor before you take apart half the car in order to get to the motor (it sits below the outer fender on the passenger side). There should be a wire running from the A/C box in under the fender from the engine bay. I can't tell you more as I have yet to do this but this is one advice I've been given.

There's a lot more to write on this subject but since I'm very much a beginner when it comes to troubleshooting this and keep guessing for most of the time I'll leave it be for the moment. Hopefully someone is helped by this information.

Feel free to post corrections, suggestions and ideas in the comments.

The cost of a hobby

Due to the horrible weather that greated me when I woke up this morning (I'd show you but Blogger is broken) I never went to the garage. There's not a lot I can do there either though due to the fact that my car's still sandwiched in between Anders an Reijo's cars. Another reason is a lack of funding.

I never expected working with a 35 year old car would be cheap or even economical but it's not until now I really realized how much this will cost me.

Replacing the front windshield will cost me approximately $110 (800 Skr). I need a new motor for the wiper washers which will set me back around $150-160 (1100-1200 Skr) if I recall correctly (can't find the link for it now).

I'm going to need to replace all the rod and crankshaft bearings in the engine and I have no idea how much this will cost me but I'm guessing at least $420 (3000 skr), probably more. On top of this I also have to replace the headers as they're broken. These cost $280 (2000 Skr).

This is just what I have to replace and we're already talking almost a thousand bucks. Besides this I would really like to get the heater working and although these components are rather cheap ($30 for a fan motor and about the same for the heater core) it all adds up.

If I decide to replace my 3.73 rear axle gears with new 3.08 gears the gears alone cost $170 (1200 Skr). I'll have to have someone to do it for me as well wich most likely will cost me another $210 (1500 Skr) if not more.

I really need to find a job that pays more.

Getting the cluster out

Yesterday I finally got my instrument cluster out of the car, unfortunately it didn't do me a lot of good as far as the ventilation goes.

The climate control... eh, controls uses a combination of vacuum and electrics in order to control where and how the air goes. The switches that are up at the dashboard connects via vacuum lines to various vacuum controlled gates that in turn let hot or cold air into the system.

Vacuum lines are also used to control the speed of the fan. How this works I can't tell you because I don't know. And I don't know why this design was even used to begin with where electric switches and wires should be enough.

Anyhow, I can't just measure voltage at the switches because there are none to be measured as far as I can tell. The problem could be with the actual fan motor but as I have to remove the front passenger fender (and in the process the front bumper) in order to get to it (no kidding) I won't go there unless I really have to. Thus I've, once again, turned to the V8 Buick forum for advice.

Now that I have the cluster out I'm going to do two things; adjust the fuel meter as it shows 1/3 empty when the tank actually is empty and replace the clock with a tachometer. I have the one lying around that came with the car, bolted to the dash (looked ugly like hell). With a bit of luck I can fit it in the old clock housing.

Not a lot of work done but I kind of ran into a wall with all the disassembly overhead needed to get to the fan motor.

Tackling the dashboard electronics

Today was the first day of real work on the car after I put it in a garage. I couldn't do very much as it's still sandwiched between Anders' and Reijo's cars so I decided to go ahead with the dashboard electronics.

I've tried to take the dash apart before with no luck but this time I had repair manual printouts by my side, something that improved the odds a lot. I still took my time doing things though, this being the first time I disassemble a 35 year old car.

Doing it "by the book" it took me about 3 hours getting the dash and the instrument cluster loose. I ran into problems getting the instrument cluster all the way out though - I'm guessing I need to unhook some tubes that the manual doesn't mention. I'll check with the V8 Buick forum.

Soon after posting this I realised I've read somewhere on the Internet about how to remove the instrument cluster. After a minute's worth of brainstorming I recalled George Nenadovich most excellent instructions on how to do this. George's site is a great resource for Buick newbies like me - he has tons of great info.

Another thing I decided to take care of was the head light switch. The "bolt" that held it to the dash was broken off when I got the car. A member of the V8 Buick forum hooked me up with one free of charge (Hi Steve!) but I haven't had a chance to replace it yet.

Looking at the switch you could tell that it had taken damage from the water that has gotten into the car the past months. So I took it apart and cleaned it up. It turns out that it's a lot easier to keep the switch out of the cluster in order to get the cluster back into the dash so I never did mount it. It should work better now though.

I also took a quick look at the front windshield. Reijo knows a guy who can replace it for me for about $115 (800 Skr) so that's what I'll do - it's a lot better option than having me replacing it, probably making it worse in the process.

The quest for a garage, epilogue

My Buick is finally parked inside a warm and dry garage but it wasn't exactly smooth sailing getting there.

When I decided to drive the car from my brothers house to the garage the weather was clear, the roads dry and the temperature 3-4 degrees Celsius.

When we actually got things going it was pitch black, sub-zero temperature and foggy. Not the best conditions for driving a two ton muscle car with absolutely nothing along the lines of winter tyres on.

This meant that I had to keep the speed to about 20-25 mph which in turn meant that I had to take the back roads to the garage. The journey took roughly 45 minutes.

Worth noting is that the car still had a lot of moisture and water in the coupe - water that froze as soon as the temperature went below zero. There's no heat in the car due to the fan and/or dashboard electronics being broken.

Nothing to do but roll down the windows and put on a lot of warm clothes. It wasn't all that bad though, most of my body went numb after about 15 minutes so I couldn't feel the cold for the better part of the journey.

Well, we finally arrived at the garage but at this stage we were so tired so we just drove the car in, front first, just so that it'd get in for the night. Since I'm going to work more on the front end we needed to turn it around, something we planned for yesterday.

Now, turning a car around shouldn't be such a big deal, right? My reply to that is "It depends."

In my case it depended on two things; does your car have insanely bad ground clearance due to headers and does the garage have a big bulky door that has it's frame protruding up an inch from the ground?

We tried to rig a ramp from planks that we had lying around but no matter what we did the headers caught on the frame and brought the car to a juddering halt. Nothing to do but drive it in, front first, again and work out a better solution to the problem.

To top things off I'm a bit torn about the garage. The guys I'm sharing it with are true characters but great in every way. One guy, Reijo, is currently rebuilding an Oldsmobile estate into a pickup truck, just for fun of course.

The guy who hooked me up with the spot, Anders, works at the biggest Yankee car parts dealer in Gothenburg. Roland, who actually lives in a trailer outside the garage, is apparently an extremely talented mechanic.

All of them very helpful and willing to answer any and all questions I might have. I noticed just yesterday that the garage even has a plasma cutter, something I never could afford on my own.

Still, as you can see on the pictures, there's not even enough room to breathe in there as it is now and I can't help but feel that it's going to be tough getting any major work done on the car.

I'm not going to change for a year or two anyhow - the knowledge these guys bring with them is worth way too much. One example of this knowledge is that Reijo, as soon as he hard my car start, thinks that a crankshaft bearing is busted.

Not great news as I was told that my engine was in good condition when I bought the car but it's better to get the news this way when I still can fix it than in the form of a completely busted engine.

All in all, with the garage solved I now have one less problem to take care of. The rest is a lot more fun.

The quest for a garage, part four

Today I got the call I was waiting for - the garage I was looking at just before Christmas has space for me and my baby (that's the Buick, in case anyone was wondering).

It's not the cheapest option at roughly $140 per month but it is on the other hand equipped with a lot of tools, welders, a car lift and an air compressor.

Another very important thing is the fact that the guys that I share the space with are die hard Yankee car enthusiasts and know how to weld, bend or fix pretty much anything related to cars.

If all goes well I'll be driving over tonight. There's a lot that can go wrong from here to there - the least not being the Swedish law enforcement as my cars is, as it stands, street illegal.

So here's hoping.

The quest for a garage, part three

My brother and I was off to look at another garage this evening. This garage was one of the first ones I investigated but due to a lot of complications it fell through. On a whim I called one of the guys responsible for the garage, Anders, earlier this week and he said that things had finally worked out and that they had one spot left.

It's quite a small garage and I'm not entirely sure that they can actually squeeze my car in there but Anders thought that it would be just fine. He'd talk to the rest of the guys during the weekend and get back to me in 4-5 days.

I'm cautiously optimistic as I've seen a lot of deals fall through when it comes to garages. If this one works out though it should be a very good setup.

Sure, it's located smack dab in the middle of nowhere so I'll have to buy another car to get there (something I had hope to avoid) but the guys that occupy it seems to be really great guys and there's a lot of tools available.

The sound of silence...

... is nowhere to be heard when I fire up my BBB. I need to take care of the noise - no matter how glorious it is - in order to pass the DMV (Bilprovningen) inspection.

I'm not sure what size my current exhaust system is but my guess is at least 3" (and looking at a ruler, 4" wouldn't be far off) with a couple of Flowmaster mufflers. They sound a bit like this Chevelle from 1971.

The header on the passenger side needs to be replaced as it has been quite dented due to the low ground cleareance so I might just get me a entirely new system to begin with and in the process move to a 2" system to get the noise down a bit for longer journeys (but I do love the noise it makes now).

The current system isn't in bad shape except for the headers so I might be able to sell it. Or, if space allows, keep it for my up and coming, secret, project. ;)

The quest for a garage, part two

The garage I talked about in my last post didn't work out as it was too short. The width was ok at roughly 3 meters (118 inches) but it was only 5 meters (197 inches) long.

So it's back to rummaging through ads again.

There are garages to be had but they're from around $240 to $285 a month which is a bit steep so unless I really have to pay for one of those - which I soon have to - I'll keep looking.