Under the Hood
On our way to pick up "BAD BOW" we stopped by the local part store to buy some new spark plug wires and other items we would need to move the truck. We had planned on loading the truck onto a trailer to transport it to its new home. Unfortunately the trailer borrowed from a friend was not wide enough. Instead we just decided to drive it. The "mechanic" decided he need to find the starting condition point of the engine. True to my motto that a temporary tire should be made into a slick on asphalt, he brought life back into the V-8 with some strong foot peddle stomping.
Starting point: The spark plugs and wires were changed, new distributor cap and electronic module installed, good oil change, fuel system cleaned with premium fuel and additives. The previous owner only used one fuel tank because he could not get the tanks to switch. A simple battery change and toggling of the tank selector unstuck the selector valves.
Engine Heads: Chevy trucks with high mileage engines are known to burn oil. This one was no exception, but with the power the engine provided I could not believe that the rings were bad. Instead I had the valve stem seals replaced. After a short run of the stem seals, the oil burning was almost completely gone. While replacing the stem seals, we discovered that one of heads had two of the oil drain holes completely clogged with sludge!! My guess it that the previous owner used cheap oil or waited month/miles to change it. The other was almost as bad. A good long screwdriver and some towels solved the problem. Resetting the timing and adjusting the rocker arms restored a crisp running engine.
Carburetor: The truck was factory equipped with a four barrel Quadrajet. All good mechanics know that if the carb is not tuned and running correctly performance is drastically reduced. Next, the choke started to fail and was replaced. Shortly after that the carb was rebuilt. Performance was restored but it would not last long. The choke soon began to stick closed which became a problem. Opting for performance and fuel consumption I replaced the quadrajet with an Edelbrock 600 CFM Performer Series #1406 carb. Installation was easy. I soon learned that performance was not what I expected due to an incorrectly connected vacuum advance line. The carb vacuum advance lines were reversed. Correcting the problem solved the "pinging" on hard accelerations. The factory intake hose and air filter had seen better days. I replaced them with an Edelbrock 14" open filter element holder and a K&N 2 1/2" filter. Due to the increase of airflow, the timing was reajusted for performance. After these two changes, more power was restored for "asphalt" application on the temporary tires.
Exhaust: The restrictive stock exhaust was removed for additional performance. The catalyst converter was nothing but an enclosed sandbox and was replaced with an airflow Catco. To boost the exhaust flow further, the muffler was replaced with a 2.5" inlet/outlet Flomaster. Not only did the Flowmaster help with increasing exhaust movement it also provided a performance sound.
