So here is my progress over the weekend...
Started by removing the smog pump. I noticed there was no pulley so at some point in its life it had been bypassed however the big ugly hoses and metal tubing attached to the manifold were still all there. I cut off each metal tube (with a small cutting wheel on my drill) about 1" away from the plug where it attaches to the manifold and removed them. The plugs actually turned out quite easily too...a little WD40 and out they came. I then used 1/4" brass plugs with high temp thread lock on them and screwed into the 8 holes left in the manifold. Seemed to hold nice and tight.
Next I unhooked the rubber hose at the front (top?) of the EGR valve, followed the hose to a where it connects to a fitting on top the thermostat housing, disconnected from there and also to where it T'd off to the front of the Rochester Quadrajet carb. I used rubber vacuum covers (plugs) to block both lines after being disconnected and also the one on the EGR valve. I don't have a block off plate for the EGR yet so I left it bolted on to the intake.....just unhooked it.
SO HERE IS MY NEXT PROBLEM (Dont you love old trucks??)
While cutting off the smog pump metal tubing I accidentally cut 3/4's of the way through a spark plug wire. Well guess it's time for a new set of wires!! Off to the store I go and buy a set of Blue Streak Performance plug wires and 8 AC Delco R45TS plugs (might as well change those too right??) I come home, remove the wires and carefully install the new ones in the correct spots (double and triple checked), installed the new plugs.
While I had the air cleaner assembly off doing all this work I figured I might as well clean up the Carb too as it was all grungy and covered in old dirt and oil. Took a can of carb cleaner and sprayed the hell out of it, let it sit, sprayed more, wiped...repeat repeat. Carb all nice and clean looking!
Put the air cleaner back together and time to fire it up. Started and died, started again and died, started again and ran smooth at high idle (about -10 degrees Celsius in the garage). Idle started to come down as it warmed up then started chugging and died. Stared it again and died shortly after. Did this about ten times then tried to start it and nothing. No click, no fan, no lights. Figured maybe I ran the battery dead so hooked up the charger for a couple hours and went inside to warm up.
Came back out and dead...no power anywhere. Wiggled the battery cables at the posts and nothing. Ignition on or off makes no difference. No headlights nothing.
SO (sorry for the long winded post!!).............
1) Gotta fix the electrical issue....maybe dead battery cable? Maybe fusible link?
2) Once that is fixed gotta get it running smooth again......did I create a vacuum leak while cleaning the carb?? Is the gap in the new plugs wrong? (I didn't gap them as I thought they were pre-gapped to .045......my bad should've double checked!)
3) Did unhooking the EGR cause it to run crappy at idle (remember it ran fine before doing any of this stuff and then ran fine at high idle but died as soon as idle started to slow down as it warmed up)
GRRRRRRR
