What have you done to your square lately??

[Redfish]

@Redfish Andrew... BTW, was the 79 Trans AM your ex brother in laws by chance?

Yes sir. And I should not have said "recently", it was almost exactly one year ago. I had the car, getting it ready for Cruisin the Coast and suddenly I had anti-freeze pooling on my concrete.

A couple shots of The Trans Am for this year's Cruisin the Coast:

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[Radiohead]

All of your posts make me either feel thankful that I don’t have any symptoms from my steering column yet, or fearful for when it does.

The real reason any of this got going, was that at some point before I rescued this truck from the tweakers, a later model steering column was swapped in. 84ish is my guess, it even had tilt and cruise (delay wipers on the stalk too) but it quit starting the truck and was being stupid. So, my bil has these columns hanging out and says go make something that will work. I ended up taking the period correct column and swapping out the period correct cruise stalk into it and servicing the lower bearing so it was lubed and riding on the plastic doohickey correctly. The cruise wiring on the stalk was cut damaged at the turn signal stalk pivot area, so I (hopefully) cut out the bad parts and substituted the only thing I had laying around to rewire it. 8 conductor Telcom wire, much like you have between the land line phone and the wall. I guess I'll see in a year or so if the cruise works properly.

 

[ChuckN]

The real reason any of this got going, was that at some point before I rescued this truck from the tweakers, a later model steering column was swapped in. 84ish is my guess, it even had tilt and cruise (delay wipers on the stalk too) but it quit starting the truck and was being stupid. So, my bil has these columns hanging out and says go make something that will work. I ended up taking the period correct column and swapping out the period correct cruise stalk into it and servicing the lower bearing so it was lubed and riding on the plastic doohickey correctly. The cruise wiring on the stalk was cut damaged at the turn signal stalk pivot area, so I (hopefully) cut out the bad parts and substituted the only thing I had laying around to rewire it. 8 conductor Telcom wire, much like you have between the land line phone and the wall. I guess I'll see in a year or so if the cruise works properly.

If it works it works! I remember my dad doing somersaults and backflips to put a tilt column in his non-tilt ‘74 GMC. As I recall, he got a hot tip that a shop manual from a 70s Buick was the trick to figure it out. Not sure why that was but I think there was some crossover between GMC and Buick, but that’s just what I remember him telling me, I was about 11 years old.

 

[BRetty]

I'm just gonna post this pic here, promise I'll explain later

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ETA:

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[bucket]

I'm just gonna post this pic here, promise I'll explain later

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ETA:

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I'm not sure what's going on here, but that's an impressive collection of carburetors.

 

[Radiohead]

I'm just gonna post this pic here, promise I'll explain later

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Just the nylon and not the whole filter housing?

 

[Grit dog]

I am agreeing with @Radiohead.

I recently fought this little battle with a '79 Trans Am. The day before we were supposed to take it on a 9 day trip.

I bought a cheap hand pump from Harbor Freight. I mean ridiculously cheap. It is Awesome. I love it. I pumped the radiator dry, dropping the suction hose all the way to the bottom of the radiator through the cap opening. When I finished replacing the petcock I just put the coolant right back into the radiator.

I am going to break away from the group on radiators here... Every modern vehicle I can think of, including my 2500HD Duramax has a plastic body radiator. I have seen very few modern vehicles broke down on the road from a leaking radiator. Plastic radiators are a lot better than what they used to be. I am not happy about putting a plastic radiator in my '87. But the original metal one was leaking EVERYWHERE. I call that garbage.

I agree, almost 100%. A lot of “issue” with things is perception and reasonably enough, a group like us here are more old school than new, so there’s that. The other part is cheap schitty replacement parts that don’t last.
That said, idk what the problem is with SRT8 radiators but they DO suck. 06 SRT lost minute amounts of coolant for years. Never dripped on the floor but required a little top off every oil change or 2. Then at 100 something thousand miles it needed replaced.
The “new” 2016 had a bad radiator from the start. Replaced under warranty. Now at 60k miles it randomly pisses on the floor a little but only occasionally…..

 

[bucket]

I agree, almost 100%. A lot of “issue” with things is perception and reasonably enough, a group like us here are more old school than new, so there’s that. The other part is cheap schitty replacement parts that don’t last.
That said, idk what the problem is with SRT8 radiators but they DO suck. 06 SRT lost minute amounts of coolant for years. Never dripped on the floor but required a little top off every oil change or 2. Then at 100 something thousand miles it needed replaced.
The “new” 2016 had a bad radiator from the start. Replaced under warranty. Now at 60k miles it randomly pisses on the floor a little but only occasionally…..

Our '12 F350's at work are the same way. Somewhere around 60k, they started leaking from the left lower corners. Sometimes they don't leak at all, but sometimes they leave a dribble on the floor. 250k or more later though, they've never got any worse.

 

[Grit dog]

Our '12 F350's at work are the same way. Somewhere around 60k, they started leaking from the left lower corners. Sometimes they don't leak at all, but sometimes they leave a dribble on the floor. 250k or more later though, they've never got any worse.

Weird ain’t it?

 

[82sbshortbed]

Was gonna take the 84 to heb this afternoon. Fired up and let the choke kinda warm it up for a minute. Then got litte down the road it died. Cranked back up reved it a few times then put it in gear and dies again. This time I watched the volt meter and it was under 12. Cranked right up and the volts stayed.under 12 or right about 12.

Turned around keeping throttle in it and got right to the house and dies again. Seems like the alt is going out. Would that be the case? I'll take a video tomorrow to be more clear.

 

[Travlr]

Was gonna take the 84 to heb this afternoon. Fired up and let the choke kinda warm it up for a minute. Then got litte down the road it died. Cranked back up reved it a few times then put it in gear and dies again. This time I watched the volt meter and it was under 12. Cranked right up and the volts stayed.under 12 or right about 12.

Turned around keeping throttle in it and got right to the house and dies again. Seems like the alt is going out. Would that be the case? I'll take a video tomorrow to be more clear.

If the starter motor will crank to start, then a vehicle will run on the battery for a long ways.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

If the starter motor will crank to start, then a vehicle will run on the battery for a long ways.

Could also be a dead or dying cell in the battery. Crew cab wouldn't start today, trying to leave the toy show. Got a jump, got the parts store and the battery had a dead cell. Crazy fluctuations in temps like we've had in greater Houston area this week will bring these types of problems out....
I used to do speedy rebuilds on the GM internal reg "generators" (Delcotron's) and the stuff that usually went bad was the regulator and diode trio. We'd replace those and put new brushes in it, grease the cup bearing in the end frame, and put it back together. 95% of the time, they'd check out Good on our test rig after that.

 

[Travlr]

If the starter motor will crank to start, then a vehicle will run on the battery for a long ways.

By this... I mean that if you have a battery that will power the starter it is being charged by the alternator... and if the truck starts then it isn't an electrical problem involving the alternator or battery.

 

[brooksman9]

Back from vacation and had to do a little test driving today. Just around the block but runs good. A few rattles here and.there but I'll find them.

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[Grit dog]

By this... I mean that if you have a battery that will power the starter it is being charged by the alternator... and if the truck starts then it isn't an electrical problem involving the alternator or battery.

In general, yes.
Although alternator could have just now kicked the bucket. And be the cause of <12v on the gauge. But not likely cause of dying if has enough juice to turn the motor over and fire it.
Doesn’t happen often but wouldn’t be the first time diagnosing something that is perplexing because 2 separate issues started at the same time, sometimes coincidentally. Lol.