Chevy S10 - $2017 Challenge and beyond

I'll swing over around noonish tomorrow, but I've gotta be in the road by 3ish.  My entire weekend is consumed with kid soccer and kid birthday parties so I'm of no use to you.

Some progress today.  With the brakes being pretty much wiped out, I swapped in new calipers and hoses, and repacked the outer wheel bearings, didn't repack the inners since I don't have new grease seals.  wae stopped by with mounted autocross tires, and was able to get the new master cylinder bench bled and installed.  He also did a little more wiring cleanup.  Eventually, we got the brakes bled overall, and it seems to be alright.  We'll see once the it gets a test drive.  I also ran out and got street/possible drag/possible rain autocross tires mounted on the fireturd wheels, along with street tires for the Miata.

The driveshaft alignment kit came in today instead of tomorrow, so I went ahead and installed it, too.  Took a bit of time, and the angle grinder, but it's in.  The vendor was out of 3 degree shims, so I am hoping the 4 degree shims work out right.  I did order a set from Summit, but figured I'd go with the sharper angle in the hopes they'd work better under hard acceleration.  I'll leave them in unless I have problems with drivetrain vibration.

While under the car, I noticed the transmission output had a slight leak, probably because part of the driveshaft that had been exposed to the elements is now in the transmission, since the engine sits back a bit.  I had hoped this wouldn't be an issue when the setback plates were installed on the rear axle, but I think the engine is set back even further.  I picked up a spare seal tonight, along with some 2000 grit sandpaper to try to clean up rust/polish the driveshaft.  I may take a chance and wait until I test drive it, just to see how bad the leak really is.

I still need to align it and build a battery tray, and there are a ton of other little things to be done.  I've decided it needs to be out of the garage by Saturday night, whether it's ready for testing or not.  Sunday (at least the early part of it) will be dedicated to getting the Miata ready just in case.

How much spare driveshaft movement length is enough?  I can't remove the driveshaft without unbolting the rear end, as it looks like I've only got about .25" before bottoming it out in the back of the transmission.  The angle between the trans and driveshaft is about 2 degrees when I took the measurement.  At 0 degrees, will it probably be alright, or is it too long?

Also, since I can't remove it, I'll have to leave the current seal in, and hope it doesn't leak bad.  If it does, I probably won't be able to get to it until SUnday or Monday night.

eastsidemav said:

How much spare driveshaft movement length is enough?  I can't remove the driveshaft without unbolting the rear end, as it looks like I've only got about .25" before bottoming it out in the back of the transmission.  The angle between the trans and driveshaft is about 2 degrees when I took the measurement.  At 0 degrees, will it probably be alright, or is it too long?

 

Just did some quick math.  Looks like at 0 degrees, the length from the transmission to the differential should only be about .05" shorter, so I'm guessing I'm alright, as long as the axle dosen't wrap too much and allow the diff to move forward significantly. 

Still uncertain on the output seal.  Guess we'll find out.

Spent about 10-11 hours on it today pretty much steadily.  Got pretty much all the underneath work done (I hope), and aligned it.  Installed the fender liners.  When I was dropping the car down after putting the wheels back on, I twisted my already sore left wrist.  Will brace it tonight, but this is going to make a difficult job even more hard.  Cleaned up some stuff under the hood, and got it started to get it out of the driveway.  1st and reverse seem fine, but the car did stall backing out and runs pretty rough.  Need to hook up the brake booster, and the right front caliper appears to be leaking.

Tomorrow is Miata day.  Needs to be ready if I can't get the truck going well.  My father in law is stopping by to help with the S10 tomorrow, but I really have my doubts as its only 2-3 days from needing to go on the trailer, and its not even safe to drive on the road yet.

I suspect there might be a vacuum leak in there somewhere.

Isn't all the front brake hardware brand new?  I didn't see any sign of leakage when we were bleeding things.  I wonder if I didn't get the bleeders tight?

I’ll check the bleeder, but I think it’s the brake line connection.  Maybe some replacement crush washers will fix it.  I can’t remember, but I may have left the relatively new crush washers on the hose when I switched to the new caliper.  I was in a bit of a rush.

I suspect there is still a vacuum leak somewhere, sensors aren’t fully hooked up, there’s some old gas in the tank, the brake booster needs to be hooked up (I capped its vac line for now), and who know what the base timing is set at(though I thought the electric ignition in the TBI could compensate for quite a bit).  And I still need to build a permanent battery tray.  I’m getting afraid I threw the old one out. Even though it was rotted, I wanted to use it as a pattern.

Once the Miata is set up today, I’ll switch back to the truck.

Tbi cant really compensate for timing.  It expects a certain base timing with the esc disconnected.  It then has fixed values. 

The only self compensation ability it has is for knock, and that retards by 4-6 degrees depending on the coding. 

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

So I need to pull one of the electrical connections on the distributor and get the car idling, then set base timing there?

Yes. It should be a tan or brown wire with a single weather pack connector in line. It is called the EST wire. It runs between the distributor and the ECM. Then you can set base timing that the computer knows and go from there.

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

Okay, I'll look for that after the Miata is out of the garage.  I rotated the distributor as close to 45 degrees as I could eyeball it so the electrical connectors could clear the firewall, and moved the wires one place over, so they'd be in the relatively correct position.   Looks like I need to set base timing to zero, then.

Bump it to about 4 generally wakes them up quite a bit.

Okay, will do that.  Does it still run well on 87 octane or do I need to go up to midgrade or premium?

Small update:  The trans output is definitely leaking, so its either time for a new seal, or I need to grease the current one up a lot.  Either way, the driveshaft needs to come out, which means I need to loosen up the rear axle u bolts to give it enough room.  Probably a Monday or Tuesday job.

Depends on how far you go, sensitivity to knock, weight, gearing, etc. Stock e50tbi? 89 tops.

Yup, pretty much stock.  Haven't had time to do anything to open it up except for a better y-pipe.  Was going to run through most of the ultimate TBI mods if I had time.  Maybe next year.

I'm calling it tonight - The S10 is not coming.  The last time I brought a car in 2011 it was something I had poured tons of time into, but was still far from ready, and barely running.  I'm not doing that again.  I don't want to spend all weekend either hoping the damn thing keeps running, or working on it to get it running.

Worse yet, if I'd given up a week ago like I told myself I should have, I'd have more time to deal with the suspension issues the Miata has that I discovered tonight. 

Glad we left it behind and took the Miata instead.  The trailer came in handy for getting Ashyukun's car down there, and the S10 definitely would have required it, and still might have DNF'd the event.  Instead, the weekend was far more relaxing and fun, since there was a lot less to worry about breaking.

I've got some cleanup in the garage to do, and some deferred maintenance on the daily driver to deal with, but after that, I will try get the immediate problems resolved on the S10, and make it into a usable truck.  After that, we're going to try to keep it under budget and prep it for the $2018 Challenge, even though it likely won't be too competitive overall.  On the drive back, we discussed junkyard turbocharging it, or doing a radical engine swap.  Either is a possibility, as long is it can be sorted before next October

Put the blown transmission from the truck up for sale, we'll see if I can get at least a little bit more in the recoup category.

Been slacking on updating my build threads, because I've been slacking on getting any work done on them.  Going to try to hold myself accountable and get some work done.

This past week, not much progress, but I finally hit the budget hot rod shop (Lowes), got a 3/8" to 1/2" adapter fitting, and hooked up the vacuum line for the brake booster.  This should make the truck a lot easier to shuffle around the driveway.

Also, I've been float charging the battery stored in the garage, and wondering why it was taking so long, since it was only a year old.  Put a voltmeter to it, and it was reading below 9 volts.  First thought was, crap, dead cells.  Then I realized I was charging the battery that came in the fireturd, not the one I bought to get it running.  Since it seemed pretty much dead, and didn't charge up quickly in the past, I had assumed it was a goner.  Now, I'm continuing to charge it, and it is up to almost 12 volts.  Will be very nice if I can pull the cost of a new battery out of my challenge budget.

Next crucial thing on the truck is going to be to fire it up, adjust timing, and hope that makes it run a lot better.  That may have to wait a bit, as it's parked outside, and weather is not good for the next several days.

I'm excited to see where it goes next!  I have a bad case of want for something V8S10 (regular cab shortbed, or blazer) in my future.

So much for checking and setting timing.  Took the time to figure out where the connector to disable computer timing was, spent way too long figuring out what combination of tools was able to be used to loosen the distributor retainer (nice job GM, lets put it under the distributor, and pack a bunch of hoses, wires and other crap around near it), threw some fresh gas in the tank, hooked up the battery and...

...it'd crank but not start.  Hit it with some starter fluid and it'd fire for a second, so ignition is probably still good.  First thought that maybe the anti-theft system had freaked out.  Then realized, I'm not hearing the fuel pump.  So either the relay, the wiring, or (most likely) the pump took a E36 M3 over the winter.   Didn't have the presence of mind to check the relay until after I had put away the tools, so that'll wait until another day, maybe tomorrow.  With the truck being lowered, and on a sloped driveway, I suspect it'll be easier to remove the bed to get to the fuel pump than to drop the fuel tank.

Beginning to to wonder if I should abandon yet another project, even though this is a minor setback, it seems like this one has been almost nothing but setbacks.

Diagnosing no fuel is way too trivial to abandon it:  get it running and sell it if you’re feeling that way.

Patrick said:

Diagnosing no fuel is way too trivial to abandon it:  get it running and sell it if you’re feeling that way.

Yeah, will definitely try to fix it first, and see how I feel about it afterwards.  Its not helping that three of the four cars in my fleet have developed new issues in the last week and a half.  

Swap that pump out, put a camper topper on, rebrand it a "2 door wagon" and we'll see you in Gainesville this fall!

maschinenbau said:

Swap that pump out, put a camper topper on, rebrand it a "2 door wagon" and we'll see you in Gainesville this fall!

I have thought about getting a topper for it 

Hoping after all the work I’ve done on it that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.  Just rather frustrating how much effort I’ve put into what should have been an easy swap, and in the over a year I’ve owned it, it’s never left my driveway under power.  If it were something more radical, I’d understand, but this should not have been as problematic as it has been.

After work, I’ll check the relay, but I am guessing it’ll be time to get a few friends to help remove the bed, so the fuel pump can be swapped out.