A break in the rain gave me the opportunity to jack the car up and pull the fuel line this morning.
The view inside the inner fender.
I started at the front of the car, pulling the inner fender behind the driver’s side wheel. The nuts and bolts here were covered in undercoating and fifty years of road grime. Nevertheless, most came out fairly easily, though one twisted off, the victim of time and rust. Getting the inner fender out after it was “loose” was a bit of a puzzle. Inside was a collection of leaves, a collapsed bit of sound insulation and a rotted out drain tube.
The brake and fuel lines both have junctions behind the inner fender. Two metal fuel lines are joined by a short bit of 3/8″ hose. I cut the hose out–it looked original–and tried to siphon fuel from the tank.
No dice.
The crushed section of the fuel line.
I jacked up the rear driver’s side and followed the line further back. It’s held on by three clamps and a protective plate in front of the rear wheel. One I pulled that plate, the mystery was solved. The plate had been crushed at some point, crimping the fuel line underneath it. I’m guessing that someone once jacked the car up under this plate, causing the damage.
I tried to blow through the line and couldn’t. It’s a wonder the car ran as well as it did–fuel was probably only dribbling through. Tomorrow I’ll get a replacement made at Royal Brass. Installation should be relatively simple.
It was with a certain sense of confidence that I went out to run errands with the ‘Bird last week. With the new spacer under the carb, I figured I was good for any distance and all the stops I wanted. Unfortunately, my confidence was misplaced. After the third stop on a 15 mile round trip, the engine died in traffic, just as it had in the past. I was able to re-start it and by holding it to a higher idle, find my way back home.
The question is, now what?
I put my fuel pressure gauge back on and took a couple of readings. At idle, with the car cold, I had a good flow of fuel: 4 pounds with the regulator in place, and a little over 5 with the regulator removed. (I took the regulator off, suspecting it to be part of the problem. It wasn’t, but the car is running fine without it, despite the issues I had before.) After a few miles and the engine warmed up, the pressure always dropped to zero (or close–the engine was still running).
After a lengthy discussion on the VTCI forum, suspicion has come to rest on the fuel pump, a restriction somewhere in the line or potentially a bad gas cap. The gas cap is an easy check; something I can do next time I run out with the car. Nonetheless, like the starting and charging system–which had to be replace in total–it looks like the road to reliability is all new parts from the tank to the carb.
I am learning quite a bit about heat soak, in which the carburetor soaks up heat from the motor, vaporizing the fuel, turning a strong running motor into a sputtering embarrassment. On my ‘Bird there is a water jacket plate under the carb to help cool it. Turning off a warm engine (to go shopping, for instance) or sitting at idle (at, say, a series of long stoplights) stops or slows the flow of coolant and allows the carb to absorb enough heat to boil the gas.
Head insulator and gaskets. To the right is a new throttle spring bracket–still waiting for installation.
Not everyone seems to have this issue. Perhaps it is less of a problem for stock setups, and my Edelbrock is just more susceptible. Ethanol blend fuels are said to vaporize at lower temperatures then the gasolines of the past–it’s possible that the blends in my area are higher than average and also contribute to the problem.
I tried a Holley insulating plate a few weeks back. The insulation worked well, but the carburetor made obnoxious noises. I took that plate out and returned to just the stock water jacket.
Last week I was caught doing a series of errands in heavy rush hour traffic. After a few stops and long waits in traffic, the engine started to stumble and idle roughly. With my destination in sight, just across the intersection, I waited three agonizing minutes at a light while the idle got slower and slower. When it turned green, I feathered the throttle and just made it to the parking lot.
The washer motor, before installing. Two of the three original installation holes are visible on the inner fender.
Well, that was enough. More research turned up a few Edelbrock insulation products that looked like a better match then the Holley. I found two kinds, wood fiber and phenolic. I couldn’t find anything to say the one type is more effective than the other, so I ordered a half-inch thick wood fiber insulator bored with four holes to match up to the carb correctly. (This thickness leaves about an inch of clearance between the top of my air cleaner and the hood.)
I placed an order with JEGS.com and the new part arrived Friday, just in time to install Saturday morning. Putting it in was simple. (Getting really good at the carb R & R now.)
Saturday afternoon I ran a series of errands in the madness of weekend traffic. We even took in a movie. Hot starts were effortless. No evidence of vapor lock in traffic. It’s hard to say “problem solved” after only a day–but greatly improved certainly.
Washer motor installed. Now what?
While I was out in the garage, I sorted though some of the spare parts, trying to free up some space, and came across the washer motor. I think it was removed to make way for a high-performance ignition system (which I removed some time ago). I reinstalled it in what appears to be the original location. If anyone knows how the fluid lines are supposed to run, I would love to hear.
Today, though, I plan to be underneath, changing the oil and lubing the front end.
When I purchased the T-Bird–wow, almost a year ago now–the double-jointed throttle linkage was flopping around under the hood and the gas pedal didn’t connect properly with the linkage under the dash. I cobbled together a fix and left the matter for another day.
Today, in fact.
Missing from the linkage equation was a throttle stop plate, which attaches to the upper bellhousing bolt. It doesn’t connect to the linkage, just gives it something to bang up against. (Why it was designed this way, I don’t know; it seems overly complex to me.) I got a replacement from Thunderbird Headquarters after confirming with the helpful folks on the VCTI forum that I was on the right track.
Turns out, this is a lesson in the dangers of non-stock modifications. The top bellhousing bolt came off easily, even with the linkage in place, but I couldn’t get the stop plate to fit at all. The transmission on my car is not original, and while it belongs in the same family as the one that should be there, it’s a poor fit. Like everything else that bolts to the tranny, the stop plate needed to be modified. I removed a substantial bit of metal to clear the bellhousing and install the plate.
I installed and removed both the plate and the linkage assembly a few times before getting the fit right. It’s a long stretch down there behind the motor. Even with long arms, it was a tiring reach.
The finished assembly.
Once correctly in, there was the matter of a connection to the carburetor. It’s a straight rod from the end of the linkage to the throttle actuator, but it has to be the right length. Too short and the gas pedal doesn’t properly connect. Too long and you can’t open the throttle all the way.
I “fabricated” a new connector rod from straight aluminum rod; basically cutting it to length and notching it where the set screws attach to provide a little extra security to those connections.
The throttle response on my test drive was vastly improved. I was just going to go around the block, but I realized immediately that before, even with the gas pedal all the way down, I was at half-throttle at best.
To the expressway!
Wow. This car is fast. Much faster than I thought. Next stop, though, the gas station.
The shriek under the hood was a little harder to track down than I expected. I first suspected a vacuum leak in the stack of plates and gaskets under the carb, but an investigation turned up nothing. Then I thought that perhaps the increased height of the carb with the new spacer was binding up the throttle linkage. (The noise did have a kind of metal-to-metal component to it.) There was a bind, but it was minor and not the cause of the shriek..
Removing the spacer. Need to find one that matches the four ports on the manifold.
I finally broke down and removed the heat-isolating spacer and the noise went away with it. (I’m getting really good at pulling and replacing the carb.) I don’t know for sure why that plate was causing the noise, but I have a suspicion. The four barrels of the carburetor match up with four corresponding holes on the manifold. The spacer has a single opening, which must interrupt the airflow from the carb into the manifold somehow, causing the shriek. I still think a heat isolating spacer is necessary, (I’m already noticing more difficult hot starts) but I will have to find one better matched.
Underside of the hood, half clean, half to go.
The silver lining here was in tracing back the throttle linkage. Not only did I correct that small bind, I also discovered that fully depressing the accelerator was not opening the throttle all the way. I reworked the linkage and found a little extra power (not to mention a more positive response to the choke).
Last item for the weekend was a little more clean up under the hood. I haven’t noticed any leaks since replacing the water pump and restoring the valve covers, so I wrapped the motor in old towels and took some degreaser to the inner fenders and the underside of the hood (which was really a mess.) Nice to open the hood see some sparkle in there.
These rear brakes are easy to bleed. I spent more time getting my creaky old body under the car than I did actually getting the brakes bled out. When they were ready to go, we applied the parking brake, put the skirts on and jacked the car down off the ramps it had been sitting on for oh-so-long.
Installing new studs generated a lot of dirt and metal filings. We taped the manifold opening to keep it out of the engine.
There new heat shield for the carb is about a half inch thick and required longer studs in the manifold. It took a while to unscrew the old studs, cut new ones to length and screw them in, but the rest of the assembly was straightforward.
In the process, I noticed that the fuel line was touching the block or manifold in a couple of places, so I lengthened the line and re-routed it to avoid heat sources. I also ditched the the good looking banjo-style fuel inlet line (which forced the fuel line right down next to the manifold) and the in-line fuel pressure gauge (a heavy brass unit, resting on the block and transferring heat into the fuel system).
A quick test drive around the block revealed that the fender skirts rub slightly on the tires during turns. Otherwise, the car started, ran and stopped fine. I believe I can grind down the lip of the skirt a bit for additional clearance. For now, they are living in the trunk.
Ready to run, cooler this time.
The brake pedal still travels an awful long way towards the floor before engaging, but the brakes stop the car securely nevertheless. I proved this satisfactorily after getting cut off in traffic a couple of times today. (Seriously? It’s a car as big as a whale; you can’t miss it!) Further proof came at a couple of suddenly-it’s-yellow! stop lights.
Best yet, the car seemed to run stronger and freer than ever, and my odd “dragging” sensation appears to be gone. I still suspect that the right rear brake has been dragging a bit with those wrong-sized springs. Final proof will come when I get the car out onto the freeway later this week. The other culprit could have been a small vacuum leak under the carburetor water jacket: I found two very old gaskets in there.
Despite the good news, there is one pressing mystery, a whistle from under the hood when the gas pedal is partially depressed–just at a certain spot. I’m not sure what it is, but it must be related to the carburetor. It’s a pretty loud noise, and went from odd to irritating to positively annoying in the space of a 5 minute drive. Needs fixed, and pronto.
A couple of calls to local shops looking for somebody to duplicate brake lines lead me to a hydraulic line manufacturer a few miles from my house, Royal Brass. The online reviews were excellent: custom work and service while you wait. I took down my original right rear line and sure enough, twenty minutes later I had a perfect duplicate.
The only downside is that they don’t work with stainless steel, so the line they made was done in soft steel. I’ll still send my original off to be duplicated in stainless for installation some other time.
New right rear line, installed.
With a proper fitting right rear line, I was set to get to work. Pre-bent brake lines, at least in my experience, are not simple bolt-on replacements. Even those that look to be exact duplicates take some reworking during the installation process.
The soft steel right rear went on ok–made easier by the fact that the distributer block was not yet bolted down–but had to be massaged a bit to lay flat against the axle and fit into the clip there.
I had to get out a bending tool to make the stainless left line fit into the distributer block. Once that was in, getting the other end into the wheel cylinder was a struggle, probably made more difficult by the fear I have of cross threading a fitting and having to start all over.
The left side, in stainless, installed. A decent fit.
One the ends were in, there was a lot of extra bending and massaging to make sure the new line would not interfere with suspension, particularly the bump stop. I was able to clip the line to the axle, but could not attach the clip on the differential.
The last piece was attaching the new flexible line to the existing feed from the master cylinder, which was relatively simple. As for replacing that long line (which appears to be in two segments) and the left front, I’ll leave those for another day.
There was no one around to help bleed brakes, so I used the extra time to pull the carburetor and base plate, getting ready to install the heat shield I hope will fix the vapor lock issues I’ve been experiencing.
After a couple of weeks wait, the “fixed” brake lines were delivered by FedEx this afternoon. Mid-October weather has been superb–86 degrees today–and I had visions of crawling under the car this evening; back on the road tomorrow.
Custom lines, to “match” my originals. Close, but not quite.
Unfortunately, the new lines were poorly done. Most of the fittings were frozen on the old lines, so I cut the tubing in the removal process. When I sent them in, I taped the pieces together so the technician would know which pieces went together. Apparently, whoever it was that made the new lines never bothered to separate the parts or read my directions.
As a result, they made at least one line that doesn’t fit anything, a bafflingly shoddy response to an already unhappy customer. I located a local shop that can fabricate new stainless steel lines. I’m heading down there tomorrow; just not willing to wait another three weeks for Classic Tube to get their act together.
The stereo installation is taking a while, mostly because I’m taking my time with the speaker enclosures. While they were set aside, I got out the new pins and gaskets for the wheel skirts.
I started with the pins, which were probably removed and thrown away when the car was painted a decade or so ago. The look a little odd mounted on the fender when the skirts are not in place, but all the sources I checked indicated that this was the right way to go. Bolting them on was easy enough.
New skirt pin in place.
Originally, the skirt gasket was stapled to the skirt itself. The original hole were still there, and I know some folks do wire the new gaskets on, but I chose to glue the new rubber in place. The glue I use for weatherstrip gaskets (“Elephant snot”, a friend used to call it.) is a kind of rubber cement: coat both surfaces and hold until the glue sets. The skirts make a few odd bends that would try my patience, so I used clamps to hold the gasket in place. I started with the narrow end, towards the rear of the car. The first bend is mild, but does require some clamping.
Mild turn, towards the rear.
The turn at the front of the skirt is more severe. The die-cut “V” in the gasket was not quite obtuse enough, so it overlaps a bit.
Severe turn at the front.
I let the glue dry for a day with the clamps applied. The gaskets were a little long, but I will wait another day or two to trim them flush. For the rest of the drying process, I put the skirt on the car.
I opened up the left rear brakes on Sunday to replace the wheel cylinder and pull the brake line from that side. As predicted, the wheel cylinder was leaking, though not badly. Too bad, too, because of the four, this was the only brake assembly actually put together correctly.
Well, at least one was put together correctly!
Getting the wheel cylinder and line out were straightforward. I was even able to remove the fitting from the wheel cylinder–a nice surprise. The shoes on this wheel were labeled “relined” and were a little glazed over: more proof for my theory that the rear brakes are dragging a bit.
No telling, though, when I will be able to test the theory, as the replacement lines I have are clearly wrong and completely unusable. An email sent to the retailer on Sunday has gone unanswered, so far; though they have never been quick on the reply.
Right now, I’m planning to see if I can get the lines I need custom bent by a local shop and simply return the unusable lines. If they can promise a quick turnaround on the replacements (looking unlikely) I’ll take that option.
