bigmal
-
Content Count
918 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
28
Posts posted by bigmal
-
-
These Russian Hackers won't help.
-
Try running with the gas cap open/off. This will eliminate fuel tank venting as the cause.
-
Very cool
-
13 hours ago, aslanefe said:It has been a while so I don’t remember the dimensions Terry. But disc and drum were the same as far as I can remember. Made the main out side diameter to fit tight inside the Magnum 500, inside diameter was slip fit to hub of the disc and rear axle. Put a lip with a bigger outside diameter so it stays in place and can’t move out (but not too thick so it won’t push the wheel out). If you have access to factory steel wheels, you can use the measurement of it’s inner diameter as the inner diameter of the ring as the factory steel wheels are hub centric.
My vibration was at higher speed (around 100 mph).
A friend with a 69 428 Cobra Jet also had vibration with his Magnum 500s, rings got rid of it.
Definitely interested in these!
Mach1 Driver reacted to this -
As someone who was chasing a vibration for almost 7 years I learnt that for me it was multiple sources. Makes if very hard to troubleshoot. I changed lots of things, sometimes more than once, and found each of the following made and improvement.
- Full engine balance
- Rebuilt tail shaft (3 times). Each timer it was out of true.
- Bent axles
- Rear Drums badly corroded. (I know this is odd, but it made a difference)
- Pinion Angles. For me 0deg difference did not work. Had to be 2 deg down at the front of the diff. I experimented with 1, 2, 3 and 4 deg shims until I got the best results.
- I have to be very careful bolting on the Magnum 500s to ensure I tighten the nuts in sequence, a little at a time or I will get a vibration. The holes appear worn. Will be replacing.
While I still have a very minor vibration, it is almost completely gone.
Mach1 Driver reacted to this -
Looks great
-
4 hours ago, Midlife said:The more I think about the issue, I believe the ammeter gauges were designed to let one know when either the battery or the alternator completely fails, and not for use during normal driving conditions. It's intent was to act as a gauge equivalent to the alternator indicator lamp: if it deflects, it means something is dreadfully wrong.
Thanks mate
-
22 hours ago, Mach1 Driver said:Here it is in schematic form- you can actually see what its doing here:
Many thanks for this. I will give it a go
-
Hi all,
I am sure this has been discussed before. My ammeter movers only very slightly and would probably need a vernier to measure it.
Is there any mod so it indicates more substantially?
I have been looking at the Voltmeter conversions by Rocketman's Classic Cougar Innovations which look good, but for the 69 it is still labelled Amps. If converted to a Voltmeter I would prefer it to say Volts. Is anyone aware of a Voltmeter conversion that refaces the gauge to Volts?
Thanks, Mal
-
-
Could you send me the PayPal details and what a typical donation is. I'd like to contribute. Thanks,
-
-
On 6/5/2023 at 7:12 AM, Ridge Runner said:If the clip is in correct it locks into the molding ,the spring is a preload to keep the clip in place while tightening ,i sometimes bend the spring to keep it a bit tighter if the clip feels to loose in the molding ,now when tightening the clip is turning into the channel at top and bottom and shouldnt be able to come out
Thanks mate. This makes sense. I had an issue with the crappy reproduction needing to be pulled in around 1/2" in the middle so it had quite a bit of load and bent the back of the strips. With the pieces I made it pulled the strip in and holds it flat. Probably should have massaged the strip so it's the correct shape, but I was afraid of kinking it.
-
Hi all, I recently bought a replacement chrome strip for the front of my bonnet and being after-market rubbish it needed to be pulled in a fair bit at the center. As soon as I pulled it in with the lugs supplied, they pulled straight out of the soft metal.
I thought I'd share the brackets I made which made life a lot easier and holds it in place nice and tight. I had to use a little bit of silastic to hold them while positioning. If they were 1/16" wider that wouldn't be necessary.
Mach1 Driver and RogerC reacted to this -
31 minutes ago, RPM said:That's certainly outstanding news. I ain't going back to check, but was rotating tires never mentioned? Cuz it's one of the first things that should be done when a vibration is found.
Hi Bob, you're correct, it was a previous suggestion. Unfortunately I've had multiple sources of vibration. The rear wheels and tires have been replaced. I have also had the rear wheels balanced three times and was told they were fine. More recently I have been wanting to borrow some wheels to try them out but haven't been able to locate any. Yesterday I used a front wheel but couldn't drive it on the road because the rear wheels won't clear the front guards. Running it on the stands has been avoided more recently because of issues with the neighbors shouting at me. Weird bastards don't like the sweet note of a V8. Yesterday I though I'd ignore them anyway.
While I suspect a tire as well, I'm confident it's the drums holes enabling them to be off center. So new drums coming.
-
An update on my saga of the vibration. Decided to put a dial indicator on the tail shaft at the front, middle and rear and it is good.
Ran it again on the stands and definitely speed related, not RPM. Did a runout on the axles, all good. The right hand rear tire seems to be a little out of round. Could be just from sitting. I swapped the RH front and rear and ran on the stands again. NO VIBRATION!!!!!!.
I was thinking a needed a new tire (BFG 245/55/15) so happy to do that. Turning the wheel by hand it appears the drum is out of round. I had a look at the drum and the bolt holes are larger than the studs so can be installed slightly off center. I replaced the original rear wheel and di my best to keep the drum centered. Did another run on the stands and NO VIBRATION.
Took it for a drive and its a different car. I will be ordering two new drums and shoes this week.
I am very happy!!!!
-
Great news mate
-
I'm not seeing any comments about damaging the front shocks from over-extension. Is that not an issue? If not, I've been unnecessarily careful. Thanks
-
On 4/18/2023 at 10:40 PM, Shep69 said:Hi Mal,
I haven’t been on here in a long time and can’t believe you’re still chasing the vibration issue.
Is it worth throwing it on a dyno and getting it up to speed and crawling around to see exactly we’re it’s coming from.
Good idea. I've had it on stands and been under it but can't identify where it's from. In the car it feels to be central. When parked and running it in neutral through the rev range the engine is smooth and nothing visible from the shaker. When on the road I can feel it and see the shaker vibrating. I keep feeling like its tailshaft or transmission. Third tailshaft and it's been checked three times (I'm still dubious). I keep getting told that there is nothing in an FMX that could cause the vibration.
While it doesn't feel like it's coming from the rear end I wanted to swap the rear wheels to eliminate them. Unfortunately the rear tires do not clear the front guards so I'm trying to borrow a pair of wheels. It has also been suggested that it could be the rear drums. The problem I have is that trouble shooting like this has me spending money each time. Not like you can easily borrow drums or wheels.
-
That's beautiful. Can't believe you parked it in the dirt :)
Well done
-
1 hour ago, smh00n said:I just realised this has been converted. Was the vibration there before the conversion? Maybe something is not aligned?
It was there before I did the conversion, but nothing was changed as far as alignment goes. Using standard mounts, but all replaced.
-
14 hours ago, det0326 said:Big mail how bad is this vibration, do you really feel it or is it something like you just hear? Could it be a muffler/exhaust drone.
I'm not seeing muffler or exhaust. Have changed mufflers and fitted headers and no change.
It is definitely a lot better than when I started chasing it. I think most passengers wouldn't notice unless you pointed it out, but I can definitely tell.
-
5 minutes ago, smh00n said:Prequel - before the rebuild.
I've had this thing going on 8 years now and for the first 4 or so it sat not touched.
One issue I did have was the tail lights and turn signals. For reasons that escape me, our Bureaucrats have deemed that all cars must have 2 operating stop lights at all times. We can use the red light as per original but not the system where all lights dim for the indicators. Hence, we have orange indicators that work separate to the stop lights on all cars. Even the current Mustang gets special tail lights and even mirrors specific to Australia. I know there are cars out there with the US-style lighting, but they are in breach and I don't want the Po-Lice stopping me and hassling me.
The previous owner had done what is common here - converted the reverse lights into indicators by re-wiring and putting in orange bulbs. I guess y'all know that a single tiny little bulb in a big old 70 tail lights housing doesn't do much in terms of light in daylight, and having the indicators down under the bumper means the jerks following you posting influencer content on their phones can't see. A couple of near-misses when turning made me decide to upgrade the whole thing.
My first effort was buying a 3-bulb conversion which I think are made by Scott Drake. Good in concept, 3 times more light than before. Still the issue of the indictors remained and I wasn't happy. I hacked the wiring so all 3 lights came on for stop and tail. (The wiring had already been hacked during the 'rebuild' so I felt guilt but only moderate). They also do not fit without trimming and coercing so I rate them 3/10.
And then, when I pulled them to go to Plan B, they had started to melt the lenses;
I hit the interwebs for inspiration. Some of the things being done were individual LED put on a board and wired up with resistors. Pretty much the same as the ones being offered in the US. I thought that was a good idea, as the US-supplied ones still cancelled the stop lights when indicating, giving me no benefit.
Looking at the US ones, I thought I could build my own panel and have the stop, tail and indicator all in one unit. So I started looking for bright LED that could run on 12V and be suitable. I found a little joint in Tasmania, https://www.ledsales.com.au/ and he was really helpful. He had the LED I needed along with resistors, voltage reducers and other neat things I still needed to learn about.
When I told him my plan was to mount 96 LED on a board, in them in series and have a third used as indicators, I think I won dumbass of the week. For those not in the know, LED need a certain amount of power to run, they have to use all the voltage supplied and they go bright and dim based on the power. Or some chat like that, it still makes my head hurt trying to understand it. Basically, every dot on this template is a solder point, and a tiny one at that.
He rightly pointed out that what I proposed was a lot of soldering, a lot of resistors to run them, and a lot of work. He suggested a COB LED. COB is Chip On Board and they look like this
Now armed with a New Plan, he found these which had the right light volume (LED are rated in brightness, the details escape me right now) and we figured that with the red lens of the original lens, these would produce a decent light. Moving right along, they do.
I used 3 COB per light; 2 would be stop and tail, 1 would be indicator. I was hoping to use all 3 panels as tail lights but never did it. Maybe the next upgrade will see it.
The beauty of LED is they go bright with the power you give them. For stop lights I give them the full 12V. For tail lights, about 9V does it. The COB is basically a single LED, so I only needed one resistor per circuit to sort it out, and not 200,000 with individual LED. I spent a lot of time working out what voltage would be the best for each circuit, which is done by the value of the resistor you use;
I also used one-way resistors to stop the full power from the brake lights going to the tail light. I thought I was pretty smart on that one.
One issue I had was power fluctuation. As I see the battery voltage on the Sniper dash, I had fluctuations from 11.9 to 13.9. Realising having flickering tail lights would also attract The Law, back to the LED man I went. His solution? A little chip that drops voltage down to a constant value. So I got some 12V ones and worked them into the start of the circuit. Now, regardless of the power being pumped out I would have a steady 12V to the lights.
V1 saw all the resistors and constant voltage things mounted onto the lexan sheet. I don't have a shot of this but I started getting concerned that vibration might affect the soldering, and the fact the entire light needs to be disassembled for service. Enter V2 please.
10-odd bucks at the hobby electronic shop later, I had a alloy, waterproof housing. From the bottom;
The 4 light circuits (Stop, tail, left and right indicator) come into the housing, and are plumbed into the constant power resistor things. These are earthed and I have put them all out to a common earth, and the reduced power travels underneath the lexan sheet to the 4 main resistors which reduce the voltage for each circuit. There are 3 rated at 10 Ohms which are the stop and 2 indicators. The single at 56 Ohms is for the tail lights. I have 3 wires coming out; remember the ability to power an LED to adjust the brightness? On the left, you can see the one-way resistor that stops the full beans from the stop lights entering the tail light circuit. With the tail lights on, it receives less power due to the higher Ohm value resistor and when you activate the brake circuit the full power hits the circuit and lights up the LED brighter.
I have chopped up the rear harness even more and inserted a plug into this box. From the box another plug runs the wiring in a new harness to the lights
Here you see the nearly-complete board inside the light housing (professionally marked LH you will see) with the wiring in place. Red wires are stop and tail and go to the 2 inner panels. White is the indicator and goes to the outer panel only. I was concerned about the amount of heat needed to solder the wires to the COB, so my soldering is low rent. For that reason, I didn't run the tail light wires to the outer indicator panel, but perhaps a later upgrade may see that done. I did buy 2 spares so I can test one to destruction if needed.
The finished product does what I wanted; however, I didn't take into account the resistance in the wiring so the lights are not as bright as they were on the bench. Luckily, with this system I just need to unplug the alloy box, and re solder in new resistors.
IMG_3455.MOV 32.72 MB · 0 downloads
I used an LED set and cut the wire to the outer light and used that for the blinker. Works well and was surprisingly easy.
-
6 hours ago, smh00n said:I would spend some cash with another driveshaft place and have them check the shaft. If it is at 2 different speeds it's definitely harmonic. Thinking out loud below;
Have you tried changing gear when you feel it? So keep to 80k but increase engine revs; try both second and first gears. Does applying the brakes change it? If you drop it into neutral is the vibration still present? Can you swap wheels front to back, or if not, side to side to see if that changes it?
Does it feel more towards the rear or the front? Could it be a wheel? Is the vibration a constant rattle or does it cycle from minor to major? Does it do it when cornering or just straight line?
Perhaps take off both rear brake drums, spin it up and see if the axles are true. I still suspect there may be housing damage. A 9" is a big sucker and if you had bent axles it's had some sort of hit in the rear so maybe the tubes are out of alignment?
I'm definitely thinking of taking the tailshaft to another place to get it checked.
It doesn't feel like wheels, but I am going to swap front to rear when I can get motivated. Hopefully the 8" 245s will fit on the front.
I've used a large T square on the axles and there is no alignment issue with the axle housing. Applying brakes doesn't change it and placing in neutral doesn't change it. Stright line or slight bends on the highway is the same.
As I have found so many small things causing vibration and I'm getting close, I'm definitely thinking something already replaced during troubleshooting may still be the problem. It feels like center of the car. I keep feeling like tailshaft but as its the third I'm not confident.
When I overhauled the engine and damaged the flex plate by doing a dumb ass thing during transmission installation, I am wondering if I've possibly damaged the new torque converter. Is that possible?
1970 Convertible Restoration
in Project Progress Forum
Posted · Report reply
Very nice work