New book

Ian

Notorious member
by contrast our 25hp Tahoe shudders at idle and smokes the exhaust system at about 4,000 rpm trying to climb the summit out of the valley here.
it looks like a coal rolling diesel about 50yds up the start of the hill.

I learned a few things when venturing into higher altitudes out west, not the least of which is not to buy 83 octane regular unleaded for excursins above 3500'. Our Sequoia starts clattering like mad on any little grade on that stuff. Mid-grade, or better the "supreme" helps quench the detonations and lets the timing advance a little better so the power is somewhat restored at 8-12K feet.

Another deal with the gen IV GM V8 engines is the catalytic converters are.....garbage. They melt down and plug up at the least sight of too much unburned stuff coming down the pipe. Odd thing is you won't know they're plugged up until they are absolutely completely stopped up. Even one side totally blocked off will only cause a slight roughness, loss of power, and maybe a check money light from multi-cylinder misfire codes. The exhaust will get out through the intake during valve overlap and exit the other bank, and the computer will trim fuel and timing so efficiently that it will still run pretty well all the way to the end when it finally burns valves. Unscrew the left side upstream O2 and let it dangle in the wind and go for a ride up that hill, see if it doesn't run a lot better.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
I think a good portion of the problem is the injectors are pretty goobered up which allows the engine to run super rich at idle.
kind of one of those things where the main operator causes most of the problems.
not a bad idea to look at the Cat's though we have a lot of them mysteriously fall off around here.
 
F

freebullet

Guest
Real trucks come with 8 lugs or more on each wheel.

All others are just "trucks". :p

Our operating cost went down & less repairs required after learning & abiding by that.
 

Ian

Notorious member
My '57 Chevy cab-forward deuce-and-a-half has six studs per wheel. Of course they're 20" split rim Budd wheels.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
My E250 had a lot of lugs, I think 6 but maybe more, and I had to buy a cross type wrench to take the wheels off
to replace the HUGE brake caliper pads. It had those silly damned 15.5" or 16.5" rims with the sloped bead mounts, crazy
as heck. Hardly any tires even made for it any more, and that way years ago. Very odd, Ford only rims, and only used
for a short span of years.

Damned beast, though. I once hauled off 1 and a half pallets of shingles in that thing. The kid loading it with
the fork truck said he couldn't put them in, it would crush "a van". I had him put the full one in the side door
close to the front seats and the half pallet in the back door over the axle. No sweat. I did air up the tires
to the max on the sidewalls....55 psi, IIRC. Carried it fine. Around 4500-5000 lbs of shingles.
 
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RBHarter

West Central AR
16.5 on that retarded 7 lug hub ........

I don't know I've worked the daylights out of 5s and 6s .
I always wanted to be a Dodge guy but Ford's kept following me home . I've got that retired Uhaul F350 HD Commercial chassis now and it had a flat , that's how I found out about the missing part on the tire machine , and it'll haul a load for sure . I had to pick up the front bumper 6" to use the 3000 lb floor jack to pull the wheel and tire off . So I don't know how that works out but I'm pretty sure the front tires are over loaded ......
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
"16.5 on the retarded 7 lug hubs...." Sounds right RBH.

I remember that all of the parts were very heavy duty. IIRC, max GW was just under 10,000 lbs with empty about 4,000 lbs.
The 400 V8 2 bbl would go OK but it was never much of a powerhouse. Floating rear axle, the only one I ever
have owned. I think it was an '80 or 81 model SuperWagon. with the sliding side door.

That van has been gone almost a decade now, going from memory. I bought it cheap and did a lot of
heavy hauling out to Colorado, summer and winter with it, and utility hauling around here, too. Eventually, some guy
came buy and rang the doorbell and asked if I'd sell it. I said he could have it for $100 but it hadn't run in about 6 months.
He paid, got the title and it was gone the next day. At that point, I was happy to see it gone. I went out and got my
F150 a couple years later, always need something to haul stuff with.
 
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freebullet

Guest
My '57 Chevy cab-forward deuce-and-a-half has six studs per wheel. Of course they're 20" split rim Budd wheels.

Well, that sounds as if it make qualify as a real truck under the cool & unusual exceptions clause. If you wanna find out & get the official documentation drop the rig off. I'll put 5000lbs of gear in it, expose it to alkaline & acidic cleaning treatments, whatever salt brine they dump on our roads, & countless nondriver types.

If it survives 5 years it qualifies, if it works after 10yr ya get the certificate of authenticity hand done in calligraphy & laminated. You may need to refurbish & coat every part afterwards though.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
"Cars. Meh
Just transportation"


Brad - we will have to agree to disagree on that one. Somewhere you missed out on some serious
fun. '

Bill
 

Ian

Notorious member
Ha! This one doesn't owe anyone anything. It has a unit number on the cowl and delivered lumber for the first ~15 years of its life, then it was a hay truck until parked sometime in the '90s when the owner died. I actually got it running and drove it a couple miles in original condition with IIRC one brake working, but I just had to have a big block in it (wanted to do more than 40 MPH) and an overdrive transmission. Fully restored the frame, all spring packs, bushings, rear end, king pins, and wheels, built engine mounts, built an engine, and then my first wife left and it all went to hell. Still have the truck, such as it is with weather eating it away. Sold the engine some time ago too, oh well.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
The inter-nationally renowned 10-day Car Week started last Friday. Every kind of car, from clapped out VWs to double-digit-million-dollar Ferraris will be on display for general drooling, wish-I-owned-one, shouldn't've-sold-the-one-I-owned, and auction bidding, and by next Monday many streets will be wearing dual streaks of burned rubber laid down by immature show-offs who have scads of money but no respect for the locals and the town they're racing through.

While on a side-job, yesterday, I talked to a guy who was polishing his beautifully and expensively restored '52 MG TD. He seemed to be MG knowledgeable, so asked if he knew why there wasn't a TE model, being there were the TA, TB, TC, TD and TF models. He replied that it may have been because Jaguar had their E-Type. WRONG!!! So much for him being as smart as he thought was. The TF debuted in '53, fully 8-years before the E-Type. So, the absence of a TE model remains one of life's mysteries . . . at least to me.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Cars. Meh

Just transportation

MY thoughts exactly. Spend nearly 20 years earning your beans greased up under hoods, dashes, and chassis and just about anyone gets "meh" about them. The other factor is....the consumer-grade cars and trucks since before I was born are just appliances, not cool works of art. So modern vehicles have exactly the same appeal for me---and emotional attachment---as my dishwasher.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
In my opinion, from approximately the post-WW II era till the early '70, there were quite a number of cars, particularly English and Italian, that had graceful and artistic lines. Then car designers and manufacturers became hindered by federally enacted crashworthy regulations that all but killed any kind of automotive artisanship and individualism.

But, you are right, Ian, modern cars from the mid-70s and onward are about as eye appealing as a bar of soap.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
I always like the 1953 Studebaker Commander coupe and the 1955 Chrysler 300 for style. But that is what I grew up with for styling.