Well...the plot thickens. Grab a cup of joe and sit back for a tale of automotive fun. Today's experience goes down in my long list of car related "experiences".

Those of you following along know that the motor I put in the Toyota turned out to be bad. Gotta make some money with this truck so I went to plan B, which was putting the turbo engine from the Valiant in. What could go wrong with that?

Over the last week, I got the turbo engine in and sorted. Had some minor issues. The main one was that the engine appeared to be running quite rich. But Monday night I had it as best as I could get it, and set off on my 280mile trek (round trip) to Pittsburgh.

The turbo engine was running well. Once it started making boost, it really had a lot of nuts. Lots of power from 2000-3000 rpm. The sound from the turbo was EXACTLY like the sound in Road Warrior when he switches the blower on.

First leg was 60 miles to Youngstown. The speedo still isn't working, but I used a stopwatch and the mile markers to get an idea of rpm at 65mph, then set the redline pointer dohickey on the tach to that speed. Turns out my prebuild calculations were deadnuts - 2200rpm is 65, right where I want to be. Also with the help of the mile markers, I was able to get a mileage check. 11.3 mpg which sucks but the turbo was unsorted.

The first problem showed itself at the gas station. The battery had blown one of it's little covers off and the fluid was percolating. Overcharging problem of some kind. The amp gauge pretty much shows 60amps charge at all times, but I assumed the gauge was bad. I was wrong. The alternator is putting out full charge at all times. What to do? I had a half-assed plan - don't shut it off (for fear it won't restart) and on the way home disconnect the field and drain the battery for a while. When the wipers get slow, reconnect the field.

Second leg to the far side of Pittsburgh was when it started to get fun. All of a sudden there was a massive amount of exhaust noise. Kind of like the whole exhaust fell off. I pulled over. What I'm guessing is that the rich condition plugged the cat (which already had well over 100k on it). That pressure had to go somewhere, and it blew out the gasket that seals the exhaust manifold to the downpipe. Basically, 50% of the exhaust gas was blowing on the starter.

I had to make a decision. 70 miles from home isn't bad, but I don't really have a backup vehicle and this stuff has to get where it's going or I don't get paid. The truck was so loud at this point I figured I'd get pulled over for sure. But I also figured when I showed the cop the leak I'd be able to talk him into letting me go.

Exhaust noise was deafening. That was just an inconvenience compared to the real problem. All the exhaust that was blowing toward the starter was finding it's way into the shifter hole and up into the cab. Eventually it blew the shifter boot right up the shift lever. I was able to tamp it down with some duct tape. But after an hour I was getting pretty woozy. I soldiered on with the windows down. I thought I'd be cold, but the exhaust gas was keeping the cab quite toasty. I have soot all over my right pant leg. My shoe smells like a muffler shop.

Power kept dropping, noise kept increasing. Pretty soon the boost gauge would not climb past 0. No boost, because all the exhaust was blowing into my sock before it could hit the turbo. No power. Pulled some pretty big hills in Pennsylvania. Luckily, I was dodging the fuzz pretty well. The roar was deafening.

Enough time had passed while I was futzing with these issues that I got the joy of driving through downtown Pitt right at rush hour. Stop and go was pretty tense what with the noise, the heat, eyes watering, and no power. At least we know the clutch works well enough to survive stop-and-go traffic.

Cleared the traffic, made my last stop, took another mileage reading, 11.3mpg. Made the trek home okay, but my head aches and my ears hurt.

The gasket that blew is burried in the bowels of the turbo assembly. Rather than take it all apart, fix it, then fix the cat, and THEN try to tune it, I think I'm just gonna put the regular manifolds and 1945 back on from the blown engine. That setup was tuned and working pretty well. At least it was working better than the turbo. All I've really lost here is a second giant hole in the hood. No biggie.

So that's Wednesday's project, swapping the N/A stuff back in. Someone on this thread suggested I do that from the start - he was RIGHT.

In the spring I'll put the turbo back on another engine and put it in the Valiant. That kind of power and noise is just addicting, and it will be more appropriate in the Valiant.

Kip-on-Truckin'

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Well thats good i thought for sure you were gonna say the motor blew up or something, fix it up youll be good to go.
When I put my 4spd in i drove around for about 2 weeks to school/work with a giant hole in my drivers side floor with open shorty headers so needless to say it was warm and stop lights were death. Then I changed the floor pan and put some exhaust on good old elanor and was good to go.

Kev

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Pics of the soon to be removed turbo assembly. I'll be sad to see it go.

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Dude, I am in awe. I want to see that thing going down a dragstrip next year. CO poisoning can be fun...

Keep it real,

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

You win Slanter of the Week!

You can go to the grave knowing you have done something original and....... most importantly .....dangerous.

You tell a great story......and live a fine life. Thankyou.

( I was surprised to see you are only 3 years old)

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

think you need to ram a rod thru cat and clear it.... fix exhast leaks..and drive it like you stole it...I vote for keeping turbo


keep on roddin'

Ram,
Thought about keeping the turbo, and in fact I'm going for a compromise. I fixed the exhaust (but haven't punched out the cat since it's welded in and will require cutting to get out) and I test drove it a bit. Seems okay, though it's not making any boost at all. Not sure why - there aren't many parts in the turbo to go bad so far as I can tell.

It turns out that what blew was a pipe plug installed in the exhaust manifold on the starter side. Not sure why it was there (EGT bung?) , but I found something that fit and fixed it.

Napa needed a day to get the intake gasket in for the NA manifolds, and that puts me behind schedule. I got another voltage regulator and installed another battery. Seems to run okay with no boost, so Thursday night I'll take it on a 600 mile round trip journey to Flint MI and back. That will give me the weekend to put the NA stuff back on. Hope it makes it.

Kip

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Perhaps you could install a surplus oxygen drop-down mask system that the airline industry uses…

I’ve been following since the first page, man what a saga.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

Post of the year award goes to Sandy. It's 1:30am and I just let out a crazy loud laugh, probably woke the neighbors.

"I was surprised to see you are only 3 years old"

excellent!

Today I put the Holley 1945, aluminum intake, stock exhaust back on. Uneventful, and she fired up as soon as fuel got to the carb. Roughed in the timing and buttoned up some other things. Don't ask me why, but the NA motor has more torque off the line than the turbo motor did. Maybe it's the size of the carb. Seems to stumble in the midrange a bit, but that's probably the timing.

The only problem I have right now is the overcharging situation. It's putting out 18v at all times, and it actually "ballooned" my battery there was so much pressure inside. VR and Alt are new, but I think it's just a dodgy wire somewhere as I'm getting only 10v at one of the field terminals. That tells me the VR thinks there's only 10v, so it tells the alternator to go wide open. Might turn out to be a bad batt as well (I've tried 2, same).

Hank, the boy in the pics, is only 15 months and he'll be glad to hear you guys think he looks older. He goes APE for the truck - you can't keep him out of it. He's especially fond of the turn signals.

It's going to be warm this week, so I'm hoping to finish all the dash wiring and maybe get started on the grille. The turbo left a giant hole in the hood, so I think I'm just going to be boring and use sheet metal with no fancy hood scoop. Friday's trip is 850 miles round trip, so that's 4 tanks to get mileage calculations from. Pics forthcoming.

Kip-on-Truckin'

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Put about 60 miles on the Slantota today. Seems okay, but I have two problem, both of which I'll address in a couple of days.

1. Overcharing - rewired some stuff, still putting out 18v. I suspect that the batt itself may be bad at this point (I mean...it did pop it's cap and shoot percolating electrolyte at one point). I'm going to put Autozone to it's TRUE purpose, diagnosis. Buy a new battery, pop it in in the parking lot, if the charging system still is flakey then return the battery. Ha! Suckers!

2. Motor makes great power right off idle and then falls flat on it's face. I'm thinking timing, and I've yet to try the timed vac port on the 1945. The manual for the carb claims that the timed port is for the charcoal canister purge, but I'm willing to experiment. Right now I have my vac gauge plumbed to that port, and it shows 0 at idle, so maybe it will work or work better.

Overall, the thing is starting to morph from a boat anchor into actual transportation. There's light at the end of the tunnel.

Kip On Truckin'

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

$1 says the battery is not your charging system problem.

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Joshua

Not that I've done a lot of electrical car stuff, but I did a fair amount of fault finding and electrical work at uni etc. I'd have to agree, I doubt it'd be the battery.

And I just want to chip in, your story of this car is great! I always look forward to reading any new comments on this thread.

I'd say voltage regulator.......

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Kip,

I love the thread, the build(s) and the swap!! and your picture with the kid at the wheel is just sublime!

My bet would be on the voltage regulator, too. I've had similar symptoms solved by switching a new VR with another new VR. (Yay for quality control, huh?)