Way too quiet up in here!

you rang?

@motosubatsu - Good Morning (Or I guess for you Good Afternoon :o)

Good morning!

@IanC - GM!

How are you guys doing?

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Afternoon it is :D

I'm well.

It's been a while since I asked, how has been the work on the car going?

@IanC - Slow

I'm still collecting parts, to an extent.

That makes us two haha

I have the rings installed on the pistons, but don't have the pistons installed in the engine yet. Maybe today.

cool, what are the missing parts?

Heads

camshaft

rocker arms

I did get in the timing set and the gaskets.

Which is a big help. I have enough to get the short block together now.

the old head was condemned?

That would be one way to put it, lol, yes.

This is a V8, so it's "heads" (two of them)

I had originally taken them apart, and one of the exhaust valves broke off in the guide. Not good.

I decided to just replace them.

To get them fixed, it would cost me about $300-400 ... a new set of aluminum heads (cheap eBay ones) should cost me just under $700.

I see, but what would the valve breaking there cause? Some gap in the guide?

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ouch!

for the price difference it's worth it

@IanC - The valve stem is stuck in the guide.

The thing is, even if I fix these heads, I still have just stock heads which are mediocre at best. I can get some decent aluminum heads off of eBay and they'll perform about 300% better.

Oh, got it, I didn't imagine it was so hard to get them out (like, pushing them out from the opposite side)

And you're right by deciding to get new ones, it'll be worth it

@IanC - They shouldn't be hard to get out ... these valves (and just the exhaust valves) had rusted (or corroded) in the guides, making them a bear to get out. One of them decided to completely seize in the guide and the head busted off as I was beating on it.

The guides are stock guides which are made out of cast iron.

Like I said, the whole thing is stock. They flow stock numbers. They are just crap production pieces.

I see, so not only will you have a new part, but a part that will not oxidize like the stock one

@IanC - It shouldn't

The old engine had sat for several years, so it was no wonder why they had corroded.

I wonder what parts of my engine are not made of aluminium alloy, probably the exhaust collector since it's the one that has visible rust

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Another practical example of why a still car gets older faster than a running car

@IanC - As Aristotle stated: Nature abhors a vacuum. ... she will take back what is her's if you don't use it and keep it up.

Indeed

Here things are going a bit slow too, I removed the old dirty rad cleaner from the car and added a new bottle with clear water for a second flush. I was about to change the speedometer cable, but something made me rethink whether it would actually be worth the trouble

I noticed my speedometer would rarely fail, going to 0 and then working again after a while

Yah, the first thing you need to think whenever you do anything with your car is: will what I'm doing improve anything? ... The rule of thumb as I've said before: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I first thought it could be a collapsed speedometer cable, that was working but once in a while the broken parts were untouching each other. But then I noticed the hodometer would still work while the speedometer didn't

So it stopped making sense :/

Heh

The ECU speed sensor failure and this, it's all connected, it improved A LOT since the last time I unmounted the panel, but something is still going on for those failures to happen on the speedometer

Once I find out what it is, I'll fix everything at once, the ECU error, the speedometer occasional failure, but I'm still a bit lost on my theories

Right now I'm thinking whether it could be some faulty wiring in the power supply of the electromagnet that moves the speedometer (and probably signals the ECU as well)

Think through how the signal gets from input to output ... check each piece of the chain from start to finish. Don't assume anything is right ... prove that it works correctly.

@Martin - Hey :o)

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Hi there !

How are things?

We went sledding yesterday, it was a nice day.

How are you?

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Yeah, I'll try to make a diagram with everything that comes in and out of the speedometer, and things that could be wrong with them so I can test later

@Martin - Doing well ... thank you for asking :)

@Martin Sounds fun! Lots of snow there?

@IanC Not anymore. One needs to go to above 1000 meters above sea level to find sufficient snow

Without artificial snow most ski areas here would not be able to survive

Oh, it was indoor sledding

@Martin - I was reading about somewhere here in the States where they had over 210" of snow and expecting more. They said their ski runs would be open into July this year, lol.

@IanC No, it was outdoors. You just need to go up in the mountains

@Martin Got it, so it was a small trip then :)

Guys, gotta go have some lunch

Talk to you later!

@IanC It was in the vicinity, that is one nice thing about living in the mountains. For the cold, I'd rather live near the equator :)

@Martin The view and the fact cities are not usually dense in mountain areas is probably a great thing about living there too!

I live in a place where in winter people often travel with their chain saws in the trunk, so that they can free the road from fallen trees :)

@Martin - Heh, sounds like home (Montana) :o)

Ok, need to go. See you all!

Laters

@IanC - You were inspiration today! I got the pistons/rods into the block, which means the short block is complete. I can't do much more now until I get the camshaft.

All I can say is, wow ... way too cool.