My plug wires showed up yesterday, which was a surprise. After using the Scout to jump the OG-V (the dome light stayed on for some reason and drained the battery) and charging that up, I put the spark tester on cylinder 3 and turned it over: there was no spark. Then I put the tester on the coil and cranked it again: there was one initial spark and then nothing after that. This is puzzling, and clearly something isn’t configured correctly. But it checks out with what the engine was doing earlier—in previous attempts it would almost catch and then just crank.
Category: Progress
Sparky
Update 5.24: I’m trying to come up with a plan for the Sniper kit to work out the bugs. From a lot of the other posts and videos I’ve seen, guys with International engines have been able to hook everything up and just go, but as I recall there was something off with the timing on my truck before I installed it. Fixing it is going to require some more experienced help, so I’m going to call upon Bennett to give me a hand. I’m also looking at being able to view the data logs from the Sniper, which is only available through software that runs on a PC. Refurbished PCs are pretty cheap these days, so I could probably find something for 100 bucks—but I’d like to avoid that if possible. I want to talk to Holley support and send them the datalogs, but I have a sneaking suspicion their first question for me is going to be whether or not I verified the distributor is in the right position. So I’m in a bit of a holding pattern here.
The other thing I’m aware of is that in order for the system to use the self learning feature, the engine needs to be warmed up to 160° or higher. I have never looked at the thermostat in this truck, and I’d like to swap in a known good one just to be safe. That should be a relatively easy thing to do this weekend.
Update 5.16: With a new condenser/points unit installed, IT RUNS. The idle is super choppy and it dies after about 10 seconds, which means the timing is completely off, but it starts right up as advertised. Now I have to sort out the timing issues and figure out where it’s happy. I had the timing dialed in pretty well with the carburetor last fall before I started welding on the truck and burned the condenser out, so I think it’s a matter of finding where the sweet spot is in the sniper settings to make the engine happy. I’ve got a bunch of reading to do today, and I’m going to spend tomorrow (Saturday) working to get it smoothed out.
Update 5.14: I have a new points/condenser unit on order, and I’ll swap that in tomorrow. The thinking here is that the condenser (essentially a capacitor) isn’t storing a charge in between the points opening and closing, which means there’s no spark making its way to the plugs. In the Delco distributor I have the points/condenser are an integrated unit so it’s not a simple matter of unscrewing just the condenser and swapping in a new one.
Update 5.11: I bought a new spark tester from H-F and verified it was working on the Scout. There’s no spark at the coil when I put it there; this verifies what I suspected. Next I’ve got to use a test light to see if I’ve got power going to the coil with the key on at both sides of the poles, then see if there’s power in the distributor.
I got really discouraged yesterday and let my anger get the better of me; instead of taking a step back and researching next steps, I let my ADHD run wild and dicked around in the garage for the rest of the day.
***
I’m in a holding pattern on the fuel injection project until some parts come in. The big holdup is getting a new set of spark plug wires after the number four wire snapped off in my hand. I thought I had kept my old set from the Scout in the spares bin, but apparently I tossed them—all I have is a coil wire in the parts bag. As I write this, it occurs to me that I can pull one of the wires off the Scout and use that to test the ignition system (duh). Basically, the plan looks like this:
- Pull the #8 plug (International SV-series engines time off of the number eight cylinder)
- Spin the engine until # is at TDC, replace the plug
- Make sure the rotor is aligned correctly, pointing at the #8 wire
- Make sure the spark plug wires are routed in the correct order – CHECK
- Check for spark at the coil – NONE
- Check for spark at the plugs – NONE
If all of those things check out, and the engine still won’t start, then I’m at a complete loss. I know I’m getting fuel, and the EFI system should be metering air, so the only thing remaining would be spark. I did fool around a little bit with timing last fall, but the truck ran after I adjusted that. So I’m thinking it’s got to be an issue with the ignition system. I do still think the starter needs to be replaced, but I want to sort out all of this other stuff before I start throwing more money at parts.
Wiring Up, Wiring Down
Last night I took advantage of some warm weather to finish installing the second relay in Darth for the Sniper control unit. This mainly involved a screwdriver and a lot of small zip ties to clean up the wire runs and get everything out of the way. I’d already built all the wires and heat shrunk the connections, so all I had to do was screw the relay into the metal panel and then screw that back into the firewall. Then the wires got cleaned up and routed along with the existing wiring.
When that was done, I wanted to see if I was getting spark at the plugs, so I pulled the boot off the #3 plug, and… the connector snapped off the wire. These wires are brand-new, so this is really frustrating. I don’t have a spare set in my stores, so I ordered a new one which should be here this evening. The next steps are going to be:
- Checking spark at the plugs
- Verifying I’ve got the wires connected in the right order from the distributor to the plugs.
- Putting a third, transparent fuel filter in between the stock Holley unit and the carburetor to verify we’re getting gas (I can smell it, but need to verify).
Halfway There
A new 30amp relay came via Amazon this afternoon, and I did a quick and dirty wiring job to get it connected to constant power, a ground, the ignition circuit, and the carburetor. It wasn’t pretty but the truck turned over, and more importantly, the Sniper unit stayed on. The engine didn’t catch, however, which is getting really fucking frustrating.
So next up, I’m going to pull the mounting plate I used to organize the auxiliary fuse panel, add the second relay alongside the first, and use that as my mounting point. Then I can run clean wiring from there.
Switch
Monday evening, I swapped the best of the two spare lock barrels onto the Travelall to test out the theory that the continuity problem might be an issue with the lock. Comparing the connections on the back, I swapped the wiring as it was on the current assembly and sadly, I got the same result—the Sniper head unit rebooted itself. Upon further investigation, I looked over the diagram from the service manual and identified the main circuits going to each of the poles on the back of the assembly. From what I could tell it was mostly connected right, but my 27 wire (going to the speedometer, and then on to the fuel gauge) wasn’t on the right circuit, I needed to verify that the white wire in the center was the 14 wire (going to the starter), and verify the black wire on the ignition pole was the 12 wire (going to the coil).
Disconnecting the battery and checking things out, I put the 27 wire on the right side and verified the 11 wire was correct. The wire to the starter was not an original IH wire and covered with electrical tape, but I’m guessing it’s the right one in the right place. I ordered a Bosch relay, which should be here tomorrow, and I’ll wire that up to troubleshoot the Sniper this week.
I do have to say, it’s very nice to be able to unlock the door and start the truck with one key.
Later, I pulled three starters from the Heavy Spare Parts Pile to test them out, figuring I might eventually have to swap one of them in for the one on the Travelall. I’ve got a 12 volt bench tester, which makes this kind of thing very easy, so I just lined them up on the bench and connected the positive lead to the main connection and grounded the chassis. With a short length of copper romex I jumped the power to the start terminal on each one, and found that one was completely dead, one didn’t move but made an alarming buzzing noise, and one (that came to me with the solenoid cover off) punched the starter gear forward but didn’t spin the motor. So I’ve got two good cores and a third that might work in a pinch. I forgot to whack on the buzzing unit with a hammer to see if I can wake it up, but that will be a tomorrow test. And as I recall, there might be a fourth still attached to the spare motor in the garage…
Relay
One of the proposed solutions to my EFI cranking problem is to wire a relay into the ignition system which will provide constant power to the Sniper head unit. Apparently it’s pretty common for old vehicles to have a voltage drop between the Run and Start positions in the switch, which the Sniper unit isn’t designed for. My first course of action will be to swap out the ignition switch with one of the spares and see if that makes any difference. It could be something as simple as a poorly made modern switch, which wouldn’t surprise me.
If I can get one of the two to work reliably, then problem solved. If not, the next step will be to wire in a simple relay to the ignition circuit which will provide constant power to the head unit and keep it live. There are two types I can use: a simple 30 amp on/off type like I’m using for the auxiliary fuse panel. The other is an adjustable design with a potentiometer which allows for the amount of time the circuit holds a charge. I don’t need it to stay on for 30 seconds after the switch is turned off, just enough to keep the head unit working.
Fuel Injection Update, 4.14
A proper inlet fitting arrived in the mail on Friday and I had to wait until Sunday morning after the rain had passed to do a test fitting on the carburetor. I could only get one in blue, but you’ll never see it under the air cleaner. Thankfully, it cleared the water neck with about a half an inch to spare, so I tightened it down and made a list of preflight checks that had to be done before fired off the engine. First, I replaced the existing positive battery cable with a bigger fatter one. I’ve always wondered if I’m not getting enough cranking amps from the existing cable and decided to improve that situation. This took a little more time than I thought because the starter is in a really lousy position on C series trucks. It’s in between the engine and the frame rail and directly over the front axle so it’s going to be very difficult to swap out if that has to happen.
Then I pulled the plugs and put a borescope down into the cylinders one by one to check for any water in the cylinders. I did this because I drained a bunch of water out of the gas tank and I was afraid I’d pulled a bunch into the engine and possibly done some damage. I found no evidence of water or rust, just dirty piston heads that need to be cleaned up with a long idle and some time on the road.
Next, I had to get a bunch of new gas and get it into the tank, which is harder than it looks because I don’t have an angled funnel. After visits the three different stores I found something that mostly worked and put about 4 gallons of gas in the tank. Interestingly, the first time I turned the key to the accessory position, the fuel gauge worked, but it worked intermittently since then, so I’ll have to figure that out. With that done and the wiring to the Sniper connected, I cleaned out a jug and set it up in the engine bay to catch fuel.
The first test of the system is to boot it up and program it for the type of engine, cam, idle speed, and a couple of other settings. Then you program it, and do a couple of fuel system flushes to run clean gas to the system. After I did this, I connected the fuel lead up to the carburetor, said a prayer, and cranked it over for the first time.
It didn’t immediately catch, and I noticed that the Sniper control unit had rebooted itself; this should remain on constantly. Doing a little Internet digging I learned that other people have had this problem and it’s got to do with a gap in continuity when turning the key. Walking back through the main points of failure, I tested the jumper to switched power on the fuse panel and verified that was OK. The power leads to the harness were connected correctly. That left the ignition barrel.
This ignition barrel is brand new. I bought it the first year I had the truck, and I believe it’s been wired correctly, but clearly I’m going to have to pull it out of the dash and check it over again. I’ve got two spares I can swap in for testing—the original and the one out of the ’67. I’m going to go out and take some detailed pictures of the ’67 barrel and the one in the truck and compare them, along with the diagram I have from the service manual. I’ve been thinking about pulling that one apart and swapping in one of the new ignition cylinders (I don’t have a key for either one) so that could be a cheap way to test the system, with the added benefit of getting the entire truck to work on one key.
Finally, I checked for spark while I was turning the engine over on the #5 cylinder and didn’t see anything on the indicator, so that’s another thing to check.
Fuel Injection Video Update
Here’s the wrap-up video from the past two weeks, which includes all of the work I did installing fuel injection and the eventual solution to fixing the barn door lock mechanism, which involved a Dremel and some very careful surgery on a lock cylinder. This one took some time to produce because I was working with ~90 gigs of video footage which brought my computer to a crawl.
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Fuel Injection Update
With the exception of one stupid fitting, the Sniper is installed on the truck, the fuel tank is back in place with a new sending unit and return line, and the hoses are (hopefully) routed in a way that will feed fuel to the engine reliably. This was not without struggle, and required a lot of problem-solving.
First, I was having issues with electrical continuity in the original fuel sender. I could measure resistance at certain points in the swing of the arm but it wasn’t consistent and no amount of adjustment was working reliably. I was afraid the issue might be my $9 Harbor Freight multimeter so I splurged on a fancier $25 model and got the same result. Doing some research, I learned that there are new senders available, but only for the 15 gallon tanks installed on pickups, which are a different size than the 19 gallon tank I have. I did track down a forum post from 2007 which claimed that a sender from a 1957 Thunderbird would fit with minor modifications, and the pictures seemed to show something very similar to what I already had. So I took advantage of a solid return policy and ordered one from AutoZone with free one-day shipping.
On the bench, when I compared it to the original sender, it looked a little different, but putting both of the units on the bench base and comparing the arc of the center arm, and their length showed that they were roughly the same. The new unit has a brass float and tested flawlessly with the multimeter, so I went ahead and put that in the tank. After cleaning the inlets on the tank out, I sealed everything up and got it ready to put back in the truck. This took a bit of maneuvering, but once I had the hoses in place, I jacked it up and got it into position.
At this point, it was clear I would have to modify the tank straps to allow for the extra inch and a half I had to add between the tank and the body of the truck to clear the return inlet. I cut the brackets off with the cut off wheel, and fabricated some new straps out of 16 gauge steel. After welding the brackets onto the strap extensions, I brought them out to the truck and welded the two sections of strap together. When they were cold, I cleaned them up, painted them, and then got them ready to hang the tank.
This had taken a lot more time that I thought it would. I fed the sender wire over the frame rail, hooked it back up to the wiring harness and fed the return line up through the body mount to the engine bay. Working methodically, I reattached all of the hoses to the fill tube, the vent tube and the fuel line itself. I was very careful measuring and cutting the hose that had come with the Sniper kit and it looks like I’ve got just enough to finish the job. The only thing left to solve is finding a 90° fitting for the fuel inlet on the carburetor, which butts up right next to the water neck on the engine. I’d ordered two 90° fittings and had them sent overnight via the jungle site, but the second fitting is just too long to fit in the space available. So I’ve got a call Holley’s tech support line to see if they can suggest a solution.
At this point, everything is complete, minus that fitting. When I’ve got that solved, I can put gas back in the tank, run a bunch of it through the system to flush it, and do all of the preflight checks for the carburetor computer. The other check I wanna do before anything else happens is to pull a couple of the spark plugs and eyeball the cylinders for any sign of water or rust. After draining a bunch of water out of the fuel tank, I’m concerned about it being in the cylinders, and I want to look for any signs of hydrolocking. If there is any water in there, I’ll bump the engine over a bunch of times to clear it out.
In non-engine related news, I did a bunch of work on the rear barn door handle on the bench to fit a door lock correctly in the barrel without having it fall out. What I had to do was take a Dremel and carefully carve a channel out of the back of the lock cylinder to accept a standard lockring. I used the pair of pliers to squeeze it down to be the same diameter as the cylinder, trimmed the outside edges, and then inserted it into the barrel. I was able to get a pair of lockring pliers inside and open it up so that it stayed inside the barrel. I installed it first thing Friday morning and just like that I had a locking rear door for the truck.
I’m sorry, I would have taken pictures but I was hustling pretty much all day Sunday from 10AM to about 7PM to get this done. I was able to get the truck down off the jack stands and under a tarp just as dusk was falling. Monday morning is rainy so I’ll see if I can get back out there on Tuesday to open things back up.
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Fuel Injection: How It’s Going
I’ve got the week off from work to burn up excess PTO time so I’ve been focusing mainly on the EFI install and procrastinating by tackling some smaller projects on the side. The EFI install is intimidating because it includes lot of things I’ve never done before and presents some mechanical problems that are proving difficult to solve. The instructions begin with the simple task of installing a fuel pump and two fuel filters in between the gas tank and the engine. This also includes a return line, something modern fuel injection needs, but my truck never came with. So that required dropping the tank again, drilling a hole somewhere in the tank, and plumbing a new line. Another complicating factor, as mentioned earlier, was that there’s little to no room in between the outlet on the tank to the engine compartment, which made the fuel pump location a huge question mark.
Dropping the tank was easy; I’ve already done that once. But when I drained the tank, I found a pint of what I can only assume was water, which was very disturbing. I know I emptied this tank out completely before I reinstalled it and I know I capped off all of the inlets so I don’t understand where this water came from. What I’m most concerned about is that I’ve been trying to start it and I’m afraid I may have hydrolocked the engine by squirting water into the cylinders instead of gasoline. After some deliberation, I’m going to continue with the EFI install on this engine, assuming I haven’t bent any pushrods, and we’ll see.
After the tank was down, I measured and test fitted and measured again and found the best possible place for the return line, right next to the sender hole at the top of the tank. This is the only place I could get fingers inside to tighten any bolts. I filled the tank with water, drilled a pilot hole, and then used a stepped bit to widen it out. The fittings that come with the kit were all aluminum, so I needed a wire to fish them back out after dropping them in the tank the first fourteen times, and found that using the wire was the best way to help guide the parts into place. I also fabricated a bent wrench out of 16 gauge steel to help tighten the fitting up inside the tank. After flushing it out with more water, I installed the return line and bench-tested the fuel sender, but wasn’t getting reliable readings. When I got the truck, the fuel sender actually worked, but I’m not sure what happened after I pulled it out. My multimeter is the $9 Harbor Freight special, so I decided I needed to upgrade that to something a little more legitimate.
Underneath the truck, I found the best possible place for the fuel pump and pre-filter was on the inside of the frame rail. That was all still filthy, so I scraped and wire brushed it, then painted it with encapsulator. The only way I could figure on routing the fuel line was to direct it backwards to the inside frame rail, do a 180° curve to the pre filter and pump, then go up to the engine bay. I ordered aluminum fuel hose for the bends because I didn’t want the hose kinking up over time and restricting the flow.
While I was puzzling over those problems, I was fixing smaller things like a sagging driver’s door. After lifting it up with a bottle jack, I loosened then tightened the hinge bolts and it closed cleanly. Then I bent some 16 gauge steel into an L shape, drilled it out, cleaned it with a file, and used it as an under dash bracket to install a USB charger.
Thursday started out being a gloomy, rainy day, but after about 2 o’clock, the weather cleared, the sun came up, and it warmed up to about 75°. In the morning, I drove up to a locksmith in Towson to have them look over the rear door handle and help me understand the problem I was having with the new lock cylinders falling out of the assembly. The guy behind the counter was super helpful, but he couldn’t figure out what we were missing. After talking it through with him, he agreed that I needed a spring loaded retainer clip at the back of the regular door handle lock cylinder, and that the ignition cylinder wouldn’t work in the door. I was hoping I would have more answers than that, but he got me to thinking about a way to solve the problem. I stopped off at Harbor freight for a better multi tester and then headed back home.
I took full advantage of the afternoon, warmth and pulled the old carb off the engine, cleaned up the intake, and dropped the sniper in place. After reading and rereading the installation instructions, I started roughing in the wiring in the engine bay to begin to understand where things need to go. Alternating between the engine and the frame rail, I sorted out most of the main electrical harness and crimped and soldered leads for the positive and negative battery terminals aligned for the controller is fished into the cab, and the main fuse and relay harness is roughed in on the firewall. I did find that the temperature sensor included with the kit is one size larger than the threaded hole in the water neck. I have a spare manifold sitting on the floor of the garage that I can examine to see how hard it would be to drill and tap a wider temperature sender. Of course, I’m of getting metal shavings in the engine, so this is the nuclear option. The other installation issue is that both the fuel inlet and return outlet on the carburetor are right up against the water neck and coil so I put a pair of 90° fittings on my parts list.
Under the truck, I finished the fuel pump install and with a handy delivery from Amazon, I had 10 feet of coiled aluminum fuel hose in my hands. It just so happened that they had coiled the inside loop at a little less than 6″ so all I had to do was cut off a section of the inner coil and I already had a clean 180° bend in my hands. I flared the ends and installed that, then started looking for a way to get the fuel line to the inside of the frame rail. I found a factory-drilled hole large enough to feed another 90° bend just above the spring perch and threaded an another length of aluminum through to join up with the rubber hose. It feels Mickey Mouse, but I think I’ve solved the fuel routing problems and I was happy that I was able to use the brake flare kit I bought two years ago on this aluminum. Then I used a punch to put a divot in the exhaust pipe, drilled out a hole, and installed the O2 sensor. The clamps provided with the kit were too small so I used a set of pipe clamps from my bench for the time being until I can get factory clamps in hand. When I get those I’m going to pull the 02 sensor back out and wire-brush the pipe for a better mating surface.
I got back up and worked in the engine bay on the wiring until it got dark and then brought some parts in to the workbench in the basement. The first task was to modify one of the door lock cylinders to accept a snap ring at the very back using a Dremel. I carefully cut a channel out of the rear of the cylinder and trimmed a snap ring down to the same diameter. Inserting that into the channel and inserting it into the button, I used a pair of snap ring pliers to widen it out so that it stayed in place but spun freely. Reassembling the handle, it finally worked as designed and I had something I could put back on the truck.
Next, I spent a good bit of time testing the original fuel sender with the new multimeter and found that it did work, but that was dependent on the angle of the float arm. Sometimes it made contact with the rheostat and sometimes it didn’t. Doing a little more research, somebody on the Binder Planet posted that the sending unit for a ’57 Thunderbird would work with a little bit of modification, so I put that on the parts list.
I’ve been itching to just get it done but have been practicing my patience as much as possible, and as of Friday I’m pretty happy with where I’ve gotten to. The biggest hurdles now are to understand the wiring setup, and I’m going to take my time to understand what I’m doing before I start hacking things up.