Old Blue - 1984 XL Flareside

[Gary Lewis]

I like the idea of pressing nuts in.  That will help with the installation.

[ckuske]

Yeah, I thought that was pretty clever (wish I could take credit for it).  This friend at work is one of those guys that's good at everything, and you wonder how they do it?

[ckuske]

OK, back from the dead.  I think I have the vent/defrost door figured out after reducing the height on the hinge, so less air gets by.

My main issue now is there is still oil smoke coming from beneath the #4 cylinder.  I took off/replaced the valve cover gaskets again, adding a little RTV to the top of the gasket (where it touches the cover, not the head) to make sure it stayed in place during assembly.  No dice, same amount of smoke as before.

The amount of smoke seems to increase with engine RPM.  I've seen some mention that it could be part of the intake gasket, or even the head gasket...

It hard to diagnose all the way back there but I crawled underneath the truck behind the passenger tire and looked up in there with a light while it was running. I don't see any oil dripping but the oil is nice and clean so it may be harder to see.

The exhaust header bolt right underneath that cylinder looks like it has come into contact with a fluid of one sort or another.  I am still learning but that doesn't seem like a plausible explanation... so what else in that area could emit oil?   It definitely is oil, not coolant (well, pretty sure at least.  It smells like oil and the smoke is grey, not white.

Here is a video, I apologize for the lighting, I'll try to get a better one soon.

Also, I don't see any coolant leakage, or oil in the coolant.  It seems to be just oil burning in the location show in the video.  I was hoping maybe it was just residual from before but I let it run about 10 minute and the smoke was still coming out.

[Gary Lewis]

Did you let the RTV set up before torquing the valve cover bolts down?  When RTV is "wet" it is a very good lubricant and the gasket can easily slide off one way or the other and cause a leak.

So I let things like that set up over night before torquing the bolts down.  

[FuzzFace2]

Rubber gasket or cork?
Dave ----

[ckuske]

Yessir, I did wait a full day. The directions also said to put nothing on the gaskets which I didn't the first time but that the oil smoke was coming out, so I put some RTV on the non-mating side of the gasket so they'd stick better to the valve cover when installing.  

Anyway, I torqued the bolts down again after the first run while the engine was still hot, and let the motor run, and it seems to not smoke now. I’m not convinced but there is hope, as I was fooled before too..

In other news during that same run after I turned the motor off I was snooping around and noticed liquid on the intake. Yep… gasoline from my carb that I had rebuilt a couple years ago (and haven’t driven for real yet!!!). Looks like gas is leaking from the accelerator pump gasket/diaphragm.

I ordered one, hopefully that’ll fix that whack a mole. It seems I can replace that without removing the carb off the intake, correct?

I like onion layers but this is getting ridiculous! Haha

EDIT: I forgot the email reply didn't work, so I pasted my reply here above...

[ckuske]

Rubber, this is what I bought:

https://realgaskets.com/product/valve-cover-gaskets-33/

[kramttocs]

Great choice!

[Gary Lewis]

Maybe you'll get lucky and tightening things stopped the leak.  I sure hope so!

On the accelerator pump, some can come off without removing the carb and some can't.  Some of the 2150's have the accelerator pumps on the front and some have it under.  I hope yours comes off the front.

Good luck!

[ckuske]

Thanks!  There are four bolts on the front of the carb where the accel pump is, I'm assuming those are it.  The bottom two may be tricky to get to but I'll do my best there.  I'll let you know how it goes, the part comes in on Thursday

[mat in tn]

which carb do you have?

[ckuske]

2150 (feedback version), tag on the carb is E4TE-AHA

[ckuske]

Just marking it down here for an update - I replaced the Accelerator pump diaphragm (AP372) and no more gas leak.  And(!) the oil leak from the valve cover seems to be fixed as well.  

I got a reprinted hinge for the Vent/Defrost door and the airflow leak is improved.  Not 100%, but one more thin layer of foam on the right hand side of the door seems to be working. I run the truck in defrost almost never, so it wouldn't have really been an issue to begin with but I don't want to take everything apart to fool around with that.

So, I think the next order of business is to finish putting the front clip back together, start painting the interior with the SEM I bought awhile back, then work on laying down Dynamat on the cab floor, put in new audio, and carpet.

[Gary Lewis]

That’s excellent news!  Well done!  

[ckuske]

I'm almost done painting all the interior with SEM.  I know there are SEM fans here, and I just gotta say.... I agree!  Wow - Color Coat is great stuff.  It lays down easy and is very tolerant to thick coats etc so even a newbie like me can't screw it up.

All is painted except the dash and door panels.  I had to fix some minor cracks in the dash with JB-Weld plastic putty - it seems to be working out well so far.  It dries hard, but is doable to sand etc.

I have a little more heartburn on the door panels.  I bought used ones on eBay a few years ago, and never took them out of the box.  They are not as good as I remember them being when I bought them.  I was a little more naive at the beginning of this project regarding 40 year old plastic.  The grain on the top of the panels is almost gone, they're almost completely smooth.  And, there was a dime size hole on the drivers panel near the lock that I had to patch.

I'm going to paint them to have something there for now, but I have my eye on the Dennis Carpenter door panels.  Does anyone know how often they come in stock?  They are the only aftermarket panels where the speaker grilles are correct for instance. (https://www.dennis-carpenter.com/trucks/interior/door-panels/e1tz-1023942-pr-door-panels-black-80-86-pu-)

[rcarlisle]

I don't know how often the DC panels are in stock, but yes, those are perfect.  They will be worth the wait.   Have you called?  The lady that answered seemed pretty helpful.  Might be worth the call?   Are you anywhere close to Concord, NC?   You can pick up at store too.

[ckuske]

Yeah, it's probably worth the call just to let them know there is interest.  I have to imagine it is one of their more popular products, why wouldn't you want panels made with the original tooling?  I'm on the West Coast, so its a bit of a drive haha.  I do wonder if they have any lying around in the store though, if anyone goes by there, let me know!

The Coverlay and LMC ones are ok, but you can tell they are knockoffs.  I also read that the chrome trim on my panels doesn't really fit properly on the Coverlay ones, the radius of the curves isn't the same.

I wish I had the "brains" at 16 that I have now (25 years later) . I never would have torn off the original panels back then, especially now that I know about SEM!

[Gary Lewis]

Glad you like SEM.  But they make a spray-on texture that might work nicely on the top of your door panels.  I've not used it but have heard good things about it.

[ckuske]

Thanks for the tip, I was actually looking at a Youtube video from SEM showing their Texture Coating product last week.

I'd like to use "stock" panels, but I have a feeling my repair skills aren't up to my standards as far as staring at them for the next 30 years and not getting annoyed that they're not perfect.

[ckuske]

I've painted everything except the door panels so I've started to reinstall the dash.  I'm in the middle of my second attempt.  The first attempt I mounted the AC ducts to the dash before trying to mount the dash to the firewall.  That didn't work well with getting all the wires back to where they were supposed to be.  So, I took off the ducts and have gotten the wire bundles in their approximate locations.  Near the glove box and above the radio, I have the main bundle attached via the trim screws that hold the loom to the back/top of the dash via a "wrapper" (not sure on the real nomenclature) that encapsulates the wiring bundle with clips on it that allow trim screws to hold the wrapped to the dash.

Where I'm a little fuzzy is how/where the bundle is routed from the fuse box to the radio area - I see the same sort of mounting points on the bundle to screw it to the dash via two more "wrappers", but the pictures I took (2 years ago!) don't reveal where these two points should be.

Does anyone recall where the bundle is attached to the dash from the drivers door to near the radio portion of the dash?  Pictures would be a big help but only if you have one already - I don't expect people to tear their dash apart to send me one.