1983 Chevy C20 Pickup Restomod.

After taking my beloved truck on the highway for about an hour, for the first time, it began to develop some oiling problems. The oil pressure had dropped significantly over the course of a few days, starting immediately after the highway drive. A bit of research suggested issues with the oil pump, such as broken pickup tube, stuck pressure relief valve, or pump failure. As any of those require pulling the engine, I wanted to try a quick and easy fix: oil change, new filter. I suspected that the intense highway drive may have dislodged sludge in the engine and clogged the oil filter. I took it to Valvoline and had the oil change done, and added a quart of Lucas Oil Stabilizer in case there were problems internally. I also had them grease all the grease fittings and inspect everything. I normally do this myself, but it was cold out and I did not have what I needed with me. They gave me $22 off for being a new customer, simply because I asked. It was awesome. The oil change corrected the oil pressure problems immediately and it has been fine for a few days now. Not sure if it was a clogged oil filter, if the oil was destroyed by the drive, or something else entirely. Assuming the engine will die soon and replacing it ASAP as I do not trust it.

Since I have owned this truck, I have been stuck using a clunky power inverted with a USB port on it to charge USB devices. This is super annoying. Cords everywhere, and I don't use the AC socket at all. To finally remedy this, I replace the cigarette lighter with one of these. It fit pretty well with a bit of modification, and is working quite well.

One of the biggest problems is safely powering the various microcontrollers and such I plan on adding to my truck in the near future. Their job will be to monitor the vehicle and alert me to any possible problems, such as low oil pressure, high transmission temperature, or low system voltage. The Arduino Mega I play around with will handle up to 20 volts DC, but I hardly trust the 12-15 volt DC system in my truck to supply clean, regulated power to delicate electronics. That's where these USB sockets come in. I will also be adding an in-line, 5 amp fuse, and a power switch for each bank of ports, as these are connected directly to a battery circuit and I want to be able to control their power consumption manually. At this time, the phone charging USB bank is hooked directly to a battery circuit with no fuse or cut off switch. It has sat overnight twice now and has not drained the battery yet.

Seeing as I drive my truck a lot, and work full time, I need to check the time while I am driving. My truck has no radio, so there is no clock in it. I hate using my phone as it is dangerous while driving, and I do not want to risk losing my beloved truck to an accident. I have decided to build a clock for my rusty old friend. Having the exact parts needed to complete it, I re-created This project. It is a simple clock, with time, date, and alarm. I already have this working, minus the RTC chip and the alarm. I plan on adding an alarm as I take naps in my truck and need woken up at times.

The biggest problem I face is with a lack of reliable and safe power for my Arduino Pro Mini. This will be solved by adding two of These to my truck, with an inline fuse for each. One will be mounted on the front of the dash for me and passengers to use, while the other will be mounted behind the dash for use as a power supply for microcontrollers and such. I have easy access to Summit Racing Equipment and found that it is quite easy to get everything I need for my truck there. I am waiting on those USB sockets to ship as they are back ordered. I already have the wiring, connectors, and fuse holders needed to wire them up. Just sitting around, waiting...

The clock itself is going to be an Arduino Pro Mini solely used to run the LCD clock. It will not have any other functions. This is to keep it as simple and reliable as possible. I stock pile the Pro Mini for stuff like this, as they are cheap and disposable. I will be using other Arduinos, like my Arduino Mega for other functions, such as creating a simple radio, and monitoring engine functions, lights, voltages, and other metrics. My goal is to create everything I need myself, forcing me to learn the skills needed to monitor a vehicle and make my truck as reliable and care free as possible. It's already served 33 years and going strong. I want to see how long I can keep it alive, and how modern it can be using all home brew technology. More updates to come soon as I have a 3 day weekend coming up.

It's been a long time since I have updated this, mostly due to the lack of internet at home, and the death of my laptop. Main computer has died, using my home theater PC for now.

Anyway, truck stuff. The cheap, bent, Summit Racing distributor has been replaced with a Pertronix FlameThrower distributor with the Ignitor 2 module, which replaces the old school breaker points with a small microcontroller thing with a magnetic pickup. It automatically adjusts the dwell so I never have to worry about it again. This truck has killed 2 sets of ignition points, one of them in a matter of a few days. I suspect the cause of this early death was a 60,000 volt ignition coil and too large of a gap in the points. Arcing across the points erodes them, and with 60,000 volts arcing much farther than 30,000 volts, it makes sense that it would arc farther and easier, burning the points out. This is my guess, and I don't care enough to confirm or disprove it. Adding this distributor has completely eliminated the ignition problems and made my truck very easy to drive. I had to scrap my old 2001 Pontiac Sunfire in order to afford the distributor, but it was well worth it.

The other major upgrade came in the form of a new carb from Summit Racing Equipment. I got the 750 CFM vacuum secondary with electric choke. I wired the choke wide open until it can be wired properly, and set the fuel pressure to 7 psi, as recommended in the DVD that came with the carb. Even with a float level that is too high, this carb has ran damn near perfect straight out of the box. They claim it will work just fine for 95% of all engines you stick it on. I believe it. While interviewing others at Summit Racing who have bought it, I was able to confirm that it really is ready to go out of the box. I was amazed at the improvement it made. My truck can be started and driven just like a new car, other than the tendency to stall before it warms up. Once the electric choke is set properly, and the timing adjusted a bit, it should start and run just like a new car.

I have also re-wired the oil pressure and voltage gauges. I cut all the excess wire off, re-terminated them, then put a sleeve on the wires and routed them neatly under the dash.

I have also recently replaced the alternator mounting bolt, as it snapped off, causing a dead battery. I didn't notice anything until I realized my headlights were dim. Checked the voltage, and saw it was around 9 volts DC. The truck was still running just fine, and I was able to drive to a church parking lot and get a tow. The belt survived, and I got a hardened replacement bolt from ARP at Summit Racing Equipment. (I get everything from Summit these days.) That bolt has held up fine, but is a temporary fix. The proper method is to buy a $50, universal bracket from Summit and install that. Haven't done it yet, as I have moved, and ride to work with a friend. I don't even need a vehicle anymore. It's finally time to stop driving, and start restoring my beloved old truck.

Next up are the brakes. The master cylinder is going bad, which causes the brake pedal to sink to the floor if held too long, and then the truck starts rolling away. I bought the new master cylinder a while ago, but have needed y truck and haven't been able to take it out of service long enough to get the job done. Yesterday I finally bought new flexible brake line sections for all four wheels, as well as self bleeding bleeder screws and nice bleeder caps to keep everything clean. Next up is to break the bleeder screws loose on all 4 wheels, then drain the lines, replace the master cylinder, then the bleeder screws, then bleed the entire system. After that is done, depending on how much money is available, I will be replacing all the brake lines. By the time the snow hits, I hope to have all the rotors, pads, shoes, and hardware changed. I will be running ceramic pads, and drilled and slotted rotors to make sure I can stop this beast when towing heavy loads.

I recently moved and used a friend's trailer to haul extra stuff. It is literall the back end of a half ton Ford truck from the 1980s. Someone chopped the frame, welded it all together, added the towing hookups, and wired it as a trailer. This thing is hilarious, and quite sturdy. I had to tow this thing for 45 minutes. Even with the timing off and the engine making weird sounds, the journey went without a hitch. Got pulled over a few days later when the turn signal failed though. No ticket.

More updates to come soon. Going to change the water for coolant here in a few days before the freezing temperatures hit.

A week or so ago, I was tinkering under the hood and the engine shut off. It refused to start, so I assumed it was a fuel or spark problem. After checking all the wiring and testing the ignition coil, I found that the ballast resistor on the ignition coil had fried, causing about 4 volts to the coil, instead of about 13 volts. This meant that the engine was not getting any spark and would not start. I bypassed the resistor and it has been perfectly fine since. I do keep a spare coil in the cab in case it dies, but no issues so far.

Last week I ran into a weird problem where the engine would shake and had much less power. It would run and drive, but it was pathetic. I drove it for a few minutes and couldn't think of anything that would cause it. I took the air cleaner off to check for vacuum leaks and check the carburetor for problems and found the problem right away: Spark plug wire number 1 had fallen off the distributor cap...

The cap, which is clear for easy adjustment and inspection, had the plastic ring above the spark plug socket broke off. The boot no longer holds the plug wire on, and it is down to the friction of the metal connector on the plug wire to keep it in place. I know this isn't very reliable, but I cannot afford another cap right now. I slid the boot up and out of the way a bit to stop it from pushing the plug wire out of the cap. It seems to have worked very well so far. I will be securing it on for the time being, until I can build up a new thing on the cap with epoxy putty or something. I really don't care to replace the entire cap over that one single broken piece that can be fixed so easily for a few dollars.

Sometime last month, I decided to stop driving my unsafe 2001 Pontiac Sunfire, with its bald tires, and sketchy brakes, in favor of driving my rusty old pickup truck. At that time, neither vehicles were suitable for driving in rain, so I had a choice: Invest more in the dying Sunfire, or start converting the truck to a daily driver. I obviously chose the truck, as parts are cheaper, easier to get, and much easier to install. The only down side to the truck is that it only gets about 12mpg. I can live with it though, as I would rather not die when my Sunfire spins out of control at 30mph in the rain.

Anyway, I put new wipers, headlights, Rain-X washer fluid, oil and filter, Lucas Oil Treatment, and an octane booster in the truck, as well as cleaning and fog-proofing all glass for less than the price of two used tires for the Sunfire.

I'm very glad I did all that when I did, because we got hit with horrible thunderstorms for the rest of the night on date night with the lady. I couldn't imagine how dangerous it would have been to take the Sunfire that night. My truck is now almost completely ready for long term daily driving, even in the worst of storms. The big chunky tires stick to the road like a gecko to glass, and the pre-air conditioning vents make for a very comfortable ride, even with all windows up. I no longer fear for my life when it starts to rain.

This morning, around 1:00am EST, on my way home from work, my truck started bogging down, then stalled for the first time since I have owned it. It will bog down at random, but I have not been able to find out why until this morning. A quick search of the symptoms hinted at a fuel blockage somewhere in the system. Thinking about it, that made sense, so I checked everything out. I got the truck started again, then pinched off the fuel line and let it die: exactly the same as when it shut down while driving.

It had started back up and ran until I did that, so that told me the fuel pump was working at least well enough to idle the engine. I thought about it more, and though that the fuel pickup inside the gas tank may be clogged. I tried to drive away again, but it still bogged down...

I switched gas tanks(this thing has two 16 gallon tanks to feed the old 7.4L Big Block Chevy engine, which it needed at 6MPG) over to the driver side and it was perfectly fine. Almost out of gas, and completely out of money, I switched back to the passenger tank, which is full, and hoped for the best: It was perfectly fine for the remaining 30 minute drive home. I thought about every time it bogged down, and realized it either seemed to happen at random, or when stopped for a while. This leads me to believe that there is some debris floating around in at least one of the tanks, that is clogging things up and cutting off fuel flow to the engine. I will test this theory when it happens again by switching tanks as soon as it happens and seeing if it runs better. If so, then I have a single dirty tank, or clogged line somewhere. If it still fails, then I have a problem with something common to both tanks: The fuel line to the pump, the pump itself, or maybe the mechanism that switches between the two gas tanks.

This has been a huge issue for a while as it causes the engine to lose so much power that I may be unable to maintain even 20mph at times. I may have finally figure out the cause of the most serious issue my truck has, and know how to fix it. In order to fix it though, I may have to remove the bed of my truck, which requres buying lunch for a few buddies to lift it. At that point, I might as well replace the bed mounts and bolts, as well as any gas tank mounting hardware that may need replaced. I'm quite glad this happened, because it finally gave me the lead I was looking for.

Having been very busy lately, I have had very little time to work on any of my projects. Being sick today, and stuck inside, I have decided to do quite a bit of research and post some updates to my projects.

So far, I have taken 67 [pictures of my truck, saved them all to my Google Drive, and posted a few up on here. The background image was taken today from the driver seat of my truck.

I also added as much as I can think of to my list of things to do, and crossed off a few of them that have already been done.

Adding a few more logs, then switching over to another project, or more truck research.

I bought the 1406 carb new in 2012 for use on a 1989 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Never used it on that, so i threw it on my truck. Has run like crap since. I finally found out why: That carb is tuned for fuel economy only, which leaves it running a super lean fuel to air ratio. It has no top end power and stumbles when you punch it. I have had it tuned before with no luck. Today I put Lucas oil treatment in the oil, which brought oil pressure up 10psi then adjust the fuel accelerator pump thing, and put an octane booster in the gas just to see what happened. The octane booster seems to have helped a little, but adjusting the fuel pump on the carb helped it alot. I will be following this guide asap.

1406 Tuning Guide