ChrisK
Member
So in 2018 I parked my nearly complete T-Bucket in the corner of my garage. Work and house projects took my free time away. This past spring I resumed work on it knowing I had a few issues that needed to be ironed out. The first problem was a spongy brake pedal. I have my master cylinder under my seat and know it was bench bled and system bled properly but still felt too soft. Of course I tried all the usual suspects and really couldn't find anything wrong. Finally I discovered the rod itself was bending
from the pedal to the M/C, beefed that sucker up and on to the next problem.
I was noticing my temp gauge was reading above 200. Next 250 degrees and it was pegged. When I built the car I bought an electric fan, but for simplicities sake I installed a flex fan off the water pump snout. Noticed the bottom of the radiator was warm and the fan was a little far from the fins, so I wired up the electric fan(seems 95% of T-Buckets run an electric fan) and ditched the flex fan. Now the radiator was cool at the bottom but still the engine ran at 250. At 250 the motor would be smoking hot, but it didn't feel THAT hot. Checked timing and it was fine. Then I checked the sender, Maybe I cranked it in too tight and cracked it. Checked it with the wire disconnected with an ohm meter. 680 ohms. Checked the Autometer website and the chart they provided said that equals about 125 degrees. So I double checked the wiring and got back to the gauge. Still good. I wired all my gauges up to spade connectors on the back of the gauges. However there is a stud that runs out of the back of the gauge. The other two studs that ran out had nuts on them but the nut was missing on the sender wire stud. I took my jumper and made a good connection with the stud and the strap that holds the spade connector and looked at the gauge-it showed 120 degrees. So a two cent nut! lol. I remember seeing one on the carpet when I was wiring it a couple summers ago but had no idea where it came from. Good thing I kept it as its an M4 brass nut.
Next issue was the backfiring. Once the car warmed up it would start backfiring. I thought it had something to do with the overheating or the timing which by now was fixed. Check the cap-no cracks, the rotor, etc. -nothing. Figured my carb was leaning out, still not the problem. Check the plug wiring for the second time. Sure enough #5 and #7 were swapped. Problem solved.
Still have more things to do(or redo) but glad I can drive it..
from the pedal to the M/C, beefed that sucker up and on to the next problem.
I was noticing my temp gauge was reading above 200. Next 250 degrees and it was pegged. When I built the car I bought an electric fan, but for simplicities sake I installed a flex fan off the water pump snout. Noticed the bottom of the radiator was warm and the fan was a little far from the fins, so I wired up the electric fan(seems 95% of T-Buckets run an electric fan) and ditched the flex fan. Now the radiator was cool at the bottom but still the engine ran at 250. At 250 the motor would be smoking hot, but it didn't feel THAT hot. Checked timing and it was fine. Then I checked the sender, Maybe I cranked it in too tight and cracked it. Checked it with the wire disconnected with an ohm meter. 680 ohms. Checked the Autometer website and the chart they provided said that equals about 125 degrees. So I double checked the wiring and got back to the gauge. Still good. I wired all my gauges up to spade connectors on the back of the gauges. However there is a stud that runs out of the back of the gauge. The other two studs that ran out had nuts on them but the nut was missing on the sender wire stud. I took my jumper and made a good connection with the stud and the strap that holds the spade connector and looked at the gauge-it showed 120 degrees. So a two cent nut! lol. I remember seeing one on the carpet when I was wiring it a couple summers ago but had no idea where it came from. Good thing I kept it as its an M4 brass nut.
Next issue was the backfiring. Once the car warmed up it would start backfiring. I thought it had something to do with the overheating or the timing which by now was fixed. Check the cap-no cracks, the rotor, etc. -nothing. Figured my carb was leaning out, still not the problem. Check the plug wiring for the second time. Sure enough #5 and #7 were swapped. Problem solved.
Still have more things to do(or redo) but glad I can drive it..
