With the cover for the Monte's radiator air duct completed and set in place by way of both storing it and keeping it from getting dinged, my attention turned back to the Indian Chief Girder front forks that I had been working on during the winter.
What I had been waiting for finally appeared HOT WEATHER!!!
.
Got the forks out of the basement, converted my portable vise to a jig to support the forks and had at 'er. Sanding, priming, shot, resand, tack rag, reprime in red this time, sand the red, second coat, check surface, shoot the color; Red, of course, let it flash and cure for a day, check the shot, color sand, second color coat, Clear coat. Discover damage to the fist clear coat shot due to the fixture scritching the existing finish. Feather that out, plus a few other owwies that all-of-a-sudden arose to aggravate me, tack that, reprime, and reshoot the color for that specific area only. Clear coat, clear coat, clear coat. Walk away and let it dry.
Adapted my wheel truing stand to support the fork upper pivot tube using one of the truing shafts. Dismounted the spot lights from their stand and brought the stand in to support the other end; slipped a section of thread rod into the axle clamps and ran on some nuts to each end to keep it from trying to escape. Brought the fork in from the shop and set it on the truing stand to finish drying, Thinking as many as two or more weeks before I consider returning it back to its trees and going ahead with the front end re-assembly. That finally done................
Back to the van. Did the annual summer chassis grease job and checked the prop shaft cross bearing retainer cap screws for tight. Put the new jack with its custom lift spacer under the front end and lifted the van high enough to get the jack stands out; put the van on the ground!!
Went for a first start, primed the oil system and BUPKUS!!!! Not even a whisper of a click. Battery charger alleged that it had done its job and the battery was ready to boogie. Being chronically suspicious by nature, I phoned the Napa shop, found that they had AGM compatible solid state chargers on deal, and bought one. That unit told me that the battery was 95% percent charged and only took about 10 minutes to finish that job. Twist of the key, and??? STILL BUPKUS!!!
Okay, no hair available to tear so start checking the wiring. No rats, mice, coons, snakes, or rabbits to blame so, broken connections, loose wire ends, WTF?? Get out my self propelled continuity tester, hook it up, and it makes all kinds of good noises so not the subsystems.
Tester says that I have power on the fat 3/8ths stud on the solenoid, and this is a van so the starter can be got at without having to slither under the vehicle and dig around, so a fast trip to the tool box and back with the longest shank cabinet point screw driver that I have, and jump the main wire to the solenoid and RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr; it's Not the starter. Only thing left to consider is the neutral safety switch. Which is located on the steering outer jacket underneath the dash but not so hard to get at, which was good because it was not plugged in!!! HUH?!?!
Only thing I can think of is that I unplugged it when I was trying to track and identify the colors of the wires for the key switch and did not remember to plug it back in or was planning on revisiting that location for further digging around and got side-tracked (lot of that going around in my world recently) I had already taken a poke at it a bit earlier and felt that it was hooked up but evidently it had disagreed with me and wanted to be attached correctly. it is a two tab connection so both tabs have to be mated to the socket or no joy. Snap it into place, again, and RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr; Well, All Right!!!
Still took a bit more coaxing before it elected to fire. Not surprising as the float bowls were empty and the fuel pump needed to catch up which took a minute. The other aspect is that the choke is set soft and it is so warm that any encouragement of the carb with the wha-wha pedal can kick the choke off and annoy the engine into being finicky to fire and idle. But it did.
Still need to fire it again and check the gears since I did drop the pan and change both it and the oil out for new. Also have to check the stick to make sure that the pan is full' I may have to slightly lift the nose of the van up an inch or four to get level to get and accurate check on the pan. Perils of being raked,nose down.
Only downer at this point is that I did not manage to get the A/FR gauge up and running. The gauge is in and so is the harness for the O-2 sensor but Innovate insists on a clean full power supply direct from the ignition switch which would be a no brainer if I had an 84-86 steering column assembly that has the ignition switch on the mast instead of in the dash. 38 year old steering columns for vintage vans are high on the local unobtanium list and even scarce out on the peripheries so that did not help matters any. That version of the plan would have included a complete steering column change to the newer? version which would have given me open access to the key switch. Thing about the newer column is that they have a greater mast diameter which could have interferred with the column cradle and securing clamp. So no new column, no cruise, no intermittent wiper; for now. The last chapter of that saga has yet to be written.
Pictures?? neh, could be.............................
Nick
What I had been waiting for finally appeared HOT WEATHER!!!
.Got the forks out of the basement, converted my portable vise to a jig to support the forks and had at 'er. Sanding, priming, shot, resand, tack rag, reprime in red this time, sand the red, second coat, check surface, shoot the color; Red, of course, let it flash and cure for a day, check the shot, color sand, second color coat, Clear coat. Discover damage to the fist clear coat shot due to the fixture scritching the existing finish. Feather that out, plus a few other owwies that all-of-a-sudden arose to aggravate me, tack that, reprime, and reshoot the color for that specific area only. Clear coat, clear coat, clear coat. Walk away and let it dry.
Adapted my wheel truing stand to support the fork upper pivot tube using one of the truing shafts. Dismounted the spot lights from their stand and brought the stand in to support the other end; slipped a section of thread rod into the axle clamps and ran on some nuts to each end to keep it from trying to escape. Brought the fork in from the shop and set it on the truing stand to finish drying, Thinking as many as two or more weeks before I consider returning it back to its trees and going ahead with the front end re-assembly. That finally done................
Back to the van. Did the annual summer chassis grease job and checked the prop shaft cross bearing retainer cap screws for tight. Put the new jack with its custom lift spacer under the front end and lifted the van high enough to get the jack stands out; put the van on the ground!!
Went for a first start, primed the oil system and BUPKUS!!!! Not even a whisper of a click. Battery charger alleged that it had done its job and the battery was ready to boogie. Being chronically suspicious by nature, I phoned the Napa shop, found that they had AGM compatible solid state chargers on deal, and bought one. That unit told me that the battery was 95% percent charged and only took about 10 minutes to finish that job. Twist of the key, and??? STILL BUPKUS!!!
Okay, no hair available to tear so start checking the wiring. No rats, mice, coons, snakes, or rabbits to blame so, broken connections, loose wire ends, WTF?? Get out my self propelled continuity tester, hook it up, and it makes all kinds of good noises so not the subsystems.
Tester says that I have power on the fat 3/8ths stud on the solenoid, and this is a van so the starter can be got at without having to slither under the vehicle and dig around, so a fast trip to the tool box and back with the longest shank cabinet point screw driver that I have, and jump the main wire to the solenoid and RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr; it's Not the starter. Only thing left to consider is the neutral safety switch. Which is located on the steering outer jacket underneath the dash but not so hard to get at, which was good because it was not plugged in!!! HUH?!?!
Only thing I can think of is that I unplugged it when I was trying to track and identify the colors of the wires for the key switch and did not remember to plug it back in or was planning on revisiting that location for further digging around and got side-tracked (lot of that going around in my world recently) I had already taken a poke at it a bit earlier and felt that it was hooked up but evidently it had disagreed with me and wanted to be attached correctly. it is a two tab connection so both tabs have to be mated to the socket or no joy. Snap it into place, again, and RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr, RRRR-rrr; Well, All Right!!!
Still took a bit more coaxing before it elected to fire. Not surprising as the float bowls were empty and the fuel pump needed to catch up which took a minute. The other aspect is that the choke is set soft and it is so warm that any encouragement of the carb with the wha-wha pedal can kick the choke off and annoy the engine into being finicky to fire and idle. But it did.
Still need to fire it again and check the gears since I did drop the pan and change both it and the oil out for new. Also have to check the stick to make sure that the pan is full' I may have to slightly lift the nose of the van up an inch or four to get level to get and accurate check on the pan. Perils of being raked,nose down.
Only downer at this point is that I did not manage to get the A/FR gauge up and running. The gauge is in and so is the harness for the O-2 sensor but Innovate insists on a clean full power supply direct from the ignition switch which would be a no brainer if I had an 84-86 steering column assembly that has the ignition switch on the mast instead of in the dash. 38 year old steering columns for vintage vans are high on the local unobtanium list and even scarce out on the peripheries so that did not help matters any. That version of the plan would have included a complete steering column change to the newer? version which would have given me open access to the key switch. Thing about the newer column is that they have a greater mast diameter which could have interferred with the column cradle and securing clamp. So no new column, no cruise, no intermittent wiper; for now. The last chapter of that saga has yet to be written.
Pictures?? neh, could be.............................
Nick
Last edited:
