It didn’t take me long this morning to figure out why I was having problems with the clear coat last night.  The clear coat was too thick for the sprayer, even with the reducer. So, I cut it a litter more, reducing it from 4:1 to 3.5:1.  That helped immensely.  So, I sprayed another layer of clear coat, which helped improve some of the areas I was most concerned about.

That said, I spotted a several areas on the fender from last night where the clear coat clogged and then let loose.  Fortunately, the spots are all on areas that go under the hood … whew!

This morning I spent a little more time figuring out the color problem.  After doing some research, I believe that I received Teal Green rather than Aqua Blue.  Putting the pictures I show in this post against the colors convinces me that it is Teal Green.  However, the seller of the paint is adament that I got the color I ordered. He claims the problem is that the internet colors aren’t accurate.  I think he’s full of shit.

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As I expected, painting was an adventure.  I started the day running around to get last minute items:  a cheap paint suit, new mask cartridges, and some other misc items.  Then, I chose the paint guns I wanted to use.  After the paint cup wouldn’t come off one of the guns I selected, I audibled to the paint gun I used to paint my last jeep (I was very happy I had the backup guns).

I wiped down the body and body parts, mixed my primer, and went to work.  At first the painting went well, but after a while, the gun started acting up a little.  And, of course, I managed to spot several spots that i somehow missed during the prepping process that needed either a little filler or a little sanding.

Once the primer was on, I got a little water and some 400 grit sand paper and gently ran over the primer, cleaning up the areas as I went.

Next was the paint.  I mixed the reducer and hardener with the paint and went to work.  I got the first pass done and was relatively happy.  I waited about half an hour dand went to work again.  As I was painting the grille, which was hanging against the wall, some gray primer blew off the plastic and landed right on the grille.  While I cussed the primer, I held the gun too long near the driver side turn light area.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell I’d done this until later (my light was kind of iffy by that point).  After the second coat, I grabbed a light and started walking around the body parts.  That’s when I started seeing a variety of spots I hadn’t gotten.  So, with a spotlight in one hand and a spray gun in the other, I circled all the parts for another round.

After letting the paint dry, I went to the clear coat.  By now, it was dark outside and my light wasn’t good at all.  I did my best to shoot anyway, but after spraying everything, I could see there were a variety of missed spots.  So, I decided to halt and pick back up in the morning when the light would be better.

The paint ended up being darker than I expected it would be.  But, it should look good.  The pictures here don’t really capture the color well.  There are definitely a few areas I sprayed a little too heavily, but it really isn’t worth it to me to sand them down and start over.  Hey, it’s  a jeep and I plan on scratching it and being rough on it.  I expect it will need painting in a few years anyway.

One of the smarter things I did was purchase a cheap fan and purchase a cheap heater filter.  I mounted (see pic to the right) the fan in the plastic to pull air out of the paint booth and then taped the filter in front of the fan to catch the paint.  Wow! The filter got much dirtier than I thought it would.

I had hoped to complete painting this weekend, however sore ribs from a hit I took playing basketball slowed me down a bit.  Today, I felt a little better, so I spent the day putting together a paint booth and taping off the body.  It’s hardly state of the art or a monument to high quality design, but it will get the job done.

My friend Lary dropped by yesterday with a larger compressor and an assortment of paint guns for me to use.  He was the person who suggested a website from which to buy some paint, but rather than the Urethane he intended for me to get, I ended up with an Acyrlic Enamel.  When he discovered what I had bought, he was very concerned, as he felt it’s a more difficult paint with which to work, especially with the paint being a metallic paint.  So, the two of us hovered over the various cans and he provided me many different tips on working with the paint, suggesting which paint guns to use and more.

My next step is to make a run to home depot to get one more sheet of plastic for the floor.  Then, I’ll grab some degreaser and do one final clean up of the body parts.

Below are some pics of the paint booth:

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Brian sent me a great suggestion about my transmission gauge strategy.  As you might remember, the style of gauges I purchased didn’t offer a transmission temperature gauge, so I decided I could use a water temperature gauge.  So, my next question was how to do it?  It was Brian’s suggestion to use a simple ‘T’ system.  I liked the idea, so I hit Home Depot and $17 later I had what I needed.

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I got a question from a reader about the wiring harness I used.  After doing some research, I came to the conclusion that the harness I bought is probably being closed out, hence the drop in price.  After doing the research, here’s what I learned.

KICKZ Harness (this is what I received in the mail):
http://www.thehoffmangroup.com/autoloc/details.lasso?itemid=KICKZ is a 15 fuse 38 terminal 22 circuit wiring harness.  This is what I received.  The MSRP is $388.70, you can purchase it from the Hoffman Group for $299 (web special price), you can purchase it through ez2wire (which appears to be nothing more than a pass through marketing group) for $219 regularly, and I got it via auction from ez2wire for $143 (plus shipping).  So, that’s confusing!  The KICKZ is definitely a barebones choice (no extra switches for example).

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No, the painting didn’t take place this weekend.  I’m still waiting to receive my paint …

One purchase I did make yesterday was some gauges.  I decided to go with Equus gauges, 8200 performance series.  Schucks had this set of gauges for only $39.99 (not on sale), so that saved me $35 on gauges that were already reasonably priced.  So far, I’ve got a speedometer, oil pressure, voltage meter, water temperature and fuel gauge.  The only downside is that they don’t make a transmission temp gauge.  I decided that if I really want a temp gauge on the transmission fluid, then I think I can cheaply adapt a water temp gauge to measure the temp of the fluid as it flows from the tranny to the tranny cooler.  I simply need to create a box that the fluid flows through into which I can screw the temp sensor (there seems to be no default place to put a temp gauge into a TH350).

Hurray!  My wiring harness arrived today, taking only 3 days to get here.  I pulled the harness out of the package and checked out the wiring.  It looks like the wiring is heavy duty enough for my needs.  The lengths appear reasonable and everything looks organized.

Painting update:  I just got an email that my paint has finally shipped.  I suspect that, unless it arrives by saturday, I’ll be delaying the painting I hoped to do this weekend.  I’ve got the hood, fenders and grille ready for paint.  The body is about 90% ready.  Everything should be ready by tomorrow.

You can learn more about this harness here

How to structure the Oil Pump in a buick v6 can be a bit of challenge if you read various web pages.  Should you use a high volume oil pump or not (the high volume oil pump is simply larger gears and a spacer to accommodate those gears)?  On the 225 v6 the general answer seems to be ‘no’ unless you drill out the oil holes for the middle two main bearing holes (these are smaller than the outer ones according to what I’ve read).

The 1980 and 1981 3.8L v6 engines that I have both came with the high volume pumps.  After doing research, I couldn’t get a clear answer on how good these pumps were for these later model engines.  So, I turned to TA Performance to see if I could get an answer.  They said using the high volume pump was fine, but recommended I use a variable pressure controller (in the pic above, you can see the old spring and nut sitting in front of the new double-nut & spring that’s already installed) and a hardened steel plate that sits underneath the gears to reduce wear (seen in the pic to the right).

I installed everything, but discovered that the gears are too tight, so they don’t spin properly (you can test this by taking out the distributor, sticking a screwdriver into the oil pump drive gear, and turning).  Therefore, I’m ordering a set of shims from TA Performance to fix the problem.

V6 Links

• Turbo V6 Build
• Buick 231 Thread
• Buick v6 at Wikipedia
• Buick v6 Oil Pump Rebuild from the early cj-5 site
• A different v6 oil pump .. the Gerotor Oil Pump
• TA Performance

Small wins continue to push Gus forward.  This weekend I finished hooking up the transmission lines to the transmission cooler.  It’s a good think I pulled the lines apart and double checked them as one had a crack near the entry to the th350.  A quick stop at Andy’s Supply in Boise and the crack was taken out and the line repaired (Boy, do they give great service!).

My radiator hoses were a challenge.  I stopped in at my local Schucks and wandered back to their radiator hose area.  After seeing that none of their hoses would work, I finally selected two that I could cut, bridge and fit.  After cutting the hoses and bridging both radiator hoses (inlet and outlet) with a metal tube, I finally got a fit I can live with — however, it’s not a solution I’m thrilled about.

This is one of those situations I’m gonna let digest for a few days while I tackle some work projects and deal with replacing the waterpump on my 540i (which over the last month has seen the thermostat go bad [$100], the alternating belt break [$25], and the waterpump go [$150] — each requiring an online purchase and a week wait).

I’ve been a little side tracked from Gus due to a recent neighbor’s problem with a mail box — her son hit another neighbor’s mail box with her car, damaging the mail box (it’s actually two mailboxes and paper boxes that sit on a single pole).  By now, the whole neighbor knows me as the ‘guy with a jeep’; so, it was only a matter of time before it was my welder to the rescue (ok, it was a bit more complicated than that).

Now, back on track, I’ve made some progress on some trivial details.

Oil Filtering System: When I bought my V6, the seller included an external dual oil filter system.  I decided to install the system because (1) I would increase the available oil in the system, (2) having the filters external of the engine would reduce engine oil temperatures, and (3) having two oil filters would help with the engine oil temperatures even more.  Since I’m of the opinion that my last engine blew up due to oiling problems (though that was a much older 225 engine), I’m hoping this helps stalls potential problems.  I’ve also been on the phone with TAPerformance and they suggested the use of a specific pressure spring for use in buick engines with high pressure attachments.

In the image, you can see how the oil filters will sit above the filter base and the hoses will wind down to the oil filter and the forward, passenger side of the engine.

Combination Valve: A Combination Valve is simply a proportioning valve and a pressure differential valve that is combined into one unit.  I got one from a junk yard early 90s cherokee.  I grabbed the valve, the valve bracket and some of the lines.  The lines between the valve and the master cylinder were long enough that I can attach the valve to the frame.  So, I welded a small bracket to the frame and now the valve bolts to the frame.

In the image, the valve looks very close to the front of the tranny, but fortunately, there’s plenty of room.

The first time I tried to fit the windshield onto the body last year, it was too narrow to fit correctly.  At that point, I put it aside to deal with later. 

Well, yesterday I decided that now was 'later'.   After playing around with the windshield some, I realized a couple things:  1) Someone had welded a crack on the driver's side leg, so I had to grind that down a bit to help it fit; 2) The cowl of the fiberglass body was not shaped quite right, so I would have to 'trim' some of the rubber gasket to get the window to fit (the rubber needs replacing anyway, so I hacked it for test purposes — as can be seen in the closeup photo below); 3) Even with the rubber hacked, the windshield likely won't fit as tight as I'd like, but I can live without a tight seal as I doubt I'd be driving in much rain anyway.  

With those decisions/concessions made, I had to choose where to drill the holes for the windshield mounts.  The key for me was to get the right tilt to the windshield angle, making sure the horizontal part of the legs looked pretty level and making sure that when the windshield was tipped forward that it would rest level (something that I couldn't do after mounting the windshield to my first jeep).  Finally, I had to make sure the windshield was back on the cowl far enough so that the windshield frame binders could be mounted to work correctly (I'm calling them binders here, but what do you call the two devices that pull down and secure the windshield?). 

Another task I tackled today was the brake pedal.  I took a brake pedal assembly out of a junk yard '90 cherokee.  Originally, I had the pedals all set up for a clutch and brake pedal.  After getting that setup complete, I changed my mind to go with an automatic. With that decision, I chose to get a wider automatic brake pedal.  Fortunately, the cherokee's also came with automatics (and hence automatic brake pedals) and they used the same brake/clutch assembly system, so all I had to get was a brake pedal and resize it.  So, if I do decide to switch to a stick/clutch, changing out the brake pedals and adding the hydraulic clutch mechanism (which I already have) will be a snap.

While building my last jeep, I remember the difficulty of making the radiator fit.  I believe I finally used a pinto radiator I had laying around and, fortunately, had a hood that allowed the radiator to sit just barely above the grille. With that experience in mind, I've been puzzling through how I wanted to deal with the radiator for a while. 

This weekend I finally got to installing my radiator and tranny cooler.  Selecting a radiator was the first challenge.  I had planned to use the radiator from the CJ-5 I bought last year, but I couldn't make it fit (I ended up selling that radiator).  Then I found a brand new $15 chev radiator that was pretty small off of craigslist.  I purchased that radiator, but it turned out that wouldn't fit either.  Finally, I broke down and purchased a 15" high and 26" wide Griffin Aluminum radiator from Doug Herbert (it was about $30 cheaper than Summit).  That was the shortest radiator they sold and it fit perfect … well, almost perfectly as I had to cut into my cross member to make a little more room.

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I went shopping at the junkyard today.  After a couple hours I came back with a steel fan and a flex fan (I couldn’t decided between them), a transmission cooler, some brake lines, and some other parts.  Yes, I had fun as usual and was only out $15.

I tried mounting the steel fan, but the bolt holes weren’t quite right.  I tried the flex fan and that will work, but I am worried about the integrity of it.  So, I decided to get online and learn more about fans.  One bit of info I ran across concerned horsepower vs. different types of fans.  Here’s the info from the site.

“Was reading the May 2000 ‘Car Craft’ and I came across something very interesting. They did a dyno test on a 496 horsepower chubby, {yes, I know — but we can still get some useful info on this…} and they tested different cooling fans to see what kind of drag each different type has.

Alternator, no fan: 496 hp
Black Magic electric fan:494 hp
Thermal clutch fan: 487 hp
Nonthermal clutch fan: 485 hp
Heavy duty thermal clutch fan: 476 hp
High performance flex fan: 476 hp
Stock four blade fan: 473 hp
Low profile flex fan: 466 hp
One piece plastic flex fan: 460 hp
OE replacement six blade rigid fan: 449 hp

They found the alternator alone, a 63 amp unit, only sucked 1 horsepower.”