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I've been driving this thing around for the last two days... Adding to the list:

Smokes like a diesel rolling coal anytime I coast to a stop
TCC not working
Spark is blowing out above 30% throttle as soon a boost builds.

But hey, the bluetooth radio works great, and it makes sweet turbo noises!

I figured out which 4x4 hub isn't working. The mechanism that is supposed to push the locking gear out isn't working at all on the one hub, the other is fine. I'm going to pull it apart and see if I can fix it. I had a few spares somewhere at one point, but I can't find them now. Otherwise I'd just replace it.

I fixed the misfire finally. It pulls pretty good now, far better than the 455 had done before. Also sorted out the trailer harness. Still working on the TCC lock situation. Looks like it's not getting power to the vac switch, the last stop before it goes to the trans, and I lost my wiring diagram for the custom circuit already.

MattStrike wrote:I fixed the misfire finally. It pulls pretty good now, far better than the 455 had done before. Also sorted out the trailer harness. Still working on the TCC lock situation. Looks like it's not getting power to the vac switch, the last stop before it goes to the trans, and I lost my wiring diagram for the custom circuit already.

Have you tried running it vacuum only with a vacuum block? just so that less components to fail.

I'm on the fence right now about the transmission that's in there anyway. There were a few little things about how everything works together that I just don't like.

I had to change from a shift linkage to a cable shifter. Not a huge problem, except that in doing so the resulting change in lever arms between the column and the trans means that my gear indicator, which I had to go out of my way to also replace, doesn't line up anymore. Also, the amount of rotation on the shifter shaft is different, so my neutral safety switch only lines up right in park - and the reverse lights illuminate in D.

The TCC is combination 4x4, vac, brake, and internal pressure switch controlled. I'm using the good ol' series 2 PCM, and I'd much rather have the PCM control it. Which leads me to the 'I need a different transmission' conclusion. I'm thinking about grabbing a much newer 4l65e, assuming of course I can find one with the ouput shaft to match the transfer case I have - or grab a complete transmission and transfer case from a suburban (np241 passenger drop, should bolt right into my truck). Of course, there's always the NV4500 as well, the 5-speed manual beast, which means I don't need any of the aforementioned crap...

With the local u-pull having sales on transmissions ($50 each) it really stacks the deck against screwing around with the 700r4 for this build. But I'm going to wait until I get the tune and some other things dialed in before I make that decision.

Random, hey I tried to do a pull, but then somebody decided to run the light and I had to lift, video:
https://i.imgur.com/JwKBDYc.mp4

Also, ignore the 4x4 auto hub clicking noises...

Crazy Question....But what happened to the Olds 455?? Is it rebuildable?

The original 350 - long gone, probably turned into body panels for a prius.
The olds 455- electric motors in 6 Teslas, and the rest went to a nuclear fuel rod.
The first Buick 455 - some dude bought it for a rebuild
The second Buick 455 - collecting dust in my garage

Hey guys, it's been a while since I talked about muh truck. I've been busy with tractors and such lol.

But I'm going through some of the stuff on this that prevents me from using it regularly.

First up, the wipers. Turns out, after much research and testing, I have to use the original switch in order for the pulse module to function. Not a huge issue, but I get to remove and tear into the steering column to replace it. And of course, they aren't cheap...

Next, went through the entire TCC circuit. I've verified the issue is inside the trans. Either the wires aren't connected properly, one or more switches are bad, or worst case scenario my custom TCC is not a locking unit. I'm going to have to drain the trans and drop the pan to find out.

I'm in the process of adding the power inverter as well. Putting it behind the passenger seat - having the seats adjustable was once again a lifesaver in terms of making room to work! Using more of my fancy 4 gauge wire to power the 1100w beast. Another use for my dual alternators: powering the electric chain saw so I can continue my yard cleanup projects.

I added a 500a relay to the second battery. The heavy load items (winch, inverter, etc.) will run off the second battery, then I can start the truck to re-charge as needed.

I also decided to cleanup the appearance of one of my pretzels - I used some scrap I had on hand for this little project. Started out with what used to be an aluminum light pole, and made a new washer fluid tank. Capacity is 1 gallon at the moment, might increase that later. I am having a lot of fun with my new TIG electrodes... Local welding shop recommended something different than what I normally use and while I got some good welds out of them in some areas, it seems like they aren't able to cope with being air cooled (my torch is not water cooled):






I'll be working on cleaning up the new starter motor today and probably the TCC issue, then the right turbo oil leak, then back to the steering column/wiper switch, etc...

More to come, I need to use my truck for some real truck stuff and want to finish these little annoying driveability issues.

The 500a solenoid:


plumbing for the washer tank, and the new wires and fuse for the inverter:


Looks a lot better now I think, this is what it looked like before...


I pulled the temperamental '93 gear reduction starter motor, and found a surprise. The starter cable, which was routed along the frame rail, was apparently too close to the wrapped headers and the heat made the wire shielding crack. This was due to the angle it points away from the starter at and the bend it takes to route it away from the the manifold. I fixed it with some adhesive lined heat shrink and some heat reflective tape, and of course routed it a little differently to get it as far away from the header as possible - which I could do with the new starter as the stud was oriented differently.


I'm glad I ended up with the series 2 gear reduction starter, it's even smaller size gives more clearance to the turbskie.

In the effort of being lazy, I'll upload some photos later.

Progress:
-rebuilt the passenger side turbo.

Easy to say, aside from heavy deposits on the hot side I didn't see anything plugged up in the oil drain so who knows. The issue was definitely a hot side oil leak. Cold side was fine, hot side smelled really strong of burnt oil. Soaked the CHRA overnight in the parts cleaner just in case, in addition to all the new seals and bearings and stuff.

-TCC operation

Turns out I have a weird TCC wiring setup that I don't really care to figure out, because the way I wanted to used it doesn't apply . Sounds like the temp switch in the trans I have is normally open, and closes at some high temp cutout. The way it's wired makes no sense at all. The trans would have to both overheat and be in 4th gear for the TCC to lock if the PCM failed, but otherwise PCM controlled it I think. Anyhow, I bypassed the temp switch because it's normally open instead of normally closed which is why from an electrical standpoint it wasn't working. So unless the TCC doesn't have lockup now it should work. Everything else tested fine, it was the temp switch I expected to be normally closed that wasn't.

-Fixed the gear indicator.

Dumbest thing I ever had to fix though. Here's the skinny - I have the H-body column in it to be able to use the shift cable instead of the garbage shift linkage. I don't recall what trans lever I used, probably because I had the '86 column I copied the '86 lever, whatever, it's probably in this thread somewhere, had to flip the ball stud to make it work. Well, it was too short, but the fix was to make the trans shift lever longer, the exact same length as the 4t65e trans shift lever. Now, all the gears line up, but I can't pull the lever far enough to get manual 1. *dang* shift cable travel is too short. At least the gear indicator lines up perfectly.

But that leads to the next situation. The NSS I have thinks that park is park, but that drive is reverse. the above paragraph has established that the rotation from park to 2 on an 86 h body is off just slightly from the rotation from the original park to 1 - so why are my reverse lights on when I'm in drive? I'll have to grab a 4L60e NSS to try out I guess.

All that's left before the next wave of photo and projects is the wiper switch, fixing something I don't like about the steering column, I think.

Looks like the turbo rebuilt kit has worked out - at least initially. No more smoke!

Got a lot of stuff squared away today. I'll probably have to break down and buy a new wiper switch for this though, and maybe a new wiper motor. Used switch I grabbed seems to work, but wipers just stop when turned off and the pulse is still not working. I'll have to dig into it more, but for the moment I have low and high wipers again.

I finally got TCC lockup to happen. But it happens whenever +12v is applied in 2,3,4 to the TCC circuit. I need to check the vac switch again, it's working, but the times when it's getting vacuum are wrong. I put a pressure limiting valve (or so I thought) on it so boost pressure doesn't blow it apart internally, but what looks to be happening is that it's acting like a one-way valve instead, pulling and holding vacuum at the switch at all times.

Finally mostly mounted the boost gauge, and added the tach.

Took the truck for a drive this weekend. 360 miles round trip, towing a trailer the whole way.

I'll consider this the first real shakedown run since the swap was finished. I wanted to see how it would do, what works and what doesn't.

This was my view for most of the trip:


I don't know how accurate that tachometer is, but I'll get to that. First, the thing I was most worried about, was how it would handle cruising. In the picture I'm pulling the empty dual-axle trailer, probably around 2000lbs empty, speedometer reads 72 but it's about 5mph higher that actual. On flat ground it cruised along right below 1psi. Leaving the TCC locked, as you climb a hill it would build up to 2-3 before downshifting to 3rd. Why? Because the 700-r4 I have is from a 1500 truck and used a computer to control lockup. So the transmission valve body is setup to always be locked as long as there is a complete circuit. If there's power supplied in 4th, the 4th switch ground internally to lock the TCC. This leads to a bunch of annoying driveability issues, especially when towing... But, it was working at least, and the 'complete circuit' for 2nd and 3rd is externally controlled by the vac manifold switch. Running out to the west side of the state it got 17.2mpg. I'm actually surprised by that.

But lesson #1 is that if I stay with the 700-r4, I need a controller for the TCC. For now I'll simply re-wire it with a switch, killing the +12v side when I want it to unlock in 4th. That alone would have been the difference that prevented the need to downshift. In 3rd, the difference between locked and unlocked is about 800rpm and the full boost. Downshifting to 3rd with it locked worked fine as well, but that was at times too much power - so much that I'd have to lift the throttle to compensate at which point the transmission went "OK, cool, time to upshift into 4th again!"

Lesson #2: The EPS I ended up with works - but the steering feel is garbage. It's going. I'm most likely going to use the hybrid electric/hydraulic system (stock power steering gear, electric fluid pump). Last resort is go back to belt driven pump - which leads to lesson #3: No A/C sucks, and if I'm considering adding belt path stuff then might as well add A/C

Lesson #4: Front and rear main oil seals are still leaking a bit. It was enough to get some oil smudges on things, and probably a little bit of smelly.

Otherwise I made the first leg of the trip fine, and after fighting with the thing I went out there for, we eventually ended up with this:


4500# of van, 2500# of trailer, give or take. And yes, it pulled it just fine:


Up to this point I had never tested the electric brakes, and because I couldn't find an adapter to go from the 7-blade connector to the 7- round pin connector I had to improvise the wiring. Trailer had no brakes, and my truck weighs about 5200 with me in it. So I messed with the adapter I had to add the trailer brake wire. Was happy to find that the hydraulically activated module worked! Had to adjust the sensitivity to bias the brakes to the trailer a bit, but that made a huge difference. But the heavier load was putting more load on the motor, and of course it started blowing out the spark under load and popping in the exhaust. There is nothing more frustrating that knowing you have the power to pull something, but having to go easy on it because of an ignition issue...

That's when *shoot* hit the fan. Stopped for lunch, and as I pulled into the parking spot the trans sprung a leak. Turns out the hood safety latch was hitting the trans cooler every time I hit a bump. Eventually punched through. So I had to cut the hard lines and bypass it. At that point I decided that with the way the TCC was working, the ignition issue, and how far behind schedule I was I needed to switch trailers with my brother. I would tow his boat (aroudn 3000#) to reduce the amount of stress and hopefully prevent any further issues. Then on our first gas stop, where I figured all the trans fluid had burned away by then, it was still smoking. Smelled like oil. Ended up having to add a quart here, and finding that I now had a new oil leak! This time it's on the outside of the drivers side turbo (best guess). It was a steady drip, not enough to be a problem for the trip home, but enough that it would lose about 1/2 a quart over 180 miles. But it was leaking down into the turbo blanket as well, so it was getting smokey at stops... and then of course the exhaust started leaking between one or both of the turbos and the engine. And then the tach lost the ICM signal. And then it started to rain and my wiper switch broke and has only low and off. But I managed to pull off 16.5mpg still.

All in all, I was getting really annoyed by this point lol. How the heck are new oil lines leaking on the turbo? Anyhow, made it home without too many other issues beyond being cautious and overly aware of every single creaking noise...

I didn't get stranded anywhere, the breakdowns were simple issues and easily fixed, and I have my list...

TCC control strategy - needs to allow 1-2 psi of boost for light grades/heavy towing, unlock for medium grades to allow boost to build without downshifting.
EPS - screw the inline EPS setup. Probably OK for a garden tractor but too numb feeling. Makes me want to test drive the car it came from, I bet it feels like the same crap. Going to try the factory power steering gear with an electric pump.
Mains oil seal leaks - I'm guessing that it's taking some pressure in the crankcase to over-ride the check valves. Leaking here was minor, rear main is worse than front main.
Fix trans cooler
ICM/plugs - tach signal and spark blowout.
Hardline the turbo oil feeds.
Locking header/turbo flange bolts
Finish exhaust

Since the weather has been cold, I've been working on things I can do indoors, and decided to tackle the TCC control.

I started out with a PICAXE micro controller I had bought for some other project a while ago and never had a chance to do (my 86 lesabre). So I decided to give it a shot as a TCC controller. If you don't know what a PICAXE is, look it up. Its basically a simple to use controller with a preloaded software that can run a basic code. Not unlike the microcontroller you'd find in a microwave or washing machine. There was a bit of learning curve to it to understand how it works and compatible inputs and outputs. But i managed to write a program that will lock the TCC under specific conditions. Inputs include engine temp, vss, tps, and map sensors. Vss was the difficult one, as the sensor generates an AC signal and has limited info available. I ended up deciding to use the pcm output for this. The pcm internally grounds the speed output wire at a rate of 4k ppm. Since it's not being used at all on the truck, I'd have to use a pull-up circuit to convert it to a useable signal. I'll use a relay to provide power to the tcc solenoid, the controller will trigger the relay.



Then I designed a prototype circuit board to house it.


after some trial and error i managed to succesfully transfer it to a copper clad board






and etched it




next up is drilling holes then finishing the board. its not perfect, but will work to prove everything out. Once I know its working the plan is to send the files out to a pcb shop to get some professionally built.

That's pretty cool.

I looked into using a PIC to control the IVT solenoids on a VQ35 swap way back when never went through with it.

Amazing Matt. Temps are slowly going up with more daylight. We can get to working outside soon.

I've put this off for far too long...



Finishing up the exhaust this weekend, since I'm planning to road trip this somewhat soon again.

I might have to invest in a belt driven vacuum pump for the PCV system. Earlier this year I tried to adjust the PCV check valves for the catch can but as of today it looks like there's still an oil leak somewhere above the starter motor (starter motor heat wrap is absolutely soaked in oil). The only thing above it is the oil pan gasket. No oil leaks on the turbo oil supply lines at all, but there's a leak path from whatever is leaking on the starter to the turbo blanket on that side.

One issue I'm fighting here is bolts coming loose on the turbo flanges and the wastegate flanges. If they come loose again, I'm scrapping a bunch of this crap and high-mounting the turbos.

I'm still working on the TCC controller as well, and now that I have a resin style 3d printer I'm re-designing the housing for the circuit I designed earlier.

I believe I was running a ribbed pulley ford powerstroke vac pump on my setup way back when. I lost info on it from Bonnevillepro but on here I mentioned hitting 8-14"Hg. I think anything after 15" on other platforms people flip the crank seals.

It'll be a PITA but you could lock wire the turbo bolts for almost no money.

I got the exhaust finished today, finally! Mid-project picture:


I'll have to get an updated exhaust/ride along video, it's a completely different experience now.

The noises it makes now...