Call me crazy - Ranchero's (again)

**SmithKid** · June 15th, 2019, 06:43 PM

Thanks Roger. I'm firming up my plans for it to take place the 29th & 30th. Would it be helpful for the pallet to come directly to my house from the coffee shop? Also, we could use my little truck if that would be a help.

**Luva65wagon** · June 17th, 2019, 12:10 PM

Gene,

Lets see what it is Kenny and Jeff receives, and when, and you and I can talk about it then.

I got out there and got it out of the ghetto garage and cleaned it up, but of course the crappy ethanol carburetor disease had hit and I'm going to have to pull the carb and rebuild it so it's able to go to your place and run well on the new engine. I've been starting it every month, but ethanol is not friendly to carburetors at all.

Font bowl:
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Rear bowl:
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**dhbfaster** · June 22nd, 2019, 07:22 PM

Roger, wow that looks like a lot of engine. Are you going to have to do anything to get the rear tires to stick to the ground?

**Gitanesteel** · June 24th, 2019, 05:56 AM

Originally Posted by Luva65wagon

Gene,

Lets see what it is Kenny and Jeff receives, and when, and you and I can talk about it then.

I got out there and got it out of the ghetto garage and cleaned it up, but of course the crappy ethanol carburetor disease had hit and I'm going to have to pull the carb and rebuild it so it's able to go to your place and run well on the new engine. I've been starting it every month, but ethanol is not friendly to carburetors at all.

Font bowl:
2019-06-15 15.50.36.jpg

Rear bowl:
2019-06-15 15.50.29.jpg

Are there places over there that sell ethanol free gas? We have one in town. It's worth the extra cost in my mind.

**dhbfaster** · June 24th, 2019, 02:50 PM

According to this website there are 314 places in Washington that sell ethanol free gas. I think I’ll try it next time.

https://www.pure-gas.org/index.jsp?stateprov=WA

**Jeff W** · June 27th, 2019, 06:31 PM

Kenny managed not to drop it!

**Luva65wagon** · June 27th, 2019, 11:50 PM

dhbfaster: According to this website there are 314 places in Washington that sell ethanol free gas. I think I’ll try it next time.

I don't see one place close by. I'm going to be trying this stuff to see if it works well. Reviews are really good and it might be about the same cost (ethanol free is more costly) in the long run.

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Jeff W: Kenny managed not to drop it!

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Gene and I are heading over to see Jeff and Kenny at Starbucks Headquarters tomorrow to get it, and I'll follow Gene back to his place with the Ranchero and will begin the process of doing the swap. Haven't seen anyone here raising their hands to come out and participate (which looks to be this weekend, the 29th), so should be interesting if it's just Gene and I. But it's a direct swap for the most part, so should go pretty smoothly.

**Jeff W** · June 28th, 2019, 01:26 PM

Whaaaaaaaaaaa?

**beerbelly** · June 28th, 2019, 02:12 PM

Hilarious! must be an inside joke for the rebuilder.

**SmithKid** · June 28th, 2019, 09:16 PM

Or possibly the "RECEIVER" of the shipment with a weird sense of humor. That little "defilement" made the entire pallet almost fall out of the transport vehicle.

**Luva65wagon** · June 28th, 2019, 09:28 PM

Originally Posted by beerbelly

Hilarious! must be an inside joke for the rebuilder.

Or something left in Jeff's hands too long.

Suffice it to say, the day didn't go well after this meet-up with Jeff (and his fine Starbucks history tour). As much as we shot for getting down south before traffic got too heavy - silly me to think there is ever a time anymore when traffic isn't too heavy. Maybe 2 AM. But not 2 PM. Made it to Pacific on SR-167 and I could no longer get the car to shift correctly. Like the clutch pedal throw was no longer correct. Scramble ensued to get off the freeway, trying another route, failed, ended up at Dairy Queen calling AAA and towed it to Gene's place. The bright side? The tow truck driver had to deal with the traffic.

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By the time we go everything to Gene's, off-loaded and uncrated the motor, staged the car in the garage... we were both done. So the day begins tomorrow again at 9. Should be a better day of progress.

**SmithKid** · June 28th, 2019, 09:42 PM

It's in my garage.

**Luva65wagon** · July 1st, 2019, 11:21 PM

Gene and I, and a few invisible members, got the old motor pulled on Saturday in pretty quick order, but as Gene was sitting there looking at the new motor against the old asked about the header gaskets. The new head has some much larger ports. As I looked at that I also grabbed the intake gaskets the builder sent - only to find they were not correct for the heads he provided. First thought was... WHY SEND THEM THEN? I was very proactive getting all the stuff I thought I needed and thought he was sending gaskets to fit his head.

After a frantic attempt to contact the builder, late on a Saturday, for details on this as well as other questions (I didn't get a reply until the next day), I had to do a Summit Racing overnight to get intake gaskets to fit it. They are due in on Tuesday (tomorrow), so yesterday, on Sunday, Gene and I managed to get the new motor in and all the underside stuff installed. Today I reinstalled everything that was left shy of the intake, so on Wednesday I have maybe 2 hrs of work so I can get it running.

After some internal debate I decided not to try and sell off this 289 motor whole. Gene wants the heads (1.99 1.60 valves) and I'll probably have a look at the bearings to see what happened and offer the rest on Craigslist, and here, to make a buck or two.

**Jeff W** · July 3rd, 2019, 08:27 PM

Were you able to sort out the clutch troubles?

**SmithKid** · July 4th, 2019, 11:57 AM

We got the new motor installed and Roger drove it a quick test drive around a few blocks. Then after a bit of clean-up he drove it home.

I think I was at least as nervous ans he was about the maiden drive in our terrible traffic. However he called and reported the trip "incident free" with maybe a minor lingering problem with the clutch.

I was disappointed in our "tech day" (that turned out to be several days). He and I doing the job was not near the club event as the old ones that took place with my car and others a few years back.