Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

[fahrenschnell]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR.

Those are some damn decent welds......You should see mine :o

Seth

[BetterWithBoost]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR.

Those are some damn decent welds......You should see mine :o

Seth

x2 Great looking progress. Seth, your welds aren't that bad.
They're just not that good. Mine are much much worse.

[BBR]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

I have decided to name this sucker "Tooth and Nail" because it has been fighting me tooth and nail lately....

Fired it up today. First time since I replaced the rocker arms.

At first it wouldn't even crank.... DOH!!! it's still in gear. :-[ Good to know the neutral safety switch is working.

Then timing was 180 out.... BACK-KA-FIRE!!!!!! :o boom.

Fixed that.

Cranked it, it ran a little then died.....

Turned key, then on.... whaa???? no fuel pump....

Messed around with it for a while. Checked wires, continuity etc.

MS was turning pump on, relay was clicking, but the pump would not run. Banged on the intertia switch, and reset it. Still nothing. Pulled the plug on the inertia switch and found the problem. The connector was melted. Bypassed the switch and 'brrrrrrr" pump comes on all nice and happy.

Timing was all jacked too, but that is fixed now.

Whew.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Man, good choice on the name.

[milner351]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Love it!

I'm glad I'm not the only one having problems! This truck rocks!

Tooth and Nail - I'm sure you can come up with a cool design for that and put it somewhere on the truck.... reminds me of one of my favorite watering holes near the shop - "the rusty nail".

[BBR]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

reminds me of one of my favorite watering holes near the shop - "the rusty nail".

lmao The Rusty Nail here is a gay bar. ;D

[milner351]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

ah well - I'll stay out of that one!

[BBR]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Good call! ;D

Learned something about automatic transmissions.... :-[

They work better when the bands are correctly adjusted.

The BBR had 1st and 3rd but 2nd was awol. Turns out, since this was a backup race car trans, the guy I bought it from had the 2nd gear band backed way off. I adjusted it and hurray! we have second.

I had fun watching the rear tires grow while it was up on the jack stands. Stick it in 3rd, hammer the throttle and watch em get skinny!

I think my ears are still ringing because this sucker is FREAKING LOUD....

[HoosierGTA]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Glad you found another gear ! I can't remimber what your running for muffs but better quite it down some . I lost some hearing in my right ear from my old 350 / turbo 400 S-10 . Only had bout 300 horses but with 2 small cats and no muffs and the back window open unless it was raining (didn't care how cold it got that 350 and a good heater core kept up with it ) and a 3.42 gear man that thing howled on the inter state. O.K the way I drove it it always howled.

[racingsnake440]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Did you get the rear end finished up yet? Any pics?

[BBR]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Not yet. I have been preoccupied with building a gokart for my kids, building a bike rack for my wife and re-configuring the cooling system on the BBR.

Diff will be finished after the others are straightened out.

[racingsnake440]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Cool, look forward to seeing more when you get back to it.

[BBR]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Cooling System Part 2 - Making the HHR fan even thinner:

Although the HHR fan is not overly deep at 4", the BBR needs it to be thinner to fit in between the water pump snout and the radiator. I test fit it and while it *did* fit, the back of the shoud behind the motor was just touching the water pump pulley.

So I did what any good gearhead does. I took a brand new part and started taking it apart. Upon close inspection I decided that the plastic area behind the motor could safely be removed. Removing this plastic (outlined in yellow) will give a net gain of 1/2". The back of the motor only sticks out 1/4" past the lip marked with a red arrow.



Next thing to be removed is the little locating tabs. They are 1/8" tall. Grind these off flush.



Once I finish these, I will check the fit again and since I have decreased the thickness by 5/8" I think it will be fine. I also will need to notch the shroud about 3/4" for lower hose clearance. This will allow me to shift the fan even more to the left away from the water pump snout.

I have 1 other trick, moving the fan blade closer to the motor and trimming the top and bottom edge of the shroud, to try if these modifications do not work. When got it, I was surprised to find that the face of the blade is flush with the left and right sides of the shroud.

[BBR]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Jacked around with the fan and radiator today. As usual things did not go as planned. lol I decided to make a new piece to reconnedt the core support over the radiator. Well I made it and it looked great, then I tried to close the hood and *bang*, it was a 1/4" too tall. Figures. So I decided to cut notches on the top and bottom so I could drop a section down and then weld it back. Well I screwed up and cut the notches backwards (where it would go up instead of down). So I did not get all the stuff done today that I wanted to. I did finish that part and got a coat of paint on it. I also have everything finally ready to reassemble.

I also had to fight with the lower radiator mount since I goofed (par for the course) when mocking everything up and had the bottom of the radiator sitting on the edge of the mounts instead of all the way down into the mounts.

Anyway, here's a pic of the thinned out HHR fan. I plugged it in and it really moves a lot of air. Much much more than the 12"er's it replaces.

[DanStokes]

Re: Big Motor, Little Truck. The BBR... aka "Tooth and Nail"

Looks factory fresh. Hope this does it for you.

Dan