Mighty Mouse Engine Rebuild & Upgrades

[Charlie69]

That looks great and reasonable.  A link and location would be great. 

[difrangia]

 

A quick look at their website shows they have facilities in Oklahoma and North Carolina.

[difrangia]

Been getting some solid time to concentrate on the Mouse lately. Yard, pool, and garden projects are around the corner and need to get as much accomplished as I can. I got the turn signal switch assembled and back on with the column with the restored bell below the switch. Got the steering wheel out and first thing that jumped out at me was the wear on the ring that had even worn through the brass contact ring for about a 1/2" area where the steering wheel is straight ahead.

Wow! What to do about this?? Since the mid 70’s I’ve owned oddball stuff for which no parts and in some instance no references were available. It’s kinda become a way of life to work around adversities. I studied this for a bit and finally decided to put a new face on the contact ring. Here is a photo of the old ring with the wear shown and the place where it was worn completely through. Also the .020 (.5mm) disc that I made to attach to the original ring:

 

 

Here are the old ring and newly fabricated brass face ring assembled with four 3/32" rivets. Had to turn the rivet heads down .040 to insure clearance with the contact ring pickup plunger.

 

 

Here's the whole mess assembled back into the steering wheel ready to go back on:

 

 

Now to get the steering wheel back on and get to the remainder necessary to get the Mouse back on the road. I'll tend to the cracked up steerring wheel later.

[difrangia]

Had a couple of free hours this morning and decided to mount another electrical trinket to get a little further along on the wiring phase. i need to get all the various components mounted where they belong to get them all wired together. Hacked out a plate from .090 thick aluminum to go under the coil bracket to mount the electronic distributor junction box. this is the same box that the our 1978 Longbed 620 uses for the non-matchbox dizy. A little sawing, drilling sanding, and polishing produced this:

 

 

 

I dug through the hardware stash and came up with the little 'Penn Nuts' with 10-32 UNF threads to mount the junction box. These are left over from when I worked in electronic chassis & cabinet manufacture forty years ago or so. You drill a 1/4" diameter hole that pilots the little snout on the nut and press them in with a vise or press. They have teeth around the pilot that swedge into the aluminum and anchor them in place. Here is what the plate looks like mounted up under the coil:

 

 

On to the next hill.

[difrangia]

Since I'm in the aluminum chopping mood, I decided to go ahead and mount the ECM, another task that needs to be done to work the wiring over. Dug up a piece of 1/4" thick plate and hacked out a mounting plate.Looks like this:

 

 

I'm using the 86 GM module like I have on the 78 longbed 620 and mounting on the upper passenger kick panel like the 620. This keeps the module out of the heat and vibration of the engine compartment. The main trunk of the wiring loom enters the cab within inches of where I'm mounting the module making wiring it in a piece of cake. Used the bottom dash mount bolt to nail it down. Looks like this:

 

[Charlie69]

Doc510 was making finned heat sinks the module.  Heat sinks help them last longer.

 

Thank you for the Jet-Hot Information.  When I Googled it the was a place in Phoenix that showed up.

 

I got a price for ceramic coating my exhaust and intake manifolds locally and they wanted $200. Not sure if that was a good price or not.

[difrangia]

 

Doc510 was making finned heat sinks the module.  Heat sinks help them last longer.

 

Thank you for the Jet-Hot Information.  When I Googled it the was a place in Phoenix that showed up.

 

I got a price for ceramic coating my exhaust and intake manifolds locally and they wanted $200. Not sure if that was a good price or not.

 

Sounds reasonable, Charlie, especially if the exhaust is inside and outside coating.

 

Steve

[Charlie69]

Thank you Steve I will have to check but I believe the coating is outside only.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

For ceramic coating, the proper application includes inside coating. If it's not coated inside and out, it fails prematurely.

[difrangia]

Mine's coated inside and out. I've an old memory, but seems it was about $100. I'd have to dig out the invoice. Back up about page 3 or 4 should be photos of all the stuff in the original coating run which was $520 total. I got stuff coated that only indicates insanity (front motor mounts & trany adapter plate, etc). But I've a minor addiction to it. Haven't touched the 'Mouse' in a couple weeks due to other projects, but I've gotta get some hands-on soon. Withdrawal starting to set in.

 

Steve

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I like to have the aluminum pieces coated in ceramic "cermachrome". It looks nice, it's not too flashy and it's the appropriate color for aluminum.

[delariva]

I loved reading this build thread. You are doing a fantastic job! I am following this one for sure.

[difrangia]

I've been working on cleaning up the wiring loom from the back end of the transmission forward for the last couple of weeks. Sounds like a long time, but a number of other projects vie for time as well. I've got the electronic distributor control module temporary wired in. I'm getting down to the last couple of items and worked on the brake lights yesterday and today. had to run a new line to the rear and I've planned from the beginning to add a LED third brake light close to the top of the cab. Here's the 1 1/4" X 3 1/4" light (from Ebay) mounted above the back glass:

 

 

 

Keep in mind this is only a temporary mounting with double-back tape for evaluation. Here is the light mounted inside the cab at the top of the back glass. I'll fab a little base for it to mount on, which ever location it ends up:

 

 

Which of the two mounting locations do you cats like best? Mounted above the glass and outside the cab, I'll need to drill one 3/16" diameter hole for the wires to pass through. I'd rather take a beating than drill into vintage tin, but I've been run over a few times and that's no fun either. Also, we all know how rare the repair parts are for these vintage machines, especially the 'Sport Trucks'. More to come.

 

Steve

[wayno]

I would not do it at all, I don't here about vintage vehicles in wrecks to often, and seriously how often you drive your NL320 at night, I don't ever drive my 320s at night.

If they cannot see me during the day, I don't believe a little 3rd brake light is going to make any difference.

If your going to do it, put it inside the cab, that way your not drilling a hole thru the cab, although I would likely put it at the bottom center so it didn't affect my rear view mirror and most of the wires will be hidden by the seat.

I say if you don't drive it at night but once or twice a year, forget the 3rd brake light.

[difrangia]

Was gonna go fishing this morning, but it was ttoo windy, so I got back on the little truck. Took off the back shocks, only breaking one punch and busting one knuckle. Those top cotter keys are a b1tch. broke out the NOS Tociko 2004 shocks that I scored a year and a half ago.

 

 

Let the back end down and filled up the transmission with 90wt. Mounted the fuel filter bracket and accessed the fuel filter/pump plumbing situation. I'm using the same filter that our 620 uses which is the filter used on a number of Datsuns through the years. I had picked up a spare bracket for the 620 about a year ago and had flattened out the mounting tab and reshaped it to mate with the 320 fenderwell bracket. First pic is the reshaped and alum/ceramic coated bracket next to the bracket on the 620:

 

 

Here's the bracket mounted to the 320 fenderwell:

 

 

This is temporary plumbing for now. I need to fab up a fitting for the pump and get it all mounted. When I get this out of the way and get the radiator cleaned up and back in, it'll be startup time. The E1 does have about five hours run-in on the stand before I re-installed it. Wont be too long till a drive.

[emceefarlane]

i wouldn't do the extra brake light either - doesn't suit

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

If you're worried about being seen, replace the incandescent bulbs with LED's. You could also modify the bezels to accept an round LED where the OEM reflectors go. I did that on my 320 a few years back They really made a difference.

 

I agree with the others. The 3rd brake light doesn't fit the character of the truck.

 

This is a crappy pic, but you can see how bright the LED's are (the small round ones on the corners).

 

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

BTW- the 320 is the perfect truck to display vintage or cool stickers. I like your mighty mouse sticker.

 

Reminds me of my old truck.

[difrangia]

Dug around in the junkpile and rousted up about a foot of 1/4" dia. stainless tubing and decided to finalize the fuel system plumbing. Polished the tubing up and bent this trinket up to connect the line from the tank under the front fender and the grafted in later fuel filter. Plumbed on over to the Weber.

 

 

Nice & simple and easy to maintain with readily available filter. Fired off the E1 for the first time since installing in the Mouse, but only let it run half a minute or so as I hadn't put the radiator back in. Today I cleaned up the radiator, re-soldered the overflow tube back in, cleaned up and freed up the drain cock, and put a light coat of black on the radiator. After it dried a bit I got it nailed back in place in the engine room. Bout time to get some coolant back in for a longer run. 

[hosestop@msn.com]

Hey , I may have some factory service manuals for 410.

[hosestop@msn.com]

Hey Steve found a 312u a 410 and 411 FSM s I don't know if I will put up yet really nice condition never greased !

[difrangia]

Coolanted the little E1 up today and busted her off for the first longer run in the pickup. Sounds a lot better when you're actually standing beside it. Will sound even better with the air filter back on. As you can see in the video, the wiring is just temporarily patched in so I can insure that everything is hooked up and updated properly. All I like is wiring in the alternator and coming up with a throttle cable and it's ' Round the Block' for a few loops to check out all the drivetrain/clutch/brakes rebuilds and updates. So close, I can taste it.
Steve

 

[Charlie69]

That sounds Great!

[emceefarlane]

i always thought mine was noisy but if yours sounds like that after a fresh rebuild then maybe that' what they're meant to sound like and mine isn't as bad as i thought

[zed1]

Music to my ears.