I took advantage of the warm weather today to attempt to troubleshoot my vacuum? problems. I have a 71 BB. The headlights go up sluggishly, right then left sometimes needing to be driven for a while to do so and more trouble going down. The wiper door does not work but manually. The hoses seem intact, at least under the hood. I found a bad loose connection on what I believe is the vacuum tank. I thought the hoses were reversed on the wiper actuator as service manual shows green in front and red in rear but aim manual shows as mine was red in front and green in rear. There is strong vacuum on the green hose at wiper actuator and when I put it on front with wiper door open and set for open it closes door strongly. I am assuming the green should be at rear. The vacuum at manifold reads about 18-19 at idle and on accelleration first goes down a little then up to about 23. When you turn off engine you loss vacuum right away. That is as far as I got today and I put away with headlight doors open as they would not go down(probably would if I took for a ride). Anyway there does not appear to be much vacuum at headlight actuators and I am not sure where to go next. The diagrams and directions in my manuals do not give me much more. Any suggestions? Thanks. Ed
-
-
Re: vacuum
Ed if it bothers you to put your car away with the headlights up becasue they won't go down, after you shut the car off, it is real easy to unlock the headlights from the up position. Really easy if you don't have the front license plate holder on your 71. Through this access, the middle grille you can very easily just pull down on the "elbow" area of the headlight linkage and lower the the headlights.
I told a co-worker about this who had a 81 that the right headlight would not go down. His son sprayed the linkage with WD-40 and worked the headlight manually and this freed up the headlight where it goes up and down now. Course this may not be your problem.
My 70's right headlight goes up and down slower than the left one and when I got to WOT during the day, I have seen the headlights raise, but they go down after I return to normal driving. -
Re: vacuum
Ed, you need one of those Myte Mac's(sp). They are a hand held pump with different end pieces to plug into your vacuum system to test where the air is leaking out. You isolate various parts of the system and test by pumping up the device and watching the gauge on it leak down pressure. You probably have a leak somewhere. When the system is tight you can shut off the engine, wait 10 minutes, and shut the headlamps down!Comment
-
A little caution!
Manually opening/closing headlight/wiper door can lead to diaphram/seal rupture on marginal/aging vac actuator components ESPECIALLY if the system is charged and you're working AGAINST the pressure....
If you do have to do this, my advice is to temporarily pull the servo hoses from the actuator, manually open/close it slowly, then re-connect the lines....Comment
-
Common thread....
We've probably been down this path once a month for several years.... You need to search the archieves to acquaint yourself with tips/directions that have been given a number of times in the past.
To get to the bottom line of what you're trying to fix you need:
(1) Knowledge and understanding of the system you're working on. There are books and manuals to help you.
(2) You need troubleshooting tools and a methodology to work with. Again, there are publications, including the archieves of this board, to get you up to speed quick!
(3) Last you need a good mindset, and the most important thing I can tell you is NOT to trust the current 'plumbing' of your car presuming you're not the original owner and don't expect to find only ONE problem (check and verify the whole system right on down the pipe)!
Finally, this is a one 6-pack, one pizza effort. Figure, you'll blow a full Saturday or Sunday on it. When done, it'll work like the designers intended and you'll take immense pride in your effort. There are few remaining mechanics out there with tried/proven Shark vacuum experience....Comment
Comment