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Speaking of test driving I took the car out on Monday, May 14th. and it
ran pretty good, except for one thing and that was the engine idle. When
I started the car I noticed it would idle right away which isn't normal.
What is normal though is for me to play with the throttle for a few
minutes as the engine warms up and then it will idle on its own. That
wasn't the case here and once I was on the road it got worse.
Here's what I think the reason is, an automatic uses more horsepower
than a manual transmission. Once the engine was warmed up, it idled 600
RPM higher than it use to. I think it's because an automatic uses a
torque converter which takes more power to spin than a just a flywheel
does. I also noticed that the engine revs faster now, which pretty
much confirms what I was thinking. The test drive went fine but I didn't
like driving it with the idle so high so after a few minutes I went back
home.
I adjusted the idle screw a small amount and then took the car out
for a second test drive two days later. That went a lot better and I was
much happier while driving this time. I also calibrated my speedometer
on this drive because the needle was flying all over the place with this
new transmission.
I have an electric speedometer made by Autometer and it was getting a
different signal than what it was use to with this new trans.
Calibrating it is easy but you need a two mile stretch of road to do it
and after going through the adjustment period it works great now. I also
took it on the freeway to see if there was a fifth gear in the box and
sure enough there was. The RPM drops a little farther in overdrive now
which will make driving on the freeway that much easier. What I mean
here is my old trans had a .75 overdrive ratio and the new one has a .64
overdrive ratio. That small difference will equate to 530 RPM lower at
60 MPH and 625 RPM lower at 70 MPH.
The McLeod clutch works really well and is very easy to push in. I
was told that it would be like pushing in the clutch of a new car when I
was reading about them and sure enough it is. Now I need to break in the
clutch and trans which will take 500 miles to do so. This is going to
take a lot of will power to keep my foot out of the gas but I'll be
thinking of the synchros in the transmission the whole time which might
help some. The synchronizers and the gears in the trans need to be
babied for this length of time for proper break-in which helps gently
round over all the edges, like honing them. The clutch also needs the
same break-in period which helps seat the disc to the flywheel and
floater plate. Once that's done then it's time to bang some gears. I
still have to adjust the brakes a small amount but I'll do that before I
drive it again which will be on Friday. I also need to make a shifter,
shifter boot and install my emergency brake. But if everything goes
right I'll be attending my first car show of the year on Saturday the
19th. which I'm really looking forward to. Would I like the car to be
finished before I take it to a show? Yes... but on the other hand I want
to drive it right now because it's been a long time... and then I'll
work on the other stuff.
UPDATE: I went to a car show on Saturday the 19th. and the car
drove great on the way there which is the good news but the bad news is
that I had a problem with the brakes. As I was driving home I noticed
the pedal getting more firm along with a little less travel but didn't
think much of it till I was getting off the freeway. When I was slowing
down is when I really noticed the brakes dragging like my foot was
pushing on the pedal. When I was fully stopped I could smell that
something was hot so I slowly drove home and when I got out this is what
I saw.
If you look close you can see the rotor has turned blue which isn't a
good thing. I'm not sure why this happened because everything was fine
while driving it over there. I re-adjusted them the next day but I
haven't driven it yet so I'm not sure how much damage was really done
here. Just another thing for me to think about and I hope I don't have
to replace all the rotors. If it's not one thing it's another....damn!
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