76 S&H RESTO PAINT PICS

My  79 F100 was converted to R134a years ago, it worked great with no issues.

I got the car out last night to go down to the local hangout.Met up with one of my mustang buddies,but him and I were about it for cars there,just a bunch off youngkids and thier rice burners.The headlights in my car are really outstanding,very bright on low beam and the high beams shoot down the road like forever,very nice.I do have a continuous vibration coming from the back of car.Going to look into it this week.Going to flip driveshaft 180 degrees in the yoke as this is an old trick in these older cars,don't ask me why but it does work.Also going to recheck tire balance as I had to use a lot of weight on the rears.End of week I'm going to borrow my friends mustang wheels for the rear and bolt them on first and go for a ride.Also cruise is not activating,so I have to diagnose that also.Other than the vibe,the car drives really well.

Made it to the a/c shop this afternoon and after vaccuming the system down for an hour,he filled it up and I have COLD AIR!!It's very nice.One problem,it's always something isn't it?The compressor was not cycling quick enough,it should cycle on and off about every 30 seconds,mine was like minutes and the high and low side pressures were not equalizing either.Long story short,he said you need a new expansion valve.I told him order me one and the last week of may I'll be out of my shop and I can come by that week and we can install it.It was sweet to have cold air blowing!

Keep in mind, from what I have been told, it is not a one-for-one replacement for the conversion of 12 to 134. I was expressly told the 134 expands differently from 12, and 134 is acutally less of an amount needed. I want to say 70%, but check with the AC guy as that's his profession. I'm just a part time wrech now.

Well hears something that doesn't happen very often,I took my car back to the painter today so he can do some touch up and a little more buffing and I was about a mile from him on a one lane each direction road and I see this orange car coming at me,it was a dukes of hazzard charger!!What are the odds of that,kinda like making a royal flush in poker,about 650,000 to 1.Ha,yeee haw!

Cool story,not so much the crash and kill.How's your car coming?update the forum on your blog.

Thanks jp.I picked up the car last night from the painter.He did all the touch up work and also rebuffed the whole car.There were some silver specks on top of the car on the horizontal surfaces,probably from me spray touching up the chassis.He got it all out,so now this week I'm going to wash it for the first time,then clay bar it and then use some griot's paint sealant on it.I worked on my vibration problem today.Pulled the third member and checked runout of diff,it was .003 thousandths,within the .004 tolerance.Wear pattern on ring gear looked good,maybe a hair to high,so I shimmed it .003 less to get it a little deeper in the ring gear.The diff looked good,the right axle bearing is tighter than the left one.They are sealed bearings and it looks like the rubber seal part is pushing out,with a little grease coming out.I ordered a new one and will swap it out on tuesday along with swapping the valvebody.I did check the rear wheel balance again,the left tire was 1/2 oz off,so I redid it.On the way home the vibe was still kinda there,so hopefully the bearing fixes that.Other than that it drives and runs great,2 weeks from monday I'll be off on my journey to vegas.

The TCI valvebody works great,so that issue is solved,nice firm shifts in all gears.I have the longer yoke on the rear as well as the right u-joints.The driveshaft may be the problem as it seems about an inch to short.I have 1.5 inches of yoke exposed and you can wiggle it up and down some.If you push it in so only 1/2" is exposed it's nice and snug with no wiggle.The C-4 tailshaft must be 1 inch longer,I'll verify it as it's in my garage.A freind of mine knows a driveshaft company in florida that can make a new one for me pretty quick.I'm calling them tuesday and see if I can get one by friday.Wish me luck!

Yeah, Ralph.  We could all use a shop!  BTW, Starsky & Hutch (the movie) was on last night, and of course I thought of your car.  What's the .1% you have got left to finish the car?

Chris,the .1% is just for the a/c expansion valve being done friday and the new driveshaft I'm putting on saturday.Then I can say its 100% done!

Hey everyone, I got to meet Ralph when he came through Pittsburgh!!!  The Torino looks amazing and he was proud to say it was 100% done!  He is slowly but surely making his way across the country.  

moved to project page for historical data

I was right! It sold today for $22, 500.