Great progress and pics, Sam. Hope the first ride goes smoothly.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Thanks to both. Just one car. Under the hood definitely looks like a driver and not a trailer queen. Photos often look better than real life. Since restoring it in the early O's I never drive it in the rain, which is why the undersides look so clean.

I have gotten excited about driving it. I am just waiting for a day or two of good weather when I am off. I have been watching this Youtube clip to see how to operate it, and think it tells me just enough about how it works to get started.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VMv1VKj5H8

Sam

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I took the car out for a test drive today and nothing works as it should. The overdrive does not shift either manually or automatically. The speedometer does not work, even though things are hooked up as they should be. This means that more than likely there is a mechanical breakdown somewhere in the cable extension that goes between the OD unit and the signal generator that sends information back to the computer controller. The adapter for the electronic speedo is plugged into the back side of the OD signal generator, and the behavior of the speedo suggests that the adapter is not being turned.

Also, there is not 12v on the red wire going to the solenoid to engage the OD, which means that it will not engage the OD even if it did get a signal. It engages the solenoid by completing the ground connection. If the 12 volt power wire to the solenoid were hot then it should be possible to shift it manually through the six gears but that would not work either.

I will call them tomorrow and get a new cable for the solenoid and take the speedo cable extension loose sometime soon and see if I can tell where the breakdown is there. Another check is to see if applying 12v directly to the solenoid makes it click. I may check that out soon also.

Sam

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Dang.....been looking forward to a report on this!

I called Gear Vendors on Monday, and the tech guy says that there is a mechanical disconnect somewhere in the speedo cable. The solenoid will not get 12 volts until the speed gets up to 20 mph, and at this point the computer thinks the car is sitting still all the time. He gave me several ways to check it out, one of which I will not do. He suggested putting it up on jackstands, disconnecting the speedo cable and looking to see if the drive is turning while the car is running in gear. I certainly will not crawl under a car with it running on jack stands. There has got to be a better way to do this. I am thinking just disconnect the drive shaft and turn it while in neutral and see if the drive is turning. If it does, then proceed on down the line and see where the motion fails to be transferred.

I will check this out sometime, but for now life has been too hectic.

I am optimistic. It had a noticeable vibration when going around corners, so I think I need to tighten up the tranny mount bolts. The holes in the GV tail shaft are blind and do not go all the way through as the Mopar tailshaft does. Therefore it is possible the bolts are bottoming out before getting tight. It was nice and smooth on the straightaway up to about 50 mph,which was as fast as I took it that day.

SAm

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Use a mirror on the ground so you don't have to get under. Can you just temporarily jumper 12 onto the solenoid supply side to check the operation? You are smart enough to be the 'computer', at least for a trial, IMO!

Yes. It is possible to jumper the solenoid to check its operation. That is one of their trouble shooting processes.

Thanks for the suggestion of the mirror. Great idea.

Sam

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I did read somewhere that the vendors OD doesn't like to be engaged while reversing,so if you do "hot wire" the solenoid it may be worth avoiding reverse,or at least checking to confirm it is a risk to avoid damaging the unit. We all have different comfort zones, but personally I have zero concerns about resting a car on solid stands under the rear axle,chocking the front wheels and engaging it in drive at idle rpm...you don't need to crawl under there to see if its working,use a mirror if it's that hard to see as was suggested. You could also just get someone to rotate the rear wheels by hand when on stands and view what is or isn't turning on the units speedo drive. Like I said previously,we all have different comfort zones,but...from the pics it looks like you removed the upper section of the crossmember probably to fit the T5? It appears to have a new upper section pop riveted in there? This is a high stress area,especially with the extra weight and length of the gear vendors unti resting on it,personally I'd be more comfortable with a welded section,pop rivets aren't going to take flexing movements for long before working loose...Please ignore all I have just mentioned if you have uses other methods to attach the crossmember,just a suggestion,but good luck with the troubleshooting!

Thanks for your concern, but there is no need to worry about the cross member. It is considerably stronger than the stock one. If you could see it in person you would agree. Remember, it is a professional paranoid who built it, (me). It is constructed of 1/8th inch steel very much like a steel truss bridge; the kind that carried railroad trains over rivers before highway construction allowed the transport of pre-assembled, welded, or cast bridges to sites.

It is too cold, and there is too much to do regarding my Mom's memorial service and such to deal with this right now. I will take up the business of getting the speedo cable worked out as soon as life slows down, and the weather gets just a tad nicer.

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Just a thought, and I may be way off, but did you clock the speedo adapter properly? IIRC it rotates to allow different size gears and when installed you need to rotate it so the gear engages. Again, just a thought.
My buddy put one of these in his 78 C body and had some fun with speedos as well. Here is a link or two to his pics.

http://s265.photobucket.com/user/kipgar ... edo%20Pics

http://s265.photobucket.com/user/kipgar ... 20%20Trans

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Mattelderca
78 NYB (gone now), two S series, three old Snow Cruisers and a Doo.

The speedo drive in the GV unit does not clock as the Mopar does. It goes in only one way. Thanks for the thought though. I will check out the links you posted.

Sam

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I finally got around to looking at Kip's photos. That is a beautiful car! I highly recommend others look at his photos. They are a fairly complete documentation with captions on the GV install in a C body, which seems to have enough clearance, just barely, for the OD to fit without modifications.

There are no captions for the photo collection that dealt with the speedo cable. It seems his concern was getting his stock cable to match up with the signal generator. Tell him for me how much I admired his car, his work, and his documentation.

As soon as it warms up just a bit, and when my Mom's memorial service is in the past I will get back on this. Right now, when I get a minute or two, I am sitting in my fairly warm basement workshop building model trains. I know a lot of you guys do this also.

Sam

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Warmer weather has arrived, allowing me to go out and work on the Dart once again. Great day!

Back to trouble shooting the speedo cable problem. It seems I did not have the cable cent square drive inserted into the output drive from the OD unit, which was good because when you tighten the Autometer speedo drive sender unit onto the GV sending unit, which are supposed to be coupled together it locks up the cable. Had i put it together correctly on the test drive it would have broken something.

If I loosen the Auto Meter sending unit just a half turn it works fine. I tried different gaskets, and trimmed the square drive on the sending unit a bit to no avail. So now will go looking for a 7/8" nut to use as a lock nut so I can back it off a turn and lock it in place with a lock nut. I do not know how hard it will be to find a nut that big. Nor do I know what thread count it is. I wonder if I can make one by cutting the end off a speedo cable. Probably could I suppose.

Sam

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Success. I cut the end off a spare speedo cable and made a lock nut for the Autometer sending unit. I was able to tighten it against the GV signal generator without locking up the cable. By the time I got done with that it got cold, dark and I was too tired to go try it out. Tomorrow night is band practice so wont try it until Thursday. I have high expectations now. Of course the battery was dead so have the charger on it.

Sam

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Here we are chasing electrical ghosts again.

This is complicated, but I encourage you to read if you are at all curious about the Gear Vendors set up. The instructions leave much to be desired, and I am having to glean what information I can from the internet and tech support. I hope my writing is clear. They say this clears up with use, but for now it seems overly complicated to me.

I went out Thursday night with the intention of test driving it, and the GV/OD indicator lights were doing truly weird things, so I cut it off and called tech support yesterday. It has taken awhile, but I think I am finally understanding how this thing is supposed to work. I scoured the internet for good instructions on its use and could fine none. Most things there are marketing. They have changed the controls in the last year and everything out there is either old, or too general to be of use. Even the tech support guy, while nice enough, was a little confused on some things.

Here is the deal. To start let me explain that you can actuate the OD with either a foot switch or a switch on the shifter. I chose the gear handle switch. This switch seems to be to toggle it between on and off, with no fixed setting. It merely switches it from what it is to the opposite. Also, you cannot actuate OD until the VG signal generator on the speedo cable sends a signal that says the car is going over 20 mph.

To further complicate things there is a rocker on the dash that selects either manual or auto. In the manual side you can shift between under and overdrive in any gear at any speed over 20 mph. Manual setting is with the dash rocker set so you cannot see the red side of the rocker. If you see the red, it is in auto mode. When in auto mode, you click the gear button to turn on the red dash LED and drive it as a normal 4 speed tranny. It will shift into 4th at 47 mph. NOWHERE in the instructions of on line could I find the information that the red side of the rocker is for auto mode. The switch is unlabeled. In the old setup it was a slider that did have labels and was very clear.

There are two LEDS on the dash: a green one and a red one. When the red one is on, it is in "underdrive" which means whatever your rear end ratio is. When you hit the selector button in manual over 20 mph it is supposed to shift from whatever mode it is currently in over or under, to the opposite. If you hit the elector button on 4th gear auto it is supposed to drop down into 3rd.

There are three LEDs on the GV control unit. Left one lights when the selector switch has selected red dash LED. Middle one lights up when the dash rocker does not show red, (manual mode). Right one lights up when the car gets over 20 MPH.

That is all fine. When I first start the car up, everything looks right, and all lights do what they are supposed to do. HOWEVER, if I either turn off or turn on the fast idle solenoid which has wires bundled with the OD wires, the dash green LED comes on and the right hand LED in the control box lights indicating that it is going over 20 MPH and is in OD; all while sitting still in the garage. The act of flipping the rocker for the FIS triggers a signal to the GV/OD control box. It is obviously picking up an inductance current from the FIS wire and triggering a response in the box. Until I get this worked out I cannot drive it.

First thing is to remove FIS wiring altogether and see if it behaves correctly. If it does, then reroute the wires so they are not close to the OD control wires. This is similar to the problems I had with the EFI. I may take the grounds for the FIS rocker which has a light inside to another ground point away from the bus that the GV unit is grounded to. I think this will happen on Sunday. It snowed again here yesterday after being in the 60's on Wednesday.

Sam

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