The Indiana excise tax sounds a lot like VA's personal property tax on autos. Luckily, vintage vehicles tend to fall off the tax rolls here. You do have to pay an $20 annual fee for a county sticker that's no longer displayed on the vehicle, but that's about it. If the vehicle is 25 years old or older, you can pay a one time fee for vintage license tags which allows operation of the vehicle on the roads without annual inspections and a few other minor operational restrictions.

I hate mosquitos. They come out in the evenings here and bite with ferocity. When they come out, I go indoors...

 

Any car I want to drive on the road has to pay excise tax. One thing for old cars though is I can do a YOM plate. Year of Manufacture. Say I find a 1954 Dodge. (I had one.) Now if I find a 1954 plate, if that number is NOT used elsewhere. The format is different for instance, I can get a renewal sticker, paint the plate original colors and use it instead of a normal plate. Not many on the road but it is cool.

 

VA had license plates with the year stamped in them up until about 1973. I have two vintage 1969 Dodges (Charger R/T and Dart GT) and luckily picked up two sets of vintage 1969 license plates brand new in the package in sequential order from a local license plate collector. As you mentioned, if those plates aren't registered with DMV, you can register those tags for your vintage car in VA. I've had great luck finding vintage license plates on my local Craigslist, eBay or via http://pl8s.com/ (when that website was more active).

 

I finished the tear down, almost, today. I noticed the oil sending unit is oily so it'll get replaced. The one broken bolt was the only one. It;s in front so I can probably drill it out. I till need to pull the distributor cap but I wanted to close everything up before the storms rolled in. This intake has been off before. There is copper spray sealant on the bottom and the factory doesn't do that. There are also oil soaked twigs inside the top of the engine.

Think the old plugs were ready to come out? They were some of the easiest ones to get out I've done in a while. That's a point for the older iron.

I got some injectors for newer engines but they are listed to fit my engine. I'll test fit them with the plastic as it looks like it's designed to seal that way. Everything else on them looks right.

I've got a lot of things to do, mostly cleaning, but some refurbishing too before everything goes back together. The fan shroud is broken and has chips out of it. I'll fix that with aluminum sheeting. I also have a pair of HUGE horns I'm thinking of putting in and wiring to the horn switch. I've had this truck down for a while and really miss using it. I'll also pull the valve covers and clean them up a bit to stop a seep from them.

 

What plugs did you get??? Those look like the rare-earth fellers.... be warned, these engines generally aren't real friendly with those.... tend to get mystery misfires.

 

The old plugs were Bosch platinum. So are the new ones. Until the plenum blew out, I never had any misfires. I'm finding a lot of little leaks so my oil consumption should really cut back if not go away. Valve cover gaskets, oil sending unit, some spots on the intake as well as the plenum. I was using a quart every 600-700 miles until the plenum failed and then it was a quart every 75-100 miles.

 

I've been working on and off on the truck. The heat has made me lazy. Today, I planned to just put the intake on and torque it down. A buddy stopped by and asked me what those studs on the heads were for. I use them to align the intake so it drops straight down rather than squirm around and cause leaks. I had to torque the intake bolts sort of "Gudentieght" as the factory procedure is torque to 12 in lbs but my inch pound torque wrench starts at 40 in lbs. I finally got them to 144 in lbs per the books. Then a skoosh more just to be sure. The helicoil repair on the one corner held good.

Once I got done, rather than pack up and close up because of the heat, I shut down for lunch and to let the sun move so the truck was in shade again. I started final assembly of the tear down. I still need to mount the air cleaner properly but initial start up went pretty good. It seems to idle a bit low but I'm sure I'm still purging air from the fuel rail. Plus the gas is pretty old in the tank. I've flushed the cooling system to get all the rust out. I've also replaced the;
Cap, rotor, plugs and plug wires,
oil sending unit
plenum gasket and installed the heavy aluminum plate
water pump
timing set
ALL the hoses. The bypass was about to pop. (You know the one. The one that is hard to get to and blows in cold weather.)
New injectors
Resealed the valve covers as they were seeping.
Serpentine belt
Cleaned up old wiring and reconnected some iffy connections.
Drilled out one broken bolt
Cleaned the throttle body on the intake
New thermostat of 195 degrees.
New fan clutch

The old gal fired right up but sputtered a bit as the fuel rail purged. It's idling a bit low but is running smooth. I forgot how sexy those Flowmaster 44 pipes are. Just moving it around the yard it doesn't bog. One problem though. The temperature gauge is reading HIGH.



I suspect I may have a ground issue as my remote thermometer was showing the thermostat housing at 170-180 and the water pump was 145. Anybody got any ideas why the gauge is reading to high? It doesn't waver, just stays there steady. For comparison, my Dakota at operating temperature with the same thermostat is much lower. I've purged the air in the system and the thermostat is opening.


Any ideas on the high reading are welcome. Both temperature sensors were replaced. (One wire and two wire both.) It should read at or just below 200 degrees and worked fine before disassembly.

I'll be changing the oil as it was due back in January but the truck hasn't been driven much. I'm interested to see what oil consumption is now with all the leaks sealed.

 

Temp gauge uses the one wire sensor, and grounds to the motor. If you put any teflon tape on it, that will interfere with a good electrical connection. I have also seen the harness side connector get crusty, and refuse to make a good connection. Usually, plugging/unplugging it a few times will clean that up.

 

Whatever sealant was on the unit when I put it in is what is on it. I'll try reaching in with some thin pliers to unplug and replug it a few times. It's been sitting overnight. The old one broke off and I had to really honk on it to get the remnants out of the connector.

I've missed this truck. It has the right wheel base for my tree farm, is 4X4 and with the "Farmer Chic" paint job doesn't get cut off in traffic. The new plugs,plug wires and injectors have really woken this truck up. I just hope DeSantis doesn't want to ban it now that it's woken up.

 

I worked on the temperature sending unit but it still reads high. The truck isn't running hot so I may have just gotten a bum sensor.

I nearly totaled the truck though. With the new timing chain and injectors it's MUCH more spirited now. I stepped on the throttle like I have for the last 2 years and it responded right NOW. I think I'll have better heat this winter. The truck warms up faster and I nearly cooked with the heat control set to hot to purge air out of the heater core. It's hard to tell though when the air temp is 99 degrees in the shade.