- December 12th, 2013, 1:11 pm#470190
I’ve found and fixed a lot of the problems my Ecto is having and finally feel like I’ve got a reliable car. I’m posting the results here to benefit whoever might make use of this info. This info isn’t just for owners of a 59/60 pro car but anyone with an old pro car turned Ecto.
On a personal note I’m fairly upset that one of the major problems wasn’t caught by and/or was outright caused by (a) a professional classic car shop that’s been in business for 50+ years, (b) a performance race car shop that handles upgrades, (c) an electrical engineer whose only real duty with this car was to make sure the electrical and ignition system worked, (d) the rat-bastard tech writer for Pertronix whose installation guide gives advice destined to cause their product to fail. I’m not a car guy so when it’s up to me to be the expert and figure out what’s going on, it kind of pisses me off.
THE ENGINE:
The engine is not the problem. The car was built and delivered with a Caddy 390 powerplant, 325 horsepower and a Turbo 400 transmission. These were fine to run the car with before and still are. I know a lot of people have suggested “Why don’t you just replace the engine?” but the block itself isn’t at fault, there was never anything fundamentally flawed with the engine itself. The problem has always been all the things that on and around the engine. Right from day one as these rolled out of the factory they had elements that were proven over time to be a bad idea, the sort of things that have brought about all the changes we see in car today. Things like:
THINGS TO UPGRADE:
1) Replace the generator with an alternator.
2) Install 2 batteries, preferable something deep-cycle like an RV/Marine battery
3) Battery Isolator
4) Upgrade the single brake cylinder to a dual brake cylinder
5) Either replace the dual-core radiator or have it reconditioned and while you’re at it, block off internal radiator inside the main one.
6) Modern carburetor.
7) Modern air filter.
8) The distributor was a point-and-brush system, highly unreliable. Upgrade to something modern like a linear-induction type system.
9) Replace mechanical fuel pump with electric fuel pump. Placement of pump is crucial.
1 – ALTERNATOR
Generators only provide electricity, whereas alternators charge batteries. If your car still runs a generator just get rid of it. I recommend no less than a 125amp alternator, I believe Loren runs something like 170amp or better. Anything under 120 amps and you’re not serious about running 2 lightbars and all other equipment related to being an Ecto.
2 – TWO BATTERIES
Get two batteries, preferably both deep-cycle RV/Marine batteries. One runs the car and never drains because of the drain from the accessories. The other runs all the non-car stuff and ( as long as it’s a deep cycle battery ) can pretty much be ran into the ground before recharging.
3 – BATTERY ISOLATOR
The battery isolator lets one alternator charge two batteries but prevents the batteries from draining each other. The amps of the isolator should meet or exceed the alternator. If your alternator is 125 amps then obviously a 120-amp isolator will soon be overpowered and burn out. This happened to me. You won’t see this happen instantly, but it will happen over time. My current configuration is a 125-amp alternator and a 140-amp isolator.
Also, if the cables between the batteries and the isolator are ever connected improperly you will also short it out and likewise will not see the degradation of performance at once. On my car, the mechanic who finished the Nov 2012 rebuild hooked the isolator up wrong, shorted it out, discovered their mistake and connected it properly without telling me. They hoped I wouldn’t notice. At first I didn’t, it seemed to run okay and they probably thought they were off the hook. For the last year I’ve been wondering why the batteries always seem to hover at “just barely enough power to run” but never fully charge.
Internal workings of an isolator if it worked properly:
Internal workings of an isolator when some jerk hooks up the cables wrong, shorts out a DIODE ( turning it into a mere resistor ) and allows the charge to never fully distribute on one or both of the batteries. Diodes make the power flow in one directions, resistors let it flow both ways. Not a desirable result.
I recently tested the isolator with a multimeter and caught the damage. A call to the shop confirmed they made this mistake. Apologies were issued but the damage was done. ( * = Inside each isolator are two giant diodes that let power flow in one direction. If you burn one out, it becomes a resistor which lets power run both ways. It’s not like the performance 100% fails when it burns out, it still gives the slight impression that it’s sort of semi-working and catching the problem is fairly hard, short of actually connecting a multi-meter to the isolator.
On a personal note I’m fairly upset that one of the major problems wasn’t caught by and/or was outright caused by (a) a professional classic car shop that’s been in business for 50+ years, (b) a performance race car shop that handles upgrades, (c) an electrical engineer whose only real duty with this car was to make sure the electrical and ignition system worked, (d) the rat-bastard tech writer for Pertronix whose installation guide gives advice destined to cause their product to fail. I’m not a car guy so when it’s up to me to be the expert and figure out what’s going on, it kind of pisses me off.
THE ENGINE:
The engine is not the problem. The car was built and delivered with a Caddy 390 powerplant, 325 horsepower and a Turbo 400 transmission. These were fine to run the car with before and still are. I know a lot of people have suggested “Why don’t you just replace the engine?” but the block itself isn’t at fault, there was never anything fundamentally flawed with the engine itself. The problem has always been all the things that on and around the engine. Right from day one as these rolled out of the factory they had elements that were proven over time to be a bad idea, the sort of things that have brought about all the changes we see in car today. Things like:
THINGS TO UPGRADE:
1) Replace the generator with an alternator.
2) Install 2 batteries, preferable something deep-cycle like an RV/Marine battery
3) Battery Isolator
4) Upgrade the single brake cylinder to a dual brake cylinder
5) Either replace the dual-core radiator or have it reconditioned and while you’re at it, block off internal radiator inside the main one.
6) Modern carburetor.
7) Modern air filter.
8) The distributor was a point-and-brush system, highly unreliable. Upgrade to something modern like a linear-induction type system.
9) Replace mechanical fuel pump with electric fuel pump. Placement of pump is crucial.
1 – ALTERNATOR
Generators only provide electricity, whereas alternators charge batteries. If your car still runs a generator just get rid of it. I recommend no less than a 125amp alternator, I believe Loren runs something like 170amp or better. Anything under 120 amps and you’re not serious about running 2 lightbars and all other equipment related to being an Ecto.
2 – TWO BATTERIES
Get two batteries, preferably both deep-cycle RV/Marine batteries. One runs the car and never drains because of the drain from the accessories. The other runs all the non-car stuff and ( as long as it’s a deep cycle battery ) can pretty much be ran into the ground before recharging.
3 – BATTERY ISOLATOR
The battery isolator lets one alternator charge two batteries but prevents the batteries from draining each other. The amps of the isolator should meet or exceed the alternator. If your alternator is 125 amps then obviously a 120-amp isolator will soon be overpowered and burn out. This happened to me. You won’t see this happen instantly, but it will happen over time. My current configuration is a 125-amp alternator and a 140-amp isolator.
Also, if the cables between the batteries and the isolator are ever connected improperly you will also short it out and likewise will not see the degradation of performance at once. On my car, the mechanic who finished the Nov 2012 rebuild hooked the isolator up wrong, shorted it out, discovered their mistake and connected it properly without telling me. They hoped I wouldn’t notice. At first I didn’t, it seemed to run okay and they probably thought they were off the hook. For the last year I’ve been wondering why the batteries always seem to hover at “just barely enough power to run” but never fully charge.
Internal workings of an isolator if it worked properly:
Internal workings of an isolator when some jerk hooks up the cables wrong, shorts out a DIODE ( turning it into a mere resistor ) and allows the charge to never fully distribute on one or both of the batteries. Diodes make the power flow in one directions, resistors let it flow both ways. Not a desirable result.
I recently tested the isolator with a multimeter and caught the damage. A call to the shop confirmed they made this mistake. Apologies were issued but the damage was done. ( * = Inside each isolator are two giant diodes that let power flow in one direction. If you burn one out, it becomes a resistor which lets power run both ways. It’s not like the performance 100% fails when it burns out, it still gives the slight impression that it’s sort of semi-working and catching the problem is fairly hard, short of actually connecting a multi-meter to the isolator.