Vacuum Hide-away-Minutia
 

Decide to start a new thread on the vacuum systems so we stop hyjacking the electric thread (looking forward to seeing the results of that installation).

Anyway ... here is backyard solution to repop seals leaking at the top. Seems to work and not get hung up, don't know how long it would last. Some .025 SS lock wire wrapped twice around ... I'm sure it could be done neater too.

Also a pic of the plastic taper on an OEM shaft.

I seem to have two cans working ... an OEM piece with the cobbed up repop seal seen below, and a repop unit with an OEM seal that will just need a little sealant at the base of the seal. I'd give either one of them about a 6 month lifespan before the seals fail again.

And the first question I have is ...

Do the light covers default to the lowered position? In other words if a vacuum can fails the cover drops so you can use the lights?

When driving with lights off, is vacuum constantly applied to keep the covers closed?

What does the spring do? Try to hold them open or closed?

there is no default position, vacuum to one side pulls it down, vacuum to the other pulls it up. the springs hold them where they end up so if they fail and won't pull down when the lights are on, you can simply push on them manually to open them for the light's and they'll stay that way.

On your wire thing, I'd bend the twist up instead of down so it doesn't spear the rubber when they suck down. bending it up won't interfere with anything when they go down.

Ohh, yes, that's a good idea ... didn't think about that.

And ... yes, someone else just told me the same thing about the covers ... they are basically neutral until moved by vacuum or hand.

The reason I asked that is that if they are neutral then the actuators have to seal well enough to move them, but not so well that they must hold them in place constantly.

What is the typical assembly/paint order for an Endura with hideaway?

Is the hideaway mechanism ever assembled prior to painting? Was just thinking a person would have to be real careful with assembly and testing if the final paint was done. Lots of opportunities to mess up the paint.

But if it was all assembled before painting ... then masking all the mechanism might be problematic.

I painted all of my stuff and then assembled it..kind of the way I like to do everything. Maybe some of these pics will help you out in the future..I don't know. I may not be able to answer any questions about it as I've already demonstrated in the other thread, I have CRS!

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1571811694

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1571811694

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1571811694

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1571811694

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1571811694

Pics are very helpful ... and answered my question even though it wasn't the question you thought it was :)

I should have specified ... is the mechanism assembled before the BUMPER is painted. Yes I am sandblasting and painting all the mechanism parts before assembling.

Looks like you assembled the mechanism after the bumper body work was done, but before the final paint job was done?

My plan is pretty much this ..
1. restore and paint all the parts
2. do all the body work on the bumper and prime
3. Install all the mechanism in the bumper and test
4. Install the assembled bumper on the car for final paint ... or final paint the assembled bumper off the car ( I'm not sure how they are usually done).

BTW ... in those photos ... are you using fuel hose as bushings on those cover rods where they go through the support ... or is that the way the factory did them? I noticed one of my parts bumpers have the same thing ... and I swear I can remember doing that to my GTO 40 years ago.

I painted all of my hideaway parts and installed after all of my bodywork was done and I had jamb'd the car out....I really did this because I wanted to drive it for a couple of months before I got it painted...I thought at the time that I was going to paint it myself.... As it turned out, my painter removed the entire front clip and painted the parts separately anyway.
for him, that wasn't a problem because he has specialized in restoring Pontiacs since the 1980s. He knew how to put it all back together.
As for those rubber hose deals, I don't recall why they were there. I think they may have already been there when I got into it or I thought for some reason that they would serve some purpose. They did not so they are not there now. If you have all the bushings in place, you don't need any extra stuff.
Just rolled out of the paint booth and buffed...

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...4&d=1571893189


Actually, you can see the hose on the 'before' pic below... so, it was something that was left over from some previous owner.


https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...5&d=1571893613

The day after paint and the clip was put back on..


https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1571894695

Sweet! I also "plan" to paint mine myself :)

Here is a question .... while sorting my parts I noticed that it appears hideaway headlight buckets are painted black .... and Lemans/Tempest are zinc plated ... anyone else noticed that?

Also ... are hideaway buckets and regular buckets the same? I could not spot a bit of difference except the color ... but they seem to have different letters on them? What do the letters mean? I see "A", "B", I think a "K" ... they are on one of the tabs on the buckets.

Also ... I'm missing my springs, are the repop springs any good? Seems like an important part ... wondering if I should find OEM pieces.

Yes, buckets are the same, but of course each location is a different part, so all four are unique. If you have an identical pair your missing one :)

Both my GTO & Lemans parts car had galvanized buckets. Both Pont Michigan cars. I was researching that as well & it seems its either a plant thing, or an early/late thing.
I am sure there was a time when those bushings where not available & headlights were made to work in anyway possible. One of mine had a home built bushing on it as well when I took it apart. For what its worth, all of the original parts were black paint dipped & hung to dry like so many other parts like this. I saw all the telltale paint runs when bead blasting them clean. There is lots of room to work on them after paint. I Pre-fit everything, adjusted & took a few notes. Then took it all apart for final paint. I made a stand to hold the bumper while assembling it. I have lots of pictures.... :)

The aftermarket springs are fine. However the plastic adjustment pods/nuts are garbage. You want originals for those.

hears one of my buckets from another thread I started 3 years back.

http://forums.maxperformanceinc.com/...8&d=1480683669

For what its worth, I installed my Bumper brackets, then fitted the bumper to the fenders / hood & removed the bumper
leaving the brackets installed on the frame. Looks like Greg may have done the same thing? I have pictures similar i
f you want me to post them. Kind of the same as what Greg did though. Might have even got some of the ideas from him ;)

Yep I noticed that everything from the factory had been dipped. In my shop I was once producing a lot of the same item and I tried dipping ... it's more of a pain than it sounds .. but they do make special paint for it.

By "Springs" I meant the big springs, not the bucket springs, forget what they are called (over-balance springs?), both my Enduras were missing them. I saved all those little plastic adjustment thingies luckily.

Luckily I have plenty of buckets ... two sets that were painted flat black from the factory on the Enduras, and a galvanized set from a Lemans.

All the major pieces are sand blasted and painted, have $100 worth of new hardware from AMK. Soon they will all be packed away awaiting the body work on the bumper to be done.

Yep, the bumper supports make for a nice setup to hang the bumper while you bolt everything up. I think I bought a bushing kit from Ames/PY. As I recall, it was all good stuff.
Dataway, I think they are called 'overcenter' springs. By the way, the bracket that those springs attach to at the top are critical for keeping the headlights up when the car is at rest. A very small adjustment to that bracket makes all the difference.

https://restorationpartssource.com/s...p/ppp/P191.jpg

So those bolt to the elongated slots so they can be adjusted?

Would have been nice if they had some kind of threaded adjustment rather than ... move, tighten, pray ... sort of situation.

Well, they are not slotted and seems surprising that the adjustment has so much effect. It actually just has about a quarter inch, at most, of movement. I'm not even sure it's meant to be an adjustment, just that I had one door that would sag frequently. When I adjusted it the first time, it was too much so the door looked out of line with the grilles. Too high I adjusted it back down and it's been good ever since.. I can't even remember how I found out what was causing it.
I actually had to add a lock washer to mine because I was having to re-do it every few months.
It really is the classic 'overcenter' deal where the spring tension pulls in one direction until the arm it's attached to goes beyond a certain point and then it's putting tension on in the other direction. Hard to explain...but I think you know what I mean, or you will when you start playing with them.

I found the adjustment on the arm to the door itself to do a lot as well. (the two bolts that pass through door near the high beams) I tweaked mine there more than the over center brackets. (I like that term greg :) ) You can measure where the center point is when you manually open the doors & can watch the spring & visually see when its at the peak by the coils of the spring opening up. Fairly easy to get both sides adjust the same that way imo. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but having everything clean & new bushings, etc, is huge. I also tweaked the angle of the U shaped arms that pass through the bushings. they were not perfectly centered in the bushings & bending them ever so slightly to match the angle of the door & effortly pivot in the bushings I found to be important. I did mine by Not installing the plastic bushings at first, & tweaking them until they passed through the opening in the center, then installed the bushings. Hope that makes sense.

Eventually after a lot of screwing around, I got both sides very close in operation. Every once in a while both doors would move at the same time. But I quickly figured out they were never designed to do that. But they are so close anyway because what door goes up or down first in real operation is not always the same one. They will start going up or down together & then its Its a crap shoot what one will go the rest of the way first. This seems to tell me they are the same in adjustment & resistance with the spring. I also played with very thin washers under the three bolts that hold the actuator to the bumper. changing that angle ever so slightly can change the installed spring length/tension. You can't change it a lot, but you can fine tune it :) Was a lot of fun setting those up. I enjoyed that part.

EDIT:

Heres a picture of having the U shaped arm centered before installing the bushing.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1572001604

Jeez, I hope a previous owner didn't slot my upper over center spring mount to make extra adjustment ... could easily weld it up and redrill if necessary. Actually I have the machinery here to make new ones if needed. But I'm kind of looking at a pile of parts so memory might not serve accurately :)

I recently bought a small 12vdc vacuum pump ... when the time comes I'm going to hook the whole thing up, right down to the headlight switch and vacuum storage canister and test everything.

I think the bushing in that rod support is the first thing to go in most systems ... I don't think I've ever seen one intact on a parts bumper.

Interesting findings 68ragtop. Seems that maybe none of these things were meant as actual adjustments but there are a number of little tweaks that can make operation more reliable.
Good idea about the vacuum pump setup dataway.

You know, I think you are right, I think these were meant to be plug and play from the factory .... but then we got hold of them and want them going up and down at the same time and behaving nicely :)

I'm going to wire up the vacuum pump in a little box with a switch and use it to test the lights, AC, heater etc. I'm getting tired of sucking on things ( that's what she said :)

I did the same thing with a HVAC vacuum pump. hooked up a gauge & regulated it to 8 inches iirc. I made hose jumpers from the wheel well connector & just hooked it up manually from there. I ran it through the switch at first, but quickly got tired of pulling the switch & running to the front to see what was happening. It was like turning on your front porch light & then running outside to watch it come on. :D

Rigging up a spare switch & the vacuum can would be ideal though.