On a bit of a sidetrack while waiting for engine stuff. Spent a little bit of time hunting my electrical issues today.
The left front turn signal was inop, missing ground. Wiggle test shows I need to clean and address the ground point in that corner. Right headlight dim, same wiggle test, same result, weak grounding.
Rear lights had intermittent issues; different each time I checked. When the 4" LED trailer lights would work, I could tell they were intended to show brake/turn/park with both lights on each side. Looking at pics of other X's I see the turn signal is separate from the stop/park lamps. This made me think there had to be something going on in the wiring as the turn signal needs to cancel the brake input for this arrangement and that is not how the X was originally wired.
Sure enough, I popped both tail panels out and found this gem! These are used to convert separate signals into a single output for trailers. They are also notoriously JUNK.
I checked the wiring before the converter and found all the signals are present. I bench tested the tails lights and the right side are missing multiple LEDs within each light. Left side OK. I will grab a couple more 4" LEDs and rewire this as a separated signal format to eliminate the converter.
On the engine side of things, I compared parts between each engine relative to setting up the cam, and sorted all the shims I have on hand. The cam box from the broken engine has been shaved. The BVH has not been shaved at the cam box face(at least not as much as the head from the broken engine). The valve stems in the BVH have been ground on and it was wearing a thick cam box gasket as delivered. These indicators lead me to believe the stems may be taller than standard. Setting this cam up in a shaved cam box on an unshaved head with unknown stem lengths could get interesting! I have several bucket shims and a couple of Volvo T5 heads that also use 33mm shims which I have not broken down yet. I have a couple unshaved cam boxes as well that I could swap the 35/75 cam into if needed.
Back to thinking about engine gaskets. I have looked at a couple vendors but am not sure who has the best quality gaskets; head gasket especially. The full kits from Vick's only indicate two options in the menu, and I am uncertain how they would know if my 1500 is 10bolt or 14bolt without me calling them. Do these guys need phone call follow up or are they on the ball with online orders? MWB on the other hand, shows several options for their complete gasket kits which gives me warm fuzzy feelings about getting the right parts the first time. Is it worth the extra money, is the quality better? I am looking for experienced recommendations from you guys who have used products from these vendors, please.
