I never would have guessed it, but apparently somebody else in Albemarle was working on an old ignition system and picked up the 1.2 ohm ballast resistor I ordered (didn't give my name/number because what are the odds?). Got one this morning and swapped it in and put the OEM resistance wire in my spare parts box. For anyone else looking the OEM resistance wire was 2 ohms, Standard P/N# RU38 is 6 ohms (not in any documentation I found) and Standard P/N# RU37 is 1.2 ohms. Using RU38 put the ignition voltage at ~8 volts (too low to fire the coil/plugs); using RU37 put the ignition voltage at ~11 volts.
Bled the brakes yesterday and got some air out at all 4 corners and now it'll lock up the tires on gravel & grass....I'm going to bleed them again just to make sure no more air is trapped in the system.
Got the courage to put it on the road for the first time in ~10 years for a whopping 3 mile loop! Everything went great for a quarter of a mile and it started popping and bucking under heavy throttle so I eased off and turned on the hazards. Ran well at light throttle for another quarter mile and then every time I pushed in the clutch the engine would die until I changed gears then it would fire up again. Thankfully my test loop was all right hand turns and I only had to do a rolling stop once. Best guess is some trash or varnish was caught in the fuel line/pump/carb? Added a bottle of sea foam to the gas tank with some more gas and it ran better today...revving it hard would shoot flames out of the exhaust flange/donut gasket, so that'll get some attention soon!
I was planning on using the switched ground for the dome light to toggle a relay for a courtesy light I'm adding in the bed, but that wire reads 6V when 'off'. That's just enough voltage to pull in the contact on a 12V relay, but not enough to latch it and feel the 'click'. So that will most likely be abandoned since I've got a work light switch already ran and working.
Picked up some flat bar to make a gun rack since I can't find one I like and OEM ones are $$$ (if you can even find one).
