Archive for the 'Exterior' Category
I finally have tail lights! I mentioned before I was going to get a new tail light harness. Well I got it, tested it out and it wouldn’t work. Turns out I was a a dumbass. Who new? So last night I ripped out the old hacked up one and put the new one in. I now have working tail lights again. Many months and a many hours later I’m back where I started but it feels good to be this much closer to having a working car again.
Working on the tail lights made me remember I have a lot of other little things I need to take care of. Oh well, it never ends.
The major delay in me getting my interior complete has been the gauge wiring and the vent hoses. The gauges weren’t too difficult for the most part but at this time the tachometer and oil pressure gauges don’t work. I suspect the new oil pressure sender I installed is bad which would explain that problem. I’m really not sure why the tach doesn’t work though. As far as the dash vents go, I had a great plan but it didn’t work out. I have another plan that isn’t so great but it should work. Anyway, it seems a shame to not be able to drive my car due to those minor issues. So I’ve decided to install everything and get the car back on the road now. I can worry abut details later. I don’t need a tachometer and I don’t absolutely need an oil pressure gauge, though I want to fix that sooner rather than later. I need A/C but the A/C doesn’t work in there right now anyway so I can ignore that issue for a while too. So, over the last couple of days, after it gets dark so it’s only about 100 degrees out I have been making slow progress. I had wired the gauges directly for testing purposes but I have now installed connectors. One for each gauge pod. That will make removing and installing them so much easier. My wife put the foam on the lower dash last night and we will put the upholstery on it tonight pending time constraints. Yeah, my wife rocks.
Another hold up has been the tail lights. I mentioned previously I had decided to scrap the idea of using Lambo lights and put the stockers back on. Unfortunately I had cut up the tail light harness and misplaced the connectors. I found a couple of them and spliced them on but that isn’t going to cut it, so today I will be ordering a new (used) one. I can’t wait to be able to drive my baby again.
I know, it’s been too long since I’ve posted here. I’ve been distracted with other projects. But you aren’t here to hear excuses.
Yesterday I started working on the tail lights. I had been trying to install lamborghini tail lights. I had the electical all figured out, but I had been hesitant to cut the body. Once I took the saw to it there was no going back. Plus I was still concerned about how I was going to attach the panel to the car and get everything to line up right. At this point I really want to hurry up and get it back on the road. It’s been off the road for more than a year and a half now. It was originally only supposed to be down for a month or so, but if you know me you know how easily distracted I am. So anyway, I decided to put the stock tail lights back in. Another reason I haven’t worked on the car is I haven’t been able to find the tail light sockets I cut off. I also couldn’t find the connectors I got for the interior wiring. So yesterday I actually found them. Well, sort of. I found the connectors and two of the missing sockets. I also found a spare wiring harness from a notchback Fiero. I think with all that I can make it work again. Yesterday I managed to get the backup lights working but the brake and turns signals still don’t work. I really don’t know why, I had them working not long ago. I will tackle it more this week, I swear
More than a month later and I still haven’t accomplished much. After getting the 86 GT as done as it’s going to be, I started working on my Harley. The 86 is now my daily driver. I was going to sell it but with gas prices what they are my wife suggested we keep it for a while. I got my Harley put back together and it runs like crap. I’m very frustrated with it. I really don’t want to tear it down again. My Diablo has taken some of my attention lately also.
I haven’t completely ignored the Formula though. The other day I worked on the airbox. I was drilling holes in the plexiglass that is going to go over the airbox opening when it cracked. The plexiglass, not the airbox. That stuff was very difficult to cut and I cracked the first piece cutting it. I may just put some sealer over the crack and see if I can get away with that. It will look like hell but who cares? It won’t be visible when it’s installed.
I also tried working on the tail lights again. I had them all wired up and working at one point. Then I cut the wires so I could install the lights in the new panel. The plan was to add some extensions and use connectors behind the panel. Well, I wasn’t very good about keeping track of what wires wen’t where so now I have to figure it out again. Plus I couldn’t find the wire I bought for it. After a lot of frustration and searching I remembered I never did buy it. Oops.
I’d really like to get the car done enough to drive to Vegas for the Sema show next month. That means I have about 2.5 weeks. Everytime I think I can do it no problem I remember I have that freakin oil tube problem. That will make it very challenging. I will do what upholstery I can between now and then, but I’m still waiting on someone else to help me with the sewing. So I may just have to put those pieces in unfinished.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted an update but I have gotten a little bit of work done.
I finished cutting out the tail light panel holes, though it may still need some clean up. I finally got a body saw to make jobs like this easier, but when I was cutting the panel with it my air hose blew up. Son of a ……
I got the dash wiring cleaned up a bit. Now I can sit in the car and not get my feet tangled in the mess. Now the power door lock wiring won’t reach the switch, which is something I kind of expected anyway.
I swapped the rear wheels and wheel wells with my other car. Seemed like it took all day, but the wheel wells needed some modification and I was trying to get the other car running at the same time too.
That’s about it. I have someone lined up to do the sewing of the upholstery, just not sure when. So in the meantime I will do what I can and get the pieces in place that I can. That reminds me, I still have to mount the light switch to the lower dash and hook up the vents. There is an end in site though and I think I’m pretty close to the home stretch.
In case I never mentioned it before, there were some things I had planned that I am putting off now. I was going to install a decent stereo system and move the heater controls to behind the fake passenger side air bag cover. Then I was going to turn the air bag cover into a glove box door. Oh and make a glove box too. It’s these kinds of things that make a project drag out so darn long. In fact it’s partly why this has gone on as long as it has (Started in January), because I have held off doing some things while trying to figure out how to handle other things. In fairness to me though, I have not only been working on the interior. I’ve also converted it to a GT, added power windows and door locks and added Lamborghini tail lights. Well, I finally decided to just get it done. I’m going to put the heater controls where the stereo would go and leave the airbag cover alone. Then I can get it back on the road and enjoy it. Then I can deal with the other things as I feel ambitious.
Last night I managed to get all the holes for the lights cut out. That was a pain. I don’t think that a dremel cutting bit was the right tool for the job. I then tried to mount the tail light housings on the panel, but the lights don’t want to fit now that I have the wiring on there. It’s a little hard to explain without a picture but I’ll do my best. The tail lights are three pieces. There is the lens, the housing, and an insert piece that the bulbs sit in. One the back of the insert there are connector things to connect your wiring to. Problem is, when I connect my connectors to them, they stick out too far. I almost had it fitting, but when bending one of the tabs to try to make it fit, the tab broke. $%^&*! I am this close to just welding the damn wires to it!
Got a little bit of work done last night. I got my old lady to help too. We started cutting out the holes for the lights. Got two of them done and the bit broke on the third. I’ll have to get a new bit tonight. I worked on the wiring a bit. The wires keep pulling out of these connectors so I tried to make them a little more secure. I cut off the unused sockets and wrapped the wires in electrical tape. Oh, and my turn signals work without me having to dork them up. I thought I was going to have to make it so the brake light or backup light flashed when the turn signals were on. Without having two bulbs in the back they wouldn’t flash. But I found out if you swap the turn signal flasher mudule thing with one for the hazard lights they work fine with one bulb. So I stole one from my other Fiero and everything works great now.
I’ve come across another challenge. This tail light panels has six screws along the top (like stock), and two on the bottom sides. You are supposed to put the panel in place, then reach in through one of the holes and screw in the bottom sides. Problem is these lights will be attached by sandwiching the panel between the housing and the lens. That means the lights have to be in place before I install the panel, so there won’t be any holes to reach through. Not sure how I will handle that yet.
My connectors came in today. They will do quite nicely.
I had to work overtime again today so no work on the formula. I’m starting to consider paying someone to do the sewing on the upholstery. That is my biggest hold up right now. That and my lazy ass.
Remember when I said I had no excuse for not getting the tail lights done this weekend? Well, I have an excuse. I can’t seem to find any connectors locally so I just ordered a couple from Summit Racing. I should have them next week. I will do what I can without them. I will probably also rewire the gauges while I’m at it.
Last night I finally got back to working on the car just a little. I got some insulated terminals and replaced all the non-insulated ones I put on the tail lights. I will be doing that to my gauge panels soon too. I also figured out a solution to my turn signal problem. Not sure if I mentioned that before or not, but since I went from having two turn signal bulbs per side in the back to one, they wouldn’t flash. So a simple solution to that is to add a jumper wire to one of the other bulbs. So now I will have two bulbs flashing when the turn signals are on, the turn signal and the backup light for instance. I tested it with the brake light bulb but then it occurred to me that the turn signal will probably go on when I hit the brakes. Maybe that’s ok, I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it more. Other than that I have all the wiring figured out. I plan to get some two and three wire connectors to put behind the tail light panel also. That way if I need to remove the panel to replace a bulb or whatever, I only have to disconnect six connectors instead of 22 or however many wires there are back there. I really have no excuse not to have this done by the end of this weekend now.