No Panel Hanging, But Lots Of Troubleshooting

Dateline – 06/11 and 06/12, 2016 – I got all but the fenders back from the paint shop this week and was planning on having a panel hanging party on Saturday, but yours truly forgot to get the stainless steel hardware needed to put everything together.  I went to the local McClendons, but they didn’t have anything with the thread pattern I needed.  They sell the nuts, but not the bolts! I didn’t have enough time to go to Tacoma Screw, which is only open during the week until 5:00pm, so the party has been delayed.

I did get a chance to continue troubleshooting the wiring in the car.  Boy was that a challenge and I ended up cutting almost all the wire wrapping to do it.  Heavy sigh! 

Saturday morning, I started looking at the heater controls which were not working at all.  I figured out that I was not getting power to the #3 fuse and had to trace that back to a bad connection.  Once I get that figured out, both the heater fans and the temperature controls worked like a champ, but that was three hours of work!

Next was the windshield washer.  Guess what.  It worked right out of the box! 

How about the wipers?  Not so lucky.  The low speed and park functions were working fine but the high speed did not work.  There was no reason for it not to since all the wiring looked correct.  So I pulled the wiper motor out, which is a real PITA, then opened the motor to find the high speed brush was stuck.  After a bit of soldering and cleaning it started working fine.

My final item of the day was to get the side markers and headlights working.  Of course, neither worked out the box.  My original goal was to install a daytime running light and auto headlight module.  I thought it would be cool to have something like that.  Well, that was the first thing I took out!  Too much complication.  After rewiring with that out the system, I tried the side makers, which worked fine.  Then the headlights, which did not work!  Troubleshot this for about two hours before I discovered a bad ground on the left headlight!  Of course, I didn’t think of trying it on the right to see if they work!  So, both headlights working, high and low beam.  That was a full Saturday and I was done.

Sunday I decided to attack some of the accessories.  I noticed the interior lights were not coming on, but after trying a different switch, they worked fine.  Next I tried the new switch I installed on the dash to turn on the lights.  Not so good.  Blew a 20 amp fuse.  After looking at how I wired it, I can see why.  Battery direct to ground!  Okay, rewired that one and now the interior lights work.

Next was to try the map lights, which are mounted on the new rear view mirror I purchased.  Worked great!

How about the radio?  It worked too!  

Now I’m feeling pretty cocky!  So, I have a few switches that are blank right now.  The radiator fan unit I bought has a manual override that can be used to turn the fans on when you turn on the A/C or if you just want to have a switch in the car to turn them on.  So, I wired in one of the unused switches to power the fan.  And the fan worked great!

My final thing was to wire in the “starter kill” switch.  After taking out the keyless start system I originally put in, I didn’t have a starter lockout and still wanted one.  I have a space in the center console for the original start switch which was going to be a momentary on type since it was going to be used to turn over the engine.  I bought a new switch that is on/off and wired that in with a relay.  So now, without that button pressed, the starter will not engage.

Now, everything appears to be working except for the center indicator cluster which I need to etch a new circuit board for so it was time to put all the wiring back together.  I spent four hours trying to re-bundle the wires and the more I worked on it, the more I disliked how it was coming together.  I’ve always been worried about the relay position inside the center console.  If any of these relays goes bad, I have to take the entire thing apart to get to them.  Plus, there is a lot of wire going in a very tight space.  I’m just thinking this is going to be a place for failure. 

So I’m going to rewire it again.  I know!  I’ve rewired this three times now.  But I just don’t feel comfortable with it and I don’t want to have a breakdown on the freeway because of my wiring.  I’ve spent too much time working on this car to leave something in which I not at all comfortable.   So, time to get out the wire crimpers and do this again. 

Looking at the complexity I took out of the system over the weekend, I’m really thinking I can make it even simpler by removing a lot of the relays.  I think I’ve been over protective of my switches by using so many relays.  Also, I think I can move the relays up under the dash pad instead of having them inside the center console.  This will make them easier to get to if I need to troubleshot and will remove a great deal of the wiring out of the center console. 

Can I ever leave well enough alone?  Probably not.

Getting the Kinks Out

Dateline - 06/04/2016 - This weekend was dedicated to getting some of the electrical kinks out.  First I noticed the speedometer was not working.  After some troubleshooting I found that it was not getting hot from ignition.  Probably something I modified cut the power to the gauge, so I ran a hot from the tach and now it works, or at least, it is zeroing out and it shows 2 miles on the odometer!

Next I was worried that the electric fans were not coming on for engine cooling.  I did some initial troubleshooting then decided to check the instructions to see if they were supposed to come on.  Sure enough, RTFM!  The fans come on at about 160 degrees.  I never ran the engine long enough get it that hot, so of course the fans didn't come on  I do need to test that before we put the hood back on because it will be a real pain to work on after that if there is a problem.

Now it was time to wire in the new battery cutoff switch that I got from Amazon during the week.  I took out the solenoid that I had in place first, then I needed to make some brackets for the switch, which is designed to mount into a dash or bulkhead.  After making the brackets, sand blasting, tin plating and polishing them, I installed them in the same place as the solenoid.  I did not have the hardware to mount the switch on the brackets, so I used a couple of zip ties to hold it in place.

Next started troubleshooting a light that was coming on in my new "info center".  It was the oil pressure light and it stayed on all the time.  After doing some review, I realized that I have it wired backward.  For the oil pressure light, I need hot going through the bulb to the sender which goes to ground.  I have it wired so that the hot comes from the sender through the bulb to ground.  So, the hot being send to the sender from the gauge is going through the bulb to ground, keeping it lit.  I need to reverse that.  This means I need to etch a new circuit board!  Oh well.  A new board will allow me to be able to make a few changes that I wanted to do anyway (e.g. put a low brake fluid warning and hazard light indicator) and put tabs on the board that I can use to secure it via screws to the back of the dash board.

Next I tried the hazard and turn signals which were not working.  But it was getting hot in the garage (we broke temperature records this weekend) and decided to call it a day of actually working in the garage, but did spend time on the computer redrawing the circuit board so that I can etch a new one.

Dateline - 06/05/2016 - Sunday was going to be a day to figure out why the blinkers and hazard doesn't work as well as try the climate control.  First I needed to deal with a few things under the hood.  There were two ground wires, one from the speedo sending unit and one from the block to the body that needed to be attached.  I took care of that.

Next I installed the climate control box, but it did not work at all.  No fans, no temperature control.  I was going to dive into that, but decided to work on the blinkers instead.

Wow!  The blinkers.  What PITA.  Of course, I was making it more complicated then it needed to be by trying to use the hazard switch that was part of the GM blinker switch.  I must of spent three hours just trying to remember what I did three years ago and re-figuring out how the car was originally wired.  I know this worked when I first wired it, but it sure wasn't working now.  So, I decided to go back to the way the car was originally wired, with a separate hazard switch.  Now that the battery cutoff switch is no longer being used, I decided to use that as my hazard switch.  So after four hours of troubleshooting and rewiring, I now have hazard and blinkers that work.  What this means is that all that work I did to create that switch with my 3D printer was for nought!  "Best laid plans" I guess.

By the time I stopped working on the car is was 90 degrees outside and I needed to stop.  I plan to spend some time this week after work to get the climate controls working and test out the rest of the electrical work.  I'm hoping to have the rest of the body panels back this week and I'm planning to have a panel hanging party on Saturday so I really would like to have all the electrical work done before then!

Big Victory and a Small Defeat

Dateline – 05/30/2016 – As you can see from this post’s title, I made some major headway this weekend, but also had a bit of an issue.  I’ll cover these in sequence.  First, I got the rubber gaskets from Amazon for the fuel caps and they worked perfectly!  Here are pictures of the right hand filler cap installed!  Nice to have something go easily.

Right gas cap closed

Right gas cap open.  Note rubber seal.

Next, I started working on the power.  I bought a new battery several weeks ago, but had not actually tried it.  So, first I went through and made sure that all the exposed electrical was taped over so that I wouldn’t short anything out.  Next I put in fuses and hooked up the battery.  NOTHING!  Grrr!  So I started troubleshooting.  I have a master power switch in the car that goes to a 200 amp relay in the engine compartment.  I looked it over and thought that I had connected it incorrectly.  I swapped a wire turned it on and POOF!  Smoke everywhere!!!!!  It’s amazing what happens when you put 600 amps through a 16 gauge wire!  Yup.  Fried and melted!  Literally melted the copper wire in half that went to ground and melted the wire running from the coil to the switch along its entire length.  I had to cut apart all my nice wire wrapping to pull the wire out.  Fortunately, it melted to surrounding wire, but did not damage any of it.  But I think my car is going to smell like burnt electrics for a long time!

So, after that I took the solenoid out of the loop (going to put a manual power cutoff there because I realize now that a solenoid is still going to draw the battery down) and hooked the power back up.  No "poofs" this time.

Now I decided to see if I could get power.  Some time ago I decided to go with a power on and starter button instead of using the ignition switch.  Well that does not appear to be working because I could get no power.  Grrrr!  So, I took that out of the loop and now I think I’m going to keep it out.  I was never comfortable with the main power being driven through a set of relays.  I could just see that being a major failure.  So I’m going to go back to the old system.  KISS.  I don’t know what I’m going to use the two push button switches for now, but I’ll figure something out.

So with the old ignition switch installed, I got power and was able to turn the engine over!  Yah!

After frying electrical, I decided to see if I could get the engine started.  First, I wanted to make sure the distributor was close to the correct timing and that I had the firing order correct.  I had swapped the distributor cap and I wanted to be sure, so pulled the cap and did a check.  All was good.

Now I needed to line the distributor to TDC.  I needed to turn the engine over easily, so I pulled the plugs and brought engine to TDC.  Looking at the distributor, I noticed it was 180 degrees out.  Hmmm.  Okay, easy to fix and while I have the distributor out, I can prime the engine oil by manually running the oil pump.  So I pulled the distributor and with a very long screwdriver, drove the oil pump until it got a lot of turning resistance.  Then I put the distributor back in at the correct angle, at least I thought it was. 

Next I put the plugs back in, installed the distributor cap, plugged in the wires and then poured some gas down the carb.

Now the time of reckoning.  Will it start?  It turned over and BLOOM backfire through the carb.  Every time I’ve seen that, it is the timing being off by 180 degrees.  Damned!  I had it right to begin with.  So once again I pulled the plugs, only this time I also pulled off the valve cover on the odd (driver side) bank of cylinders and watched the rocker arms to get into the power stroke, not the intake stroke!  Do’h.  That was stupid!

So, plugs back in, wires connected, gas in the carb and VROOM!  Engine starts and runs for a second.  YA!

I do that a few more times, then decide to put gas in the tank for the first time.  I put about a gallon in the right hand tank, and knowing that I’ve no fuel anywhere in the lines or filters, I took the top off the carb and filled up the bowls so that the engine would run long enough to prime.  I started the engine and sure enough, it kept running!  And I had good oil pressure and the volt meter was showing a good 14 volt charge!  I let the engine run until it heated up enough to start flowing water out the radiator filler, which was uncapped, but that was enough to get it hot and to fill the garage full of fumes from the exhaust manifolds and exhaust pipes.  Here is a video of the engine running along with gauges showing oil pressure and amps

So what is left.  Well I still have some troubleshooting to do.  The clock is not working.  I need to put enough gas in to see if the gas gauge is working.  I need to heat the engine up to find out if the temperature gauge is working.  I also didn’t check the tach to see if that was working correctly.  And I’m not sure if the electric radiator fan came on or not.  I believe it should be on low at all times and speed up after a certain temp.  Also, I need to check to see if the left/right fuel switch is working correctly.  I did check that the solenoids are working, but I don’t know if the gauge is working or not.  And I have to rewire the ignition to use the switch again, pull out the relays and wiring.

So, the day started off kinda of crappy, but ended on a very high note.

Fuel Delivery System

Dateline - 05/21/2016 - Worked on the fuel delivery system this weekend.  The first thing was to get the gas caps installed.  These are a Jaguar work of mechanical complexity.  Talk about over engineered!  They consist of a base filler neck that slides into the tank with an o-ring and screws into the body with four machine screws.  There is a vapor recovery port that needs to have a fuel line connected to it (part of the fuel recovery system I installed earlier (http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2016/01/started-on-trunk.html).  There is also the chrome cap which has mounted on it:

• A lock
• The lock cover
• The latch/spring mechanism
• The Fuel opening seal mechanism

The fuel opening seal mechanism is complex in its own right.  It consists of:

• A spring loaded plate that mounts to the chrome cap
• A cup shaped plug that holds the seal for the tank and fits into the filler hole
• A spring loaded plug that has a rubber seal on it which fits into the cup.  This is used to allow excess pressure to escape the tank.
• Yet another spring loaded plug in the center of the bigger plug that allows any water that gets into the cup to drain into the tank.

Exploded view of gas cap

YIKES!  Three separate spring loaded components, two rubber seals and a cup that can potentially fill up with water!  All to cover the filler of the gas tank.

So, needless to say, all of these metal parts become very corroded over time, especially the inside of the cup and the components inside.  It took four complete filler caps (the two on the car and two that I purchased on-line) to build up the two I needed.  All of the corroded parts got a good sandblasting and tin plating to help avoid corrosion in the future.

The problematic piece is the rubber seal used on the tank filler.  You can't get this anywhere.  I did some amazon.com spelunking and I think I found a rubber replacement.  I was hoping they would be in this weekend, but they didn't come in.  They came in last night (Monday) and they fit beautifully!  A little larger in outside diameter, but I can cut it back if needed.

The other part of the fuel delivery that I worked on was the steel tubing running under the car to the engine.  I recorded earlier about the steel fuel line from the tanks being crushed  (http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-jag-is-home.html).  The crushed piece was were the fuel line ran along the side of the frame rail.  I had cut the offending piece off and was going to just go with the shorter fuel line and a longer rubber line running to the pump.  But with everything installed, I didn't like how close the rubber fuel line would to the exhaust pipe.  So I decided to go ahead and make a new steel hard line that would run along the frame rail to the front, ending closer to the fuel pump.  I got out my trusty pipe bending tools and genned up a piece that fit closely to the frame rail to a good point under the car.  I then cut the existing tubing to fit and used a brass union compression fitting to put the two pieces together.  This left me with a lot cleaner installation, and just a short piece of rubber hose from the hard line to the fuel pump.  Plus, I got a chance to play with my tubing bending tools!

New fuel line and rubber hose leading to fuel pump

My only concern is the proximity of the line to the exhaust manifold and collectors.  I'm going to monitor this to make sure I'm not getting fuel vaporization.  If I do, I'll probably need to get some heat shielding.  It is something to be watchful of.

So this completes the fuel delivery.  I should be ready to put gas in the tanks!  For all intents and purposes, except for a small amount of wiring, the engine should be ready to start!  I need to wire in the ignition and starter buttons, put in fuses and hook up the battery.  I've gone around the car and put electrical tape over all the disconnected wires, so it should be pretty safe.  Maybe next weekend?

Also, I talked to the paint shop and they are thinking the panels will be done this week!  Going to need to plan that panel hanging party!