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!
