I decided to tackle the backup lights first. This required that I take the shift lever boot cover and B&M plastic surround out so that I could get to the switches that are mounted on the shift lever. It's fiddly work and requires taking the top part of the shift lever apart. It's just two bolts and a clip and a spring, but it's still a bit of a PITA. Once I had access to the switch I needed to do some troubleshooting. There are two micro switches ganged together, one controls the backup lights (top one) and the other controls the ignition cutout (bottom). The switches ride against the side of the shift mechanism which has lobes to close the switches depending on what gear you are in. Easy system in principle, but it is very critical that the switches be the right distance from the shift body. Well, they weren't. Way to close. In fact, both switches were engaged almost all the time. I needed to get in with a big screw driver and lever the switches away from the body. Once I got them the correct distance, all was well. but this took several attempts to get it correct.
The second problem was that I had hooked the hot wire that goes to the LED lights on the dash and the one in the B&M console to the switched side of the backup lights. Since the switch was on all the time, I never noticed the problem. It was only after I got the switches working correctly that I noticed that the lights didn't work correctly. That was an easy fix; just move the lead from one side of the switch to the other. Done and done!
Next was the speedo. I wasn't looking forward to this because I was pretty sure I had to take the dash apart! Grrrrr. Getting the dash out isn't that hard. I needed to take the dash cover off, which just pulls out, take three screws out, and the dash comes right apart. But once I put it together, I really didn't want to take it apart again!
Once I got to the back of speedo, I was able to troubleshoot. I jacked up the rear of the car so that I could put it into gear and also get under it to get to the sender, which is right next to the exhaust. I started tracing wires and realized that I forgot to hook the hot wire to the sender. The wire was run correctly, I just didn't connect it at the speedo. Two hours of troubleshooting (mainly because I had to wait for the exhaust to cool down), five minute fix! Speedo now works. Took about 10 minutes to put the dash back together,
Before I put the dash pad back on, I looked at the oil pressure gauge light. Of course, once I had everything apart, it worked fine and I could not get it to flicker! So there is a loose wire someplace, but I've no idea where. It will reoccur at some point.
So, now that the speedo is working, I need to calibrate it. They have a really cool way to do this. You press and hold the trip reset button then start the car. The needle will move all the way to the right and hold at full. You drive the car to the start of a measured two mile run. Stop the car and press the button again. The needle moves to half deflection. You drive the two miles and stop, then press the button one more time. Voila, it's calibrated. It doesn't make any difference how fast you go or if you stop as long as you don't turn the power off. It is measuring the number of pulses delivered by the sender unit over a two mile length. The thing that will really impact the calibration is how accurate your measured two mile distance is. Pretty cool! Fortunately, I have a couple of those "Your Speed Is" signs around that I can test the accuracy!
One thing I noticed while under the car is the power steering rack is REALLY leaking oil. I mean, a lot of oil. Looks like I need to replace that before I get to doing any serious driving!
So, as was promised in the last post, I have some video of the car. Check these out on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/RR2jBWBEI0I
Thanks Matt for the video.
