Running wires

This week, prior to doing the actual swapping of the rear end and transmission, I'll need to run some wires for the speedo signal. In the '86, these wires are part of a whole loom, and not easily separated from the rest of the group. So I figured that instead of ripping them out, I'd just run my own. While I'm running those I'll probably also run another for the rear fogs, since I have a switch from the '86 for them... But I digress. I tried finding a wiring diagram for the speedo online, but what I did find didn't look very helpful. The speedo plug has 3 wires - black, blue and red/black, while the sender only has the black and blue. So I figure the red/black is a power wire of some kind, but I've got to figure out if it's a 12v switched or stepped down somehow before I go splicing in and scorching electronics.

At the very least I can get the bare wires plumbed into the car and put into the approximate locations before anything else happens, anyway. I wonder if I should think about running some amp wire as well while I have the carpet pulled up and seat out for this... Hmm. I may have to do just that.

Oh and I'll have to rain-x as well because I HATE HATE HATE using my wipers. Bah humbug.

Fixing a Yellow Box

So Yellow Box had a small engine fire.  Not my car, but now my problem to fix because I caused it.  Posted on OVT about getting a new harness, and got a hit - but when I picked up the harness it wasn't the right one.  Looks like it was for a k-jet car, not LH.  However, the ignition harness that came with it was for a bosch distributor instead of the chrysler piece of crap, so I grabbed one of my spare distributors out of my stash and installed that.  Then I went about fixing the old harness, because I looked through the records that came with the car and the harness in the car was only about 5 years old - which for a 27 year old car was FABULOUS.

While the pic of the harness LOOKS bad, it was really only singed in a few places, and only one connector was unusable (which was on the ignition harness, which I swapped).  When I cut off the sheathing the wires underneath were absolutely perfect.  Some of the insulation was slightly bonded to the sheathing, but I was able to cut it all off and make it perfect.  And then I reinstalled it.

An upside to taking the intake manifold off to get to the harness was that it revealed that the car DID, IN FACT have a vacuum leak.  The intake manifold gasket at #1 was nastified and broken (nowhere near where the fire was worst, so that wasn't the cause).  The intake tube was also melted, but I'm pretty sure THAT was due to the fire...luckily I have a spare from my maroon 245.  I picked up the parts for that today, and I should have it back together and running this weekend.

THEN I can start on the other 3 cars I have to fix...  Betty needs a transmission mount, the 850 needs a valve replacement, and Roon needs to be finished.  Sheesh.

More and more

No pics again today, I know I'm a slacker.  Not really, since I DID get a LOT done with Roon today, but I forgot my camera at home.

I got a solenoid installed into the drivers' door, so keyless entry WILL work when I get the alarm installed.  Did a little more wiring on the engine harness, still need to look up a couple of things but nothing major.  Got the exhaust nearly completed, and in fact tacked up another downpipe just to see if a different one would be any better.  It wasn't...quite, but mainly because of how I had the rest of the exhaust already completed.  I may weld it up and sell it when I get better at welding.  And I completed my fuel rail welding as well.  Finally got one that I'm not ashamed of, but now I'm worried that my welds may have gotten to hot and compromised the aluminum underneath.  I'll hook it up to air and pump ~40psi into it to make sure everything is kosher before I run fuel through it.

So that was my today, fairly productive and tomorrow I shall bring my camera along so I can document more fully my progress.