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I appreciate the advice, checking the grounds behind the heads is a great idea, and it's something I haven't done yet. Not an awesome place to access, I think I might need to move some things out of the way first.
I haven't done a thing to the car in days because it's been raining pretty heavily. There was a break in the weather today so I went out to develop a multi-car parking strategy to avoid getting drips from the power lines that attach to my house (not great when it starts freezing). Fired up the car and let it idle for a little bit. Noticed the tach was wiggling, sure enough we've got tach functionality. Oil pressure gauge is back to somewhere above 60, voltmeter was showing 14. Still no action from the fuel gauge and I didn't warm it up enough for temp gauge, but I haven't seen the tach and voltmeter in months so it's super cool to see them working. I also got the right turn signal light to blink a few times, not a lot of times. When I put the car in reverse, the Fasten Belts light came on with buzzer for a couple seconds, then turned off. Buzzer was not activating with headlights on today. They were not on while I had the car running, but they've been turning off pretty quick these days. Still no inst lps but that fuse isn't (wasn't? not a lot of definitives with this car) getting power so there's probably an open in some terrible place that my hands don't fit in.
Seems like the car enjoys being cold and soggy, less resistance I guess? Anyway, very stoked to see some positive improvement for my efforts and I thought y'all might like my ghost stories.
I'm betting it's a ground issue, I had something similar in an old 79 Blazer, drove me nuts, weird issues with lights, gauges etc. it was a bad ground. it's great to see another one being saved, good job!
Still haven't done any work under the hood. SES light and Security light are back, can confirm temp gauge is working. Fuel gauge has moved on its own, don't trust it at all though. Tach says the car idles at 650-700ish, very smooth and throttle response is immediate.
I put out a wanted ad in a NW Third Gen buy/sell group on FB for some stock wheels. Got an offer within a week for a set in ok shape with pretty new tires and I've spent the past two weeks cleaning them up.
The rear sides had some very seriously adhered dust. This pic was after a normal power tool assisted scrub. I spent waaaaaayyy too much time scraping off the junk, the bottom part is post-scrape, they all started like how the side of the inner rim looks:
After that, it was an escalation of what 'good enough' would be for the face sides. So after endless scrubbing, a heavy cut, polish, rewash, and wax front and back sides, I managed to get some pretty decent looking ten footers.
I finally got them on the car today, with some brand new center caps.
Pretty stoked, this car was wearing the old Weld Zero Drags since the original owner put them on, probably in the early 90's.
There's an old feller up the road from me with an '82 C20 for sale, and I just might need it because the sickness is real. My rule is, I can't get more shitboxes if the previous shitbox can't make it to the bank to get money for more shitboxes, so off I went to complete the 18 mile round trip. In the rain.
Fuel gauge was saying E, I didn't trust it since it's been a bit flakey. I had gone about 80 test miles since my last fuel up, so I figured I'd play it safe and fuel up first. She took darn near 14 gallons, so I was getting about uhhh... 6 mpg. Seems excessive, and my oil does smell gassy. But also, I was doing some uhh, vigorous testing lately.
Fuel gauge immediately went up to full after I turned the car back on, MASSIVE WIN! All my gauges are actually functional now, except oil pressure is a little too excited and currently points at the passenger seat.
I'm still afraid of the HVAC after the shut-it-all-the-way-down incident when I ran the blower motor, and the lights seem a bit sketchy as well, but I needed wipers so I decided to chance it with wipers being my electrical accessory choice. Intermittent action is a no-go, but they work on low just fine. I pushed the heat slider to full hot, left the HVAC on off, and took off. Cracked the windows a little to get the airflow going, which also got a pretty steady drip going on my thigh. Nice.
Windshield started fogging up right about the time I hit 60 on the highway. Fortunately, my flannel shirt doubles as a windshield defroster 200, so a shuffle dance later I was 38.457% safer amongst medium heavy traffic. As the heater core heated up, I didn't need to wipe it more than once. Made it all the way to the bank and back without incident, no SES light, just some minor vibes at speed which could be a lot of things. This car is a riot.
I drove that C20, it was cool, my knee almost hit the steering wheel operating the clutch and it was in nearly as sorry of a state as this IROC-Z was in when I got it. I passed on it because I would have lost all velocity on this project to fix that one. Anyhow, it's been raining constantly but there was a break in the sky this morning. I did some heater fan testing, no action in the first three positions, full power works fine, gets hot, didn't shut the car down. I even ran it with the lights on. Voltmeter gauge hilariously drops with each increased load, including low swings when the blower is activated. I suspected the resistor pack was upset.
Yep, it's upset.
Did the maple seed short it out? It does look burned. No idea why this implementation isn't used in modern times, I mean who wouldn't want a miniature Thomas Edison-era science experiment running their blower speeds.
I guess it's some consolation that the replacement parts are nearly free on rockauto. Hopefully the blower fan isn't drawing excessive current because I didn't test it. It sounds fine on high at least.
I peeled off the melty connector and the wires underneath looked pretty good, no real damage. Hit the ends with the wire wheel on a dremel and managed to sneak them into the new connector. It was a very tight fit, but they did go in.
Replacement resistor pack dropped right in, and all 4 speeds are now operational. I tested each of the three speeds for 5 minutes, touching the new connector and it never got hot. The cabin sure did though, wow this might be the most heat output of any car I've ever had.
Last night I offered to give a friend a ride home. He lives in the middle of downtown Seattle, a notoriously busy area accessible from here only by 60mph freeways, a 70 mile round trip from here across a long water bridge with no shoulder, and it was 40F and dark out. So I did the right thing, grabbed my windshield dryer towel 200 and hopped in the IROC-Z.
I pulled the headlight ****, and I'll be dipped, I had inst lps. I took it as an omen, the ghost of 'ol Dale Earnhardt was watching over me. We hit the highway, my speedometer cable started screeching, but quieted after a couple minutes. All gauges reported ideal specs. There's a light but persistent shimmy in the front end at 60+. Not serious, but something that I'll need to address in the spring. New brakes are bedded at this point and grab firm and straight.
Traffic was heavy once I got into the city. Other drivers don't yield for you here as much as they can't be bothered to actually strike your car with theirs, but I managed to aggressively merge in bumper to bumper traffic in accordance with local customs. She got warm in stop and go, gauge reported 230 but went no further. Right turn signal slows in proportion to engine temp, which is sort of hilarious.
I made it all the way in, dropped my friend off, and had an easier time leaving. Temps plummeted as soon as I got airspeed. I snapped an action picture on the way back, check those inst lps!
I made it all the way home, no SES lights, no issues. Seems like I used 3-4 gallons of gas, so maybe high teens mileage? Not alarming in any case. Super stoked for such a long trip completed with headlights and a heated cabin and everything.
Two months no update, well it's been rainy and cold so I focused on putting some miles on the car so I can see what it wants to spit out. I've been using it as my going to town rig when there hasn't been snow on the ground and it hasn't let me down. I've put a couple hundred miles on it. The transmission cooler lines leak where they were hacked off and fitted with rubber hose. The power steering leaks from the all of it. Tailshaft of transmission area slightly leaks. AC clutch bearing gave up on life, both it and the alternator kinda sound like rock polishers when you put the ol stethoscope on them. Brake fluid suspiciously lower from the pinhole leak in the front to rear line I'm still pretending I didn't see.
She does one hell of a burnout, 2nd gear is all I can currently get to but it'll still lay a pretty decent patch and fill the cabin with freedom.
I put a fresh reproduction 5.7 TPI badge on the back, it was 2mm wider than factory but close enough for me:
Upgraded my infotainment center:
Today I started on correcting some of the above issues under the hood. Decided to delete the AC for now so I can clean and prep whatever is worthy of going back in, and buy whatever isn't without a time constraint. Got a new alt / ps pump bracket, new ac delco alternator, picked up a kit for ps pulley removal. Deleted my cracked washer reservoir, I'm liking the looks of a Chase Bays mini unit to replace it. This is where I'm at now, more disassembly to come.
Figured out why they call it a wonderbar; cause you gotta wonder how to get that bolt out with the bar there.
Drained the radiator, my coolant had an alarming amount of
Dead bugs
Pine needles
Leaves
Wood chips
??Sand?? Sandy rocks? Why??
So a radiator flush is now on the menu. The radiator cap was off when I got the car, I'm guessing it had been off for a long time.
Picked up an Astro Pneumatic 1443B and a variety kit of rivnuts off the jungle website:
I picked the M5 size to replace my stripped lower air dam threads. They needed a 9/32" hole to install. Being a small lever, the grip strength required to squeeze these in is significant. I didn't have an issue with it and I was able to do it from underneath the car on the ground, but I did use both hands. The M6 might be challenging, anything bigger would need a larger size tool for sure. Got them all in just fine, worked well, and I've got a firmly attached air dam now:
I think I might need to clean up this area and hit it with some rust converter before parts start going back in. Also need to make a decision on what to do about that aftermarket trans cooler.
Today I removed the power steering and alternator accessory bracket, and the power steering pump. It's a greasy nightmare, so it's gotta go. This car continues to find the weak spots in my toolbox; the flare nut on the pump side high pressure line is 16mm.
I'm going to replace the water pump too, since I'm already in this far. Considering hitting this stuff with the pressure washer to get grease-free surfaces to spray rust converter on. I've got a little more of that vht gloss black that might look good on the pullies, and I got a white paint marker to help with the timing mark situation.
Cleanup and parts ordering continues. I wasn't happy with how clean I was able to get the ac / air pump bracket on the car, so it came off too.
That photo was before the pressure washer, but honestly it doesn't look much different now. There was half an inch of gunk caked behind the power steering pulley, and while the tensioner pulley bearing did spin freely, when I spun it on my finger I could feel wobble and binding, so that has to go as well. This is what was in there:
I'm a little bit further along than this photo, all pulleys are now painted.
The water pump is next for painting, I scored what appears to be the correct casting without the pipe plug deal. It's a refurb, looks like the pulley mating surface has been pryed on a few times, I'll have to knock down that ridge.
Not complaining for $20 shipped. I've got everything I need to flare the trans cooler lines ($$$) and adapt them to AN braided hose ($$), just waiting for a day off when it isn't raining. I feel pretty accomplished for February wrenching overall, it's usually a very wet and cold month to work outside.
Well a guy did figure out how to press bearings with this bearing presser-outer 900:
Worked great, didn't even scratch the paint. Lots of rainy days, but I'm close to the reassembly phase. I finally got my trans cooler mounted with all steel components at all four corners. It was a little too close to the ac condenser, and the back of the cooler was right up against the center support brace. Vice grip, ball peen, and some NASCAR spec massage therapy gave me that 1/4" I was looking for:
Next up is fitting the bulkheads and attaching the soft lines. I've also been cleaning and painting all the nasty looking stuff. Got a visible timing mark now.
The underside of the battery tray was looking a bit crispy.
It looked worse than it was, a little wire wheel and rust converter action fixed it right up.
I even went the extra mile and got hi temp primer for the water pump paintjob, and I did file that bump flat as well as restore the threads (they sucked!). Just going waaaaaayyy over budget over here. Here's the state of the workbench:
Everything is looking clean, radiator got all the rocks flushed out and I took a pick and restored on all the bent fins. It's coming together.
Got it all back together today, sorted out some leaks at the flare nuts and everything seems good on the initial test drive. Very smooth and quiet now, a little creepy. In total, this project was:
Trans cooler system redesign
Rivnut holes to permanently attach air dam
A/C delete, nearly the whole system is junk.
New alternator.
Reman power steering pump. Aftermarket feed hose did not fit well, needed convincing.
Reman water pump.
Replace idler pulley bearing.
Replace broken alt and ps bracket.
Generally clean up caked grease, dirt, rust.
Paint pulleys, timing mark.
Now I gotta figure out why the dome light won't turn off. Something around the ecm area ejected a metal tab onto the floor, I think my ecm might be pinching a door open wire or something weird.
Dome light issue ended up being very straight forward; it was a dead door switch. Check out this crusty critter:
New one was $10 on rockauto, it seems like an updated design with an extra little rubber bit that goes over the plunger. Fit in just the same and most importantly, works like new.
Finally got to experience 40 miles of t-tops off wonderful spring weather in the car, it was fantastic. No issues, temps stayed really cool even in decent weekend urban traffic. New stuff is all working well. I was a little sketched out by remanufactured water and power steering pumps, but they are relatively simple devices and it's a lot more confidence inspiring than rusty, leaky old junk. I still have a vibration that increases with speed, mostly above 40mph. It tracks straight and everything seems pretty solid under the car, I suspect my used wheels and tires combo might be out of balance. The rear brakes are definitely working, they have scrubbed off a lot of the corrosion and the car is stopping well.
I buttoned up the fusebox and put all the panels back in the interior, and went out yesterday to do some wheel swaps to my old set in the front to see if the vibration changes, but I got no security light, no ses light, and no fuel pump. Uh oh, I touched the fusebox. It's strange how this car can go from totally reliable cruiser to absolutely dead with a twist of the fusebox. I pulled the fusebox down again, and with some picking and general fudgery I got it sitting in a position that makes the car happy again. Vorteciroc helped me out with pictures of how to disassemble the fusebox in this thread, I'm hoping a good contact cleaning of all the busses will straighten it out. I've seen darn near everything work on this car at one time or another, so I know there isn't a problem with the way its wired, just the condition of the wires. I still haven't addressed the grounds behind the head. It's hard to see, but the bolt almost looks cross threaded back there.
The weather is becoming optimal for paint correction again, with a little luck I might be able to complete the doors back to the tail, and then freshen up the polishing I did last year and then I'll finally have a slick looking, well protected finish.
My goal is to do at least one driving event this year. I think the car is mostly capable of high performance driving at this point, I don't like the weeping brake line though. That might need to be the next project. I have to decide between making my own line (more tools required, larger time investment) or getting a prebent set (more expensive, quicker results).
I’ve enjoyed this thread a lot, nice work getting it back together!
Thanks!
I spent six hours behind a buffer this weekend, going pretty heavy with a medium cut pad and Meguiar's ultimate compound. I don't think it's actually a very aggressive compound given how hard I had to work it, but sorta what you'd expect for an off the shelf consumer solution. I followed it with chemical guys blacklight glaze, then their butter wet wax. Not looking so much like 11 years sitting in the woods now:
I put the car up on jackstands to swap out the front wheels for the least leaky pair of wheels from my old set. Found just the slightest trace of weepage at the trans cooler flare nuts and a dab of ps fluid under the pump. Tightened those a touch, then tried to find where the brake line was leaking and couldn't find it. There's a spot on the frame rail that water weeps down over the line, but it didn't taste like brake fluid. Just dirty car water. Reservoir also wasn't down on fluid, maybe what I thought was brake fluid was actually ps fluid flipping back off the old pump.
Took her up into the other half of the speedometer with the sketchy weather checked tires on the front only, vibes were not present so it's a wheel balance issue with my new used set. Easy enough to remedy. Love that TPI torque surge, there just ain't nothing else like the sound of a v8 with the throttle wide open.
Lifted the car front and rear today to change the differential oil. Definitely have some sort of tailshaft / speedo cable area type leak:
I cleaned it off to get an idea of the leak rate, the grey **** was loose so I finger tightened it.
Finally made my way back to the rear axle, it was pretty gnarly:
Scaly rust is a nasty eye hazard, so I got busy with a wire brush. Apparently my diff was orange at some point? There's clearly some sort of pigmented remnant on there:
Anyway, did the full craigslist rebuild with some rust converter.
Also knocked a startling amount of rust out from between the bumper and some cross support thing formerly made of steel. Weight reduction = free horsepower, fellers.
Believe it or not, the diff oil wasn't disgusting or stinky. Seemed mildly water contaminated. Whoever was in here last didn't use thread sealant, but did bother to use a gasket. Cleaned all the bolts, chased all the threads, used high temp thread sealant and torqued to 20ft lbs. I also went with a Fel Pro gasket (my current favorite for everything, have had great results) and 1.4ish quarts of the good stuff.
Syringe is a Performance Tool unit I got off Summit, it performed adequately.
I bought a racing helmet a couple weeks ago. I've been trying to get a car I built myself to a sporting event for... 16 years. She might still be a bit of a basket case, but I think she can do it.
That rust converter did a nice job! Makes me wish I went that way on mine instead of all the work associated with POR15.
It looks nice right now, but the upside of POR15 is that it's pretty much permanent in my experience. I suspect the rust converter won't be nearly as durable, but 5 minutes to spray with no prep and no cleanup was a nice way to mitigate my problem so I could at least handle the cover without getting junk everywhere, and no flakes fell into the diff.
It looks nice right now, but the upside of POR15 is that it's pretty much permanent in my experience. I suspect the rust converter won't be nearly as durable, but 5 minutes to spray with no prep and no cleanup was a nice way to mitigate my problem so I could at least handle the cover without getting junk everywhere, and no flakes fell into the diff.
The POR15 has held pretty good but hasn’t really been put to the test on a garaged car that doesn’t see salt.
The quest for door locks began today. I was delayed by lack of tools, the torx screws holding the armrest on were slightly too deep for my torx sockets, so I got a set of Eklind torx L-keys, very nice pieces made in USA, fit was excellent. Got the door panel off, things weren't actually looking too bad in there. Last guy in here was not gentle on the hardware.
I ended up hitting those rusty pieces with some rust converter. The door panel is toast, years of water damage have made it permanently crispy and warped. Most of the top rivet screw plug things were already broken when I started removal, all of them broke by the time I got it off.
Note late model rubber flap. Tons of noise reduction buffers and things in these '89 doors, they don't really rattle. I hit the lock assembly with waaayyy too much Free-All, and shot white lithium grease down the window roller channels. I freed up enough resistance for the power lock solenoid to operate the door again, huge win. This window is still slower than the driver's side but it did pick up a little speed.
I did the right thing and professionally restored the door panel:
I brought out the big guns and used the heavy duty duct tape. It's actually an improvement from what was on the car, the fit is tighter against the door now.
Also picked up a Heatshield brand sun reflector to try and keep my dash from baking. It grew a couple little cracks during the heatwave last year.
They are custom sized for third gens, so the fitment is great, quality is nice too. Recommended solution.
Your a better man than me, I just looked at that rusty armrest structure and moved on to lubricating the actuators and greasing the tracks. I used wd40 to free the hardware and actuators and then white lithium grease to lube them after, it worked good.
Thanks for the heads up on the sun protector, I had a poor fitting one that I gave away and the one you mentioned sounds good.
I brought the car down and used a hand pump to get 2-3 gallons of yellow gas out of the tank which I distributed across the empty fuel jugs around the property. I put in 4 gallons of premium and a bottle of Lucas fuel conditioner. It fired back up, CEL came back on.
The rain has been constant lately, so I've been sneaking in odd jobs here and there. My under dash map-console-pinhole light thing wasn't working, so I popped it out. It was disgusting and corroded, bulb long since burned out. Cleaned up everything I could, put a #74 miniature bulb on the next order list.
Finally bothered to check my timing now that my timing mark is nicely painted white. Encountered a profanity level medium trying to access the distributor hold down bolt until I found the winning combo of 5" extension and 9/16 crowsfoot which fit perfectly. I was only at 4 BTDC, bumped it up to 6 and it seemed to improve response and overall power (imagine that). Just goes to show you fellers, if you don't check your timing, you just might be retarded.
Headliner has really started falling down from cruising with the t-tops off. 3rdgenguy and lsxmatt have nice tutorials on YouTube about it, trying to decide between going oem fabric or black suede. Don't know why I want black suede so bad, I'll probably be brushing it all the time. I took another look at my melted roof panel since it looks like it kinda holds the headliner up in the back. Everybody wants ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS for a reproduction, so I got to thinking about how to unbendify mine maybe good enough to get it on the car until I can source a nice used piece locally.
I ended up holding it close to my propane portable heater, and slowly massaging it as it transitions between solid and molten lava. It'll never be perfect, the top ripple appears to have physically shrunk the material, but I might have gotten it straight enough to line up the holes? I need hardware to finish the install, but here's a before / after of the piece:
Hoping to get into the driver's door on the next sunny weekend.
Black suede on the headliner would look pretty cool I bet but the upkeep might not be worth the hassle.
BTW after fighting that distributor hold down bolt enough what I have found that works really good is a self ratcheting 9/16 wrench with the flex head, really makes it easy to get at. My father in law a contractor swears by those and I now know why.
Yeah, I can see how a flex head ratcheting wrench would tuck in nicely. I bought the Performance Tool Distributor Wrench for just this task and it would fit perfectly without the EGR solenoid right there. I still used the other half of it on the 5" extension because it makes a nice handle. The secret with third gens is to just come equipped with every tool that you've ever seen or heard of .
Ended up having nice weather, put 40 miles on the car doing everything from full throttle highway pulls to stop and go city traffic. Seemed like it was hunting for gears, going in and out of OD or something at 47-48 mph for the first ten minutes of driving, but didn't notice it doing that once everything was fully warm on the way home. Oddly, the shocks seem slightly more responsive now. There was a lot of banging and creaking in the beginning, now it's quiet.
I took the driver's door panel off, I was the first one here and everything was in much better shape. I still duct taped the plastic top bit to the cardboard on the panel to take the stress off the thin rivet points, it definitely adds rigidity. I carefully peeled back the plastic sheet, it's easy to save if you go slow and use a plastic pick:
There was a lot more slop in the lock arms on this side, and one of the rivets on my solenoid was loose. Free-All worked on this side too, I was able to get the power locks operational with enough lube. Window speed improved with lithium grease in the tracks again. I wasn't able to tighten the rivet with pliers or a hammer and socket, so I went NASCAR spec and yanked all the slop out with the sheet metal. Who knows, maybe it was bent in funny to begin with. I took a pic of the after rust converter this time:
I shot dry graphite in the lock tumblers ages ago, they're all turning well now. Apparently you're not supposed to use graphite for that anymore? I don't know. I thought you weren't supposed to shoot oil in them because it gums them up.
Took the car out to Group 2 Automotive today for an 80's and 90's car show. It was fun meeting up with some people from TGO, here's some nice freshly waxed pictures from the event:
Car is looking great. Couple things I'd do, new front parking lights, and trim up the exhaust pipes a bit. The transmission hunting deal might be the ECM going in and out of closed loop. Maybe a temperature sensor problem.
Car is looking great. Couple things I'd do, new front parking lights, and trim up the exhaust pipes a bit. The transmission hunting deal might be the ECM going in and out of closed loop. Maybe a temperature sensor problem.
Thanks! It could be CTS, I have observed it sending junk data on earlier datalogs. I really noticed how fogged my parking light housings were after some nice pictures were taken at the show. I found this thread:
And decided to have a go at it. Got the housing out, and found another surprise, just barely visible deep inside:
Another spare key! I've never had two hidden keys on one vehicle before. This one appears to be pretty old, and undisturbed until now. Perhaps it's been there since '89?
I was able to dremel the lens off. Here's a before photo.
Could a guy get these clear enough to read the words off the wrench underneath? Stay tuned.
Thanks! It could be CTS, I have observed it sending junk data on earlier datalogs. I really noticed how fogged my parking light housings were after some nice pictures were taken at the show. I found this thread:
And decided to have a go at it. Got the housing out, and found another surprise, just barely visible deep inside:
Another spare key! I've never had two hidden keys on one vehicle before. This one appears to be pretty old, and undisturbed until now. Perhaps it's been there since '89?
I was able to dremel the lens off. Here's a before photo.
Could a guy get these clear enough to read the words off the wrench underneath? Stay tuned.
That is pretty cool finding a a hide a key like that, I bet thats been there forever. I bet you could clean up that glass to a near new look.
Well, a guy was able to get a pretty good clarity enhancement:
Cutting the haze revealed many blemishes and chips, like you might expect from a forward facing flat surface, but they aren't very noticeable from viewing distance. I didn't have plastic restoring sauce so I treated it the same as clearcoat and it was good enough for me. Here's a comparison with the other housing I started today:
I'm not super happy with the blemishes in the black ring around the outside. I think those were rough areas in the plastic edge, I assumed the rtv would blacken them out more than it did. I'm going to spend more time smoothing out the edge on the next one to see if I can get a more consistent result. Overall it's still a nice improvement and I didn't spend any money.
The bulbs and sockets are very pulled-a-car-out-of-the-woods spec:
I've ordered up some fresh bulbs. I'm going to clean up the sockets with some white vinegar and light agitation, followed by a shot of crc electrical cleaner. Also found an injured wire on the drivers side marker light. My back is already excited about replacing that while bent over.
Thanks! It's not too hard of a job, I probably only have an hour of work into each one. I spent more time buffing the inner facing edge of the clear plastic smooth:
Much happier with the result on the second try, didn't cut through any support on this one either:
Cleaned up all the sockets, right turn signal blinks at the same speed as left now, and I gained a right marker light. Left marker light is still down, I repaired the wire but did get a crunch on my second crimp so it might need to be re-repaired. I also cleaned the headlight sockets and posts. Low beams are ok, right side low and high beams are dim with high beams on. I noticed the tail lights look grimy inside, might need to clean those eventually.
I had a second look at the left markerlight. The bulb socket was still corroded. I cleaned it again and the bulb lit, so no need to recrimp.
The FSM says to check the ground behind the headlight on the dim side, if both are dim. I thought I had already done that, but the screw securing the grounds to the chassis was very rusty, so I guess I had only removed it without cleaning. I cleaned up the screw, moved the ground wires around to make the bends a little cleaner, and put it back together. Lights are working perfectly now on both sides, fogs too which means I've got 100% exterior lightage.
I moved on to the horn. The FSM has you test at the horn relay in the inconvenience center, I confirmed all 11.82v (concerning) were reaching the relay, but pushing the horn switch barely changes what my voltmeter was reading. I sounded the horn for the first time in over a decade by bypassing the relay, so my problem is between the horn switch and relay. The relay is good, I bench tested it with an M12 battery and it was clicking just fine. I tried cleaning up the horn switch and wheel contact surface. This is after cleaning with a dremel wire wheel, maybe it wasn't enough:
Dig those mega rust fasteners under my dash, lol.
Still no horn, I wonder if some unknown horn hackery exists under the dash. I have been taking the car out for 90 minute drives, putting miles on it in various conditions. So far it's been driving really well. I pulled the #1 plug to get an idea of how things are doing after 300 miles, I like what I'm seeing:
The car definitely deserves a nicer set of tires. These are fine, but their limits are pretty low. Still a very fun car to cruise around, I love open air driving.
Nice work so far, the car has come a long way! After I tackle my transmission, I also have to tackle some cooling fan issues. I have a wild noise I diagnosed as the cooling fan motor being bad and your video indeed confirmed that, so thank you. Also, it appears someone hacked my wiring to turn the primary fan on at all times like yours. Electrical issues do indeed suck so not looking forward to that and I'm an electrical engineer so go figure! Anyhow the car looks great, nice write up!
Nice work so far, the car has come a long way! After I tackle my transmission, I also have to tackle some cooling fan issues. I have a wild noise I diagnosed as the cooling fan motor being bad and your video indeed confirmed that, so thank you. Also, it appears someone hacked my wiring to turn the primary fan on at all times like yours. Electrical issues do indeed suck so not looking forward to that and I'm an electrical engineer so go figure! Anyhow the car looks great, nice write up!
Thanks, it definitely has come a long way. If you've got the dual fan arrangement like me, it's not too hard to just remove the whole sub-harness. I found it much easier to repair and restore back to stock that way.
I must be making more power than ever with the correct base timing, I can brakestand all the way to redline in 2nd now. The 2.77s generate a huge amount of wheel speed, I had to discontinue the burnout as my vision became completely obscured by smoke. The rubber covers up the chipped off paint on my ground effects, it's like nature's paint correction.
I finally got around to cleaning up the grounds behind the driver's side head. I saw the wires on a bright sunny day, it's pretty dark back there most days with my black engine bay, not really as challenging of a job as I thought. They were certainly corroded, but not crazy. Seems like that wasn't my problem, no additional functionality gained after cleaning that I can discern. Perhaps the passenger side will lead to some results, although I'm suspicious of bad grounds under the dash at this point. The list of not working electrical in dry summer temps that I have seen work in cooler weather is now:
Oil pressure gauge
SES and now Security light not illuminating
All inst lps backlights
Right turn signal bulb
Electrical I know to be non functional year round:
Rear window defogger (physically disconnected by PO, I'm not even hooking this up till I address the corrosion back there)
Horn (problem between switch and relay)
Cruise control (dunno yet, doesn't work though)
Power antenna (looks mangled from the outside??)
Everything else seems to be functioning pretty well at this point. I ordered up a Chase Bays washer reservoir since my stock one was cracked anyway. I did some fitment pre-measuring with a glass beer mug of similar dimensions and I think I can sneak it in close to the factory location. We'll see how that goes when it arrives.
I have also gained a new strange issue; the first time I turn the key to Start (sometimes), I get a clunk and then nothing. Second time I go to Start, and it turns over like normal. Still have really long first cold starts, like 5-8 seconds. Subsequent starts are always normal, seemingly regardless of engine temp. Probably should ohm the CTS and see what it's thinking.
That first start clunk is probably the solenoid on the starter. Will get worse if so. Used to take that apart, flip the disc and the burned terminal and good as new. The delayed start, commonly known as "extended crank" is somewhat common with the 89s. Mine does that and I've tried everything, no luck. I put a light on the injector wires and they do pulse as they should, no start. I gave up. If you figure it out please post.
That first start clunk is probably the solenoid on the starter. Will get worse if so. Used to take that apart, flip the disc and the burned terminal and good as new. The delayed start, commonly known as "extended crank" is somewhat common with the 89s. Mine does that and I've tried everything, no luck. I put a light on the injector wires and they do pulse as they should, no start. I gave up. If you figure it out please post.
Ugh, this starter was new last year and I don't even drive it regularly. I wonder if having my start enable relay bypassed has something to do with it, but I don't think so, as I'm pretty sure I tested that circuit only being hot in Start. I'll have to take a look at it next time I'm under there.
Took a reading on the CTS, got 3440 ohms and it was just about 69-70F outside. Looking at the chart, that seems pretty correct so I'm ruling that out as an issue. I haven't had the wandering rpms at speed since that one time.
I tackled the passenger side head grounds today, boy that nut is A Fun Time. I got it with a fine tooth flex head ratchet and short 9/16 socket, one click at a time. As a bonus, I was finally able to remove the air tube that went to the cat which makes access back there much better. I was hoping it was the source of my exhaust rattle, and maybe it was one of them, but I still have a quieter rattle more rearward on the car.
I cleaned the terminals, they didn't look too bad compared to other places on the car. No gained functionality, but clean grounds are always good.
I'm suspicious of the oil pressure switch being bad, and maybe that's contributing to the long start / gauge pegged. Thinking about testing continuity on the switch with the engine cranking.
I agree that the oil pressure switch should be looked at, the 89’ has only one that is located near the oil filter right? My 88’ has 2 sensors, the one near the oil filter that and the brass bell shaped one that is for the gauge. I believe your one sensor does both functions.
Spent some time suplexing myself underneath the dash, grimacing at the hackery. I hadn't seen this one before:
I believe we're looking at several splice-hacked connections coming right off the ignition switch wires. Great. The red and yellow are 12v constant and 12v switched respectively, I couldn't find where they were at in the wiring diagrams and I now think that's because they were spliced on.
I cleaned up this large ground to the dash, cut out the split and crimped fresh copper together with heatshrink:
While I had the electronic cleaner sauce drying on the terminal and screw hole, I investigated the mystery of the missing speedo cable grommet. Turns out it had backed off and wasn't missing at all, so after struggle pushing it around with pliers, I decided I needed to put my hand on it. I detached the relay harness on the firewall and uncovered a nice little barn find pocket:
Popped the grommet back in, cleaned up the area so now it looks merely dirty:
Any guesses on what bonus relay is doing over there? My guess is nothing. I didn't gain any electrical functionality, but there was less engine bay air blowing on my legs during the ecm relearn test drive.
There's one of those vampire tap wire things on a big fat ORG / BLK which I think might go to the door lock relay motor. Ignition switch hackery... door lock tap... maybe a remote start and unlock thing was installed at some point? Or were these involved with the radar detector and cb radio? Maybe an alarm which would explain the red light installed in the center console. What's weird to me is the cb and radar wiring were almost completely gone when I got the car, like somebody was trying to reverse the damage. Maybe after the antenna shorted out and melted the roof trim panel. That's my forensic analysis anyway, based on the bracketry and antenna wire leading into the lockable storage in the back.
Sometimes I think about the kind of person who buys a fully loaded IROC-Z with the GM Protection Plan.
Spent some time doing electrical testing, I'm suspicious that the '89 extended start time is due to the fuel pump not getting power until the oil pressure switch closes, but I was unsuccessful in testing. Either I'm doing something wrong, I can't hear the fuel pump running, or jumpering the fuel pump relay doesn't do anything.
Anyway, my washer reservoir came in and I cleaned up the engine bay a little:
It's still dirty, but less caked dirt. The reservoir reuses one of the square holes punched into the sheet metal down there, and the evap canister now shares a bolt with the cruise control vacuum diaphragm thing. I should probably use 2 bolts to secure those two, but they aren't really going anywhere as is.
Reservoir works good, I shot water out of the wipers for the first time in at least 12 years. Still need to test for leaks and maybe clean / aim the nozzles.
09-28-2021, 03:23 PM
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