Some Wiring and a Mystery Noise

    I played around with the car a while today. Spent most of the time wiring up the AMP gage. I am not sure I did it right but it is definitely doing something now. I ran (looking at the back of the gage) the ignition wire to the left side of the gage and the right side over to the battery terminal on the headlight switch. When I start the car the needle goes negative a bit. When I turn on the headlights it goes up to about the middle. I have no idea if this is how it should be acting. The more amps the car draws the further into the positive it will go? I will leave it like this for now and see how it acts.

    I also removed the cigarette lighter to clean it up. I noticed a broken hot tab inside so I will probably just get a replacement. I hope to retain the original knob/lighter. I did wire it up and try to get it hot but no go .. only got a spark now and then due to the old wire.

    I also shot some video to capture the trans noise I am hearing. I am still trying to figure out what is causing the clacking sound at low speeds.

 00:00 to 00:26 Is stationary moving through the gears.
00:26 to 00:46 is reverse (no noise)
00:47 to 00:57 Is the first time you hear it but not very well
1:28 to 1:42 Is stopping and taking off at a stop sign
2:43 I drop it into first and you can really hear it.

I took the car to a transmission shop and they found nothing wrong with the trans and had no answer for the noise.  The shop has been around since the mid 70's and it's just a trans shop.


If you can offer info on the AMP gage or the noise, please comment. Or, head over to my thread on the HAMB and post there .... LINK LINK LINK

Convert: New to Old or Ignition Wiring

   Skip to the bottom to see video of the ignition in action!

 One of the parts I got in a while back was a new old style ignition switch in hopes of converting the ignition back to the original method of starting the car. You turn the switch on and then push a starter button on the dash.
    This switch has three positions. Starting from the far left is the "locked" position (counter clockwise). You would put it here and remove the key to prevent someone from starting the car. The middle position is the start position. You put the key in turn to this position and hit the start button on the dash to start the car. In this position you can remove the key and just turn it to the next position or far right (clockwise) to turn it off. You can go back to start (middle) and start the car without a key.

    The original switch had a little lever that hung down for easy switching. The replacement switch does not have this. I got one from someone online but it turned out to have either the wrong key with it or the key was too worn to work. The seller did not offer a refund so rather than waste more money fixing it I went with the new one I already had.

    Here is what an original looks like ... Note this switch is in the off unlocked position.

WEB PHOTO NOT MINE

Here is what the one I ordered looks like.... 3 terminal with lock cylinder removed.

Next I needed the bracket that holds the switch in the dash. The original was removed by a previous owner to accommodate the new style switch. The new style switch is held in place by a big threaded nut. (One of the reasons I wanted to replace the ugly thing!) ...

Aftermarket 4 terminal universal switch

I found one listed for my year on EBay and purchased it. It turned out to be the wrong one. the mounting holes needed to be further back and spaced further apart. (GRRRRR)
    OK, I just modified this one to work for me. I welded on an extension piece and drilled the lip of the dash to fit the hole spacing.

I "elongated" my holes for adjustments.

The smaller hole (far right) is for a light

Before mounting the switch I had to sand down a bunch of deep scratches and paint chips from where the switch was originally installed (?) or removed and put back several times over the years (?). My paint does nto really match but the pictures realy make it look bad. Not so bad in person and much better than the mess before.

Once I got it mounted in I started on the wiring. After a lot of research and several options, I went with this configuration.

Please note this is not how the factory schematics show it. They have a starter and solenoid wire on the push button. Use these drawings at your own risk. I'll let you know if my car burns to the ground.

My neutral safety was never hooked up so I went ahead and did it right. The rest of the wires stayed the same. I just ran a jumper to the push button switch to complete the circuit.

Lokar shifter neutral safety switch...

When checking continuity for each gear I noticed I would get continuity in the Drive position if I held the shift lever forward. I don't see this being an issue but I may try to adjust it out later. You should only see continuity in the positions you would want to start the car in .. PARK and NEUTRAL.

Here is the stock push button switch...

This takes a special tool to remove the right way. I used a large needle nose pliers with masking tape on the blades to protect the chrome.

In the process of finding wires and cleaning things up a bit, first I had to make a mess!

This got a lot worse LOL

This got a lot better! Half of these wires where not being used so I routed them back inside with the rest of the unused wires.

I found several things that I want to deal with in the wiring later on but I wont go into that now. I got it all back together ....

All you can see is the fuse box at this level

If you bend to seat level you can see a little more but still not much. I plan on doing an extensive wire clean up later on.

I also plan on replacing the battery cables they used for ground straps (2)

Going to loose the white wire wraps too!

Works well! I did notice a couple times when turning from OFF back to ON I would get a slight power surge to the starter (hardly noticeable). It was like current was being stored somewhere in the system and was let loose when switched back to on.

This blog will not be moving at the pace of my last one (35 Ford) but there is plenty to do yet so keep an eye out for updates.

Road Trip, Upside Down. & a Part.

    I decided to adjust the steering box before taking it down the road. The wheel still had some back and forth play. I discovered the locking nut was loose on the worm bearing adjuster(large nut on the front of the box)! I went ahead and adjusted out the end play and tightened it down and it seems to be pretty good! I took a test drive and it did great. The wheel (steering) was a little tight so I adjusted it a bit more today.

    Here is the trip through the neighborhood ...

    If you look close in the video, the steering wheel is upside down. I turned it around yesterday evening. Today I took it out on the road and noticed it still needs some positioning but it's close. I should get it worked out in a day or two. I also do not have confidence it is back on the way it came off .. I had a large spring that I did not note the location of when I took it apart. I also noticed the plastic horn parts under the center cap are breaking apart. You can also see the horn ring has been broken off as well. There are no horns on the car at all. I still have plenty to keep the blog active for a while!

    So I took the car to do some shopping today and learned that if you have a lot of weight in the trunk the wide tires on the rear will rub when hitting bumps and holes. I don't know yet how little of a load will be an issue. Today I had 2 cases of water, and 4 - 6 packs of soda as well as all of my other shopping. It was a pretty big load. The car would probably look just as good with some thinner wide whites on the rear and front rather than these wider black walls so I can think about that when it comes time for new tires.
    One of my concerns is getting caught in traffic and having the car overheat. This was not an issue today., The car stayed cool the entire trip. What a relief.

    I also got in the steering box cover yesterday so I cleaned and painted that. Then I installed it. Two of the mounting holes did not line up and the hole around the steering box appeared to be a bit large. maybe this one is from a year that is slightly different. Either way I mounted it and it looks OK.

   

Finishing Up the Battery Tray

    In order to start the car and take it for a spin I had to finish up the battery tray. I could have stuck it in there as is but I would not have been happy with it. Basically, I just shot it with some quick dry glossy black and finished greasing the front end while it dried.

    BTW I replaced the grease fitting that gave me so much trouble and it worked fine. I took the car around the neighborhood and it definitely drove better. There is a little play in the steering but it's manageable. I think there is suppose to be a little. I will see how she does running highway speeds. I will work up to that! It didn't drift and I didn't have to fight it.
  
    I am not happy with the cooling system right now. If I got caught up in traffic I am afraid it would overheat. Just sitting in the driveway it got up to about 215° in about ten minutes. I pulled it in the garage and turned it off before it got any hotter. I think I am going to have to either try and fit a regular fan on the pulley or at least move the fan from the front of the radiator (pulls air out) and put it inside to pull fresh air through the radiator and into the engine compartment. When I changed the thermostat housing gasket a while back, I noticed the thermostat had been removed. This tells me someone was having trouble in the past. I also need to add an overflow tank. Right now there is just a hose.

    Maybe tomorrow I will venture out a little further from the house. I finished off the day cleaning the garage and washing and vacuuming the car.

Battery Tray, Then This Happened!

    I figured I would hang out in the garage and mess around with odds and ends. The battery tray was just a tray someone made and bolted to the fender well wall with two bolts. It was rather wobbly and did not have a battery tie down! It was/is scary to say the least.
    I started by welding on a third spot to bolt it to the car. Just an upright that wil also support the front on that side.

    Then I welded on sections to use to secure the battery and from one upright  I added a angled piece to support the front of the other side.I also welded bolts into the uprights and drilled a top bar so wing nuts can be used to secure the battery.

I will finish this up and install it today. More pictures to come.

    It's nothing fancy and by all means ugly, but it is safer than the way it was mounted in. Down the road I want to relocate the battery to the trunk so I did not want to buy anything jsut yet for this application.
    As I was shooting the finished piece with Rust Reformer guess who showd up!

    The big brown truck! And on board was my idler arm. Needless to say, I stopped work on the battery tray and cleaned up the garage to prepare for the suspension install.

    I painted and Installed the rebuilt idler arm on the cross member.

    After raising the car a few more inches on the stands, I transferred the front end over to my floor jack and rolled it under. It was easier than I thought it would be! The trick was to have it balanced on the jack so that it would go up and teeter on the jack. The idler arm helped support it from flipping forward.

    Then it was time to install the drag link. This turned out to be a major PITA! After several hours of pushing, pulling, twisting, disassembling, crawling in and out from under the car, throwing and cussing, I learn that one of the rebuild parts was slightly too large to fit down in the hole thus holding the cup too far forward to allow the ball to slip in. I located the old one and inspected it for wear. It looked great so I set the new one aside and put the old one in. 5 mins later the drag link was on!

    From there I went to the drag link, then the connecting rods. I decided at this point to grease the parts installed so far. I connected my grease gun to the grease fitting of the solid connecting rod and it seemed hard to pump. I think I need to replace that fitting, no big deal. Well, until I went to remove the grease gun. I pryed, yanked, jerked, cussed, beat banged and cussed some more. I gave up and left it hanging there and moved on to installing the brakes and drums.
    This was pretty straight forward. But, I need the grease gun to pack the bearings. I finally got the thing off, I'm not sure how, it's still a blur of red LOL.

   Before and after ...

    Everything is pretty much all set. I still need to finish greasing a couple parts, put my battery back in and give it a test drive! It got late so I cleaned up the garage and got the better half's daily driver back in the garage, showered and went to bed.

Do Over!

    The passenger side frame rail had some undercoating left in one spot and it was driving me nuts every time I looked at it. If you cant tell I have a slight case of OCD! I scraped it all off and resprayed that area of the rail.

    Once that was done I tapped off and sprayed the undercoating in the wheel well. This stuff is not heavy like the original so it does not hide the lines where the old was missing. I did get a good coat on though and that's what matters.

    I am waiting on the steering box cover to come in before doing the other side but I may continue without it.