It has a glove box!

Post date: Dec 20, 2016 5:28:08 PM

And lap vents! I think this is a sign.

It's been a busy month. Besides minor things, like a grandbaby, major foundation work, minor remodeling and house reorganization, two water heaters and the holidays..........

*) I yanked all the interior out, added an IGN feed to the console harness, repaired several kinked wires, and added a cutout in case I mount the O2 and oil pressure gauges on the dash. It looked like all the wiring mods went just fine and didn't see any issues with the custom wiring.

*) Sanded down and repainted just the lower right portion of the body dash. Amazingly, it matches pretty well to the prior paint. I used a sharp bend in the glove box frame as the break. It's very visible there, but that's only visible when the glove box is open, and even then the bend disguises it.

*) I had to touch up the new dash pad. The blue doesn't adhere perfectly well to the gold brown vinyl, so it marred easily. There's a couple of minor blemishes on one corner. I might work on that when the radio is eventually installed, as I'll probably need to remove the dash to do that install correctly.

*) The plastic dash ended up getting lots of rework. It went fine, but I tried to paint the black trim with old paint. It clumped and looked terrible. Stripping that damaged the blue paint. Tip: "Prep Spray" is really good at dissolving DBC. So stripped off all the paint, repainted, then got the black trim redone with new paint. Then realized that the portion under the gauges didn't get enough paint so it was yellow-blue. Touched that up.... masked really carefully except for the gaping holes in the back, which allowed overspray all over the lower portion. Got THAT cleaned up..... Cut the wiper and switch holes, mounted the woodgrain with correct trim adhesive, re-adhered the trim where it didn't take, then got it all assembled. Easy.

*) Shaun helped with the reinstall which went pretty smooth. I got all the vent work back in, including the lap vents. Turns out the heat blend door cable was pushing the main vent away from the heater box, causing a huge leak at the top. I'll likely need to fuss with that some more.

*) I learned that running with unpowered wideband O2 sensors fouls the sensors. So I got a new AEM 30-0300 sensor kit, which has a much nicer controller than the Innovate, and installed that.

*) Turns out the pinion seal was leaking. I always thought it was the rear cover. That was a new rebuild and installed by a pro. Go figure. Turns out the National seal with the big lip isn't usable because my pinion yoke has a shroud. Emergency run to Autozone to get the knock-off Timken seal and the shade tree pinion replacement method, and so far no more leaks. The prior shop used a load of RTV on the outside of the seal, and the yoke - which I bought new - is already showing a wear ring from the seal after only a few thousand miles.

*) The parking brake was sticking - the cable wasn't retracting all the way. Eventually I figured out that the fancy plastic lining on the front cable had collapsed, pinching the cable. In the mean time I threw caution to the wind and bought the universal Lokar kit. This will hook right up to the eventual rear disc brakes. I routed the right rear cable through a body brace to the left side and made a quick and ugly bracket to hold the mechanisms:

Adjustment is a bit difficult. I scavenged that spring from the old front cable. The Lockar doesn't have a front return spring, which means it won't return the pedal. That's fine for their pedals - they have a gas strut! This works well enough, but looses oomph towards the last inch of pedal travel. That's enough to release the brakes and keep the warning light off though. I also thought I'd be really smart and trim the rear springs to match the springs from the Raybestos rear cables. Well, those springs were different from each other (!!!) so I used the longer one. Turns out that left it a little short - the cable engaged the bracket before the spring. So I had to find the trimmings on the floor and added those back onto the cable.

And in all of this I re-did all the brake hold-down hardware and readjusted. Good news: I was able to turn the prop valve in by 6 turns! Or was it 8? I also found a massive abandoned shopping warehouse with a wide open parking lot. So the brakes are much better balanced now. Previously they were just seizing. I hate drum brakes.

*) The glove box was a surprise. I bought a liner from Year One back in '11 or '12, just now got to install it. And it's completely wrong. Completely and totally wrong. A quick order from Fusick's and that one fit perfectly. Still some work to get the door to fit nicer, but it works. And, of course, I managed to unnecessarily nick some of the paint. Thankfully it's inside the glove box. I also replaced the woodgrain as that one had been glued on with gloopy contact cement. Cleaned it all up and used proper trim adhesive. Even got to relearn how to remove and install glove box door locks.

*) The lower steering column was covered in nicks from removing the gauge cluster, so stripped and repainted that. The primer didn't lay down well - I think it dried in-flight - so the clear was extra cloudy and lots of orange peel. I figured WTH and color sanded and polished the lower cover. It looked really good! So I did the same to the upper. I did NOT do the body dash, so there's a bit of a clash there, but looks fine.

*) The rear defrost works again. The switch was fine! The power line that feeds it had slipped off, plus a wire had pulled out of a molex connector. I wish I had picked something better than molex, but it was readily available locally.

*) The OPGI steering gear is really nice. Tight feel, good return to center, very little center gap. And it doesn't leak!

From the boxing and labeling it looks like a genuine Saginaw assembly line unit. They made a run of these boxes for a fairly generic fit, but works great on the 68-72 A-body.

*) Updated the rad fan control loop to recognize when the ignition is off and turn off the fan. Also closed up the box and velcro'd it into the ash tray area. It fits perfectly.

*) Found that the brake lights cause the dash power rail to drop about 0.5V. Debating whether to try LEDs or mount a relay pack in the trunk. Did some shopping for LEDs and it's surprising how much variability is out there. Hard to tell what will work correctly in the nutty Cutlass housings - one lamp sits vertical! The segmented lens means a good portion of the light *must* be bounced off the housing - and good lamps cost $15 to $25 ea.

*) Oh yeah, bumpers. I ordered a pair of "USA Plated" bumpers from Tamraz on sale. The rear showed up with a 1" by 1/16" chip down to the copper. They got that replaced pretty quickly. The mounting ears for the rear lenses were completely incorrect, requiring lots of grinding and drilling to get them somewhat OK. Still not perfect, and in good tradition I nicked the upper light lenses while doing all this work:

The front is a mess. The driver parking light bucket was welded in the wrong place. Looks like the manufacturer is just saying "tough nuts". Not sure what to do yet.

Errata:

Drill a "Hydroboost" hole in the brake pedal. hah!

Install diesel oil filter adapter and oil cooler thermostat/lines

Startup and fail-safe algorithm on the computer to prevent full-speed fan when not appropriate. The 10 second turn-on delay for the computer control isn't sufficient

Seriously, what does it take to get a PS pump to stop whining?

LED rear lights? Rear relays?

Slight clicking from passenger side when rolling ???

Finish whatever lead work and sanding I'm going to do

Paint!