The Upgrade - Part 2 - 02/09/2007

Moving on to day 2, the first chance to actually work on this project! One door down, one door to do and a cross-body conduit to tackle.



All of these wires have to come out of this conduit. Just the power windows, door switch, and



Cross-body harness is removed.



Harness removed from fuse box. The 3 pin prong is for the door jam switches and the overhead light and plugs into the top of the fusebox. The orange wire is permanently on +12V and goes to a 3 prong harness that allows accessories such as power locks to be plugged in (not sure what else would plug into this on the Grand Am line). The pink is for switched +12V and powers the windows.



This is the 3 pin plug for constant +12V. It snaps into the firewall via two clips that are IMPOSSIBLE to get out without breaking. It isn't long enough to drag down, so the only reason I can see for it to be here is because they wanted a convenient place for it to be hung.



Door jam boot removed and power window wiring slid out. Door jam switch removed and cleaned up!



New harness run across cowl.



These defroster ducts are in the way. And of course they use metal tangs that are BENT to hold the duct in, so it's virtually impossible to get them loose without breaking the fragile plastic (plastic exposed to the sun for 30 years held in by bent metal, GOOD DESIGN). I took this opportunity to hook up the passenger defroster duct since it has never been hooked up as long as I have owned the car.



New harness is fully installed on the passenger side. Run through the conduit and everything.



New door jam harness fed through. A 14-16 spade connector replaces the broken one that came on the harness I bought.



Shiny purty motor. Old harness still to be removed.



Yay. The dimples are here too.



Driver's side door lock actuator. "879112" is inked on it... Door lock rod is right next to it.



Installed! All nice and neat!



All put together and ready to test. Until you realize you forgot to plug in the motor... Not like I haven't taken the door apart and put it back together a million times before.

Upon finishing of the doors, the dash was put back into place just long enough to test everything. The windows work great. The door locks work REALLY well. Big positive clunks that move the posts up and down. These actuators are beefier than the 2nd gen firebird ones I am used to seeing, so hopefully I'll have many long years of service from them. Now of course I have to finish putting the dash back together and finishing the trunk release and speaker install.

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Last updated February 9th, 2007