August 25, 2001 - Wiring and Its Anomalies (or why I dislike people who don't maintain their cars)
Today started off with a desire to fix my door's problem of shutting (lack of striker bolt can cause that). I obtained a complete striker bolt assembly from Monty on Friday and I figured that it would be no problem to drop in and test. Well the bolt doesn't fit as someone has made the hole bigger than it should be. Stupid people. Ah well, let's see if it works anyway. Well lo and behold I think I figured out why the bolt is gone. The door doesn't open (or should I say very well) once closed. I get to rebuild the door opening and locking mechanisms too. Yippee. And I get to make that hole smaller and hope that it is strong again. Double yippee. Probably going to have to learn to use a welder.
With that project having reached a disappointing end, I turned my attention to the wiring on the car. The door locks switches and power window switches have been cut (really short I might add). Monty has a Z28 that will be donating the wiring for this project, so that is no problem. We still need to check out the rest of the wiring however.
Gah why do people find the need to butcher the dash and wiring harness for their stupid little AM\FM cassette player that doesn't work and probably sounded like crap when it did?
I decided to move on to the under dash wiring to see how badly butchered it was. Probably had everything cut because that wouldn't be fair to have a piece of this car usable would it now? There was this huge piece of plastic covering the under dash (trying to at least) that had to be removed. In the most awkward of positions I might add.
I fought with it for a while but I eventually got it out. No AC ductwork to the left vent remained, go figure.
Imagine my surprise when I ducked under there and saw that the majority of the wiring was intact. As a matter of fact I didn't see one split or splice patched into the mess. Things are starting to look up.
I decided to move on to the center console and remove it since I had a bear of a time maneuvering around it while trying to work on the wiring. The center console door was so disgusting I felt like I would catch some nasty disease or tetanus from all the garbage in it. Got to love the assorted beads and the Ford ignition\door key present.
Just can't beat that cut wiring. The console didn't require any removal from the dash as some monkey cut it to hell and back trying to install that super great neat-o AM\FM cassette deck that wasn't even plugged in. Another part to get from the yard or order from Ames (at least they repro these). I think I am going to convert the car to a manual transmission as what is the point of a sports car with an automatic?
Next, carburetor removal and inspection.
Last updated on August 26, 12:52AM