Exorcising a '78

[IICrew]

New front wheels will be ordered in the next few days. She is in limbo until they are painted and new tires mounted.

Installed a noise suppressor on the ignition feed. Radio still has the whine. It may have improved slightly but there was not much if any improvement. I think I will add one to the amp and see if that helps.

I had some free time I painted the dash bezels with a Krylon silver leaf paint pen. It looks pretty good. Cleaned with glass cleaner then painted it on. It is very close if not an exact match to the factory lines

Before

After

 

[2Blue2]

oh I like the idea of painting them lines, will be doing that soon.

 

[IICrew]

The paint pen was easy and looks pretty good. Although now I want the chromed gauge cluster bezels.

I tried to hook up the factory tach. Melted the ground wire back to the splice. Looked and smelled way worse then what it wound up being though. The aftermarket tach was originally installed using the factory wiring. That worked just fine. I unplugged it and plugged in the factory tach. All was well with key on engine off. Engine fired right up but the tach never moved. After about 15 seconds I could see smoke coming from the tach harness. I shut off the ignition and yanked the hot side from the tach. It was certainly hot in more ways then one. After tracing the melted ground back to the splice I hooked up the aftermarket tach to the same wires and it still works. I then tried the v8 adapter piece alone and the car would no longer fire with it in place. The ground wire was getting warm just from cranking. I assume it's shorted to ground internally. I then tried the tach from my old Cobra and the car runs but the tach is inop. So back to the ugly column mounted tach again for now.

After all that my new stereo would not shut off consistently. After removing the key the radio would continue to play for anywhere from 5 seconds to 20 minutes. Sometimes it shut off as it was supposed to. Most times it shut off between 1 and 2 minutes after the ignition was off. A few times it took almost 20 minutes. The kicker was it would always work correctly with a test light on the ignition wire to radio. As soon as I tested for power it would shut off. I cut the ignition wire to the noise suppressor and used a power probe to provide power on the output side of the suppressor. Same thing. It would not shut off. I went through and redid the ground wire just in case it was damaged. No change. I cut the noise suppressor wire supplying the radio and now it works correctly.

During the ground wire repair phase of this I also changed the ground at the alternator to a 6 gauge wire from a 16 gauge. I was using a common ground for the alternator , gauges and stereo. I separated them all by a foot or more. The alternator whine was maybe halved but still very prominent with this change. Once I fully cut the suppressor out it's now almost gone.

After 2 days of fiddling, melting wire the harness, and my dash now half apart I accidently on purpose sorda kinda fixed the alternator whine.

 

[IICrew]

Persistence pays off!!!

Well that and a couple of parts cars. The tach works. Had to steal the v8 adapter from a 76 cobra and used it on my tach which is from a 75. Seems a little off but I get rid of the el cheapo column tach!

 

[IICrew]

New dash bezel. Was originally chrome trim but in really bad shape. I used the paint pen to go over the old chrome. It looks okay. Not great but better then it was.

Notice the tach!!!!! Column mounted one is gone and factory working as intended!

Ignore the Shelby America logo. It will be gone when I either paint or more likely replace the "stainless steel applique"

After front wheels are ordered and on the next step is pulling the ac/heater box from parts car and get it rebuilt then installed.

Old.

New.

 

[IICrew]

New front wheels were put on a month ago. They did not help vibrations much if at all. I guess I have to get used to them but they look out of proportion currently. Too much front wheel for a small car. Minor rubbing on right front but an alignment should help. That wheel sits a little too far back in the wheel well.

I am going to add ac but figured it would be nicer to maintain it's own thread making future searches easier. I will keep this thread updated with progress but want to keep technical stuff in the ac thred. If mods prefer everything here I can certainly do that but was trying to avoid making others read a novel when they want to add ac. I know I tend to ramble here.

I will be taking time/funding away from the cars to address my newly acquired skylight feature of the workshop. Our pool and chicken coupe need repairs as well. The only damage to cars were this one was being soaked as it was parked under the missing roof when the suddenly acquired skylight was obtained. Being a t top and dried out seals the interior was wet but I got her covered before the carpet got soaked. As well as a slightly damaged hood from my sons car. It was not bolted on and flew about 40 feet. It has a gouge near the scoop but looks straight.

 

[LILCBRA]

If there's a bright side here it's that the treehouse looks to still be intact.
Looks to be a lot of clean up and a LOT of work to be done. I'd offer some help if you weren't literally halfway across the country.

I agree with you about the AC thread. If anything, you can always post links to updates here.

 

[IICrew]

Back from the angiogram. Stents and bypass are flowing fine. I have what he called Microvascular disease. The tiny vessels around my heart are clogging up. He said they now have blood tests to check for lipids and proteins which cause it. If caught early they can prevent it but cannot stop or reverse once it's this far along. Talk to your doc about being tested for it. You don't want to be where I am if you can avoid it.

I am not causing more damage that is preventable. Just have to go slower and stay out of heat or cold weather. Luckily I am horrible about following docs orders so once yard is cleaned and barn fixed I will get back to one of the cars.

Treehouse was being held up by 1 board and 2 lag bolts. It was drooping down about a foot on the one side. We had to pull it down as it was barely holding itself up. I was afraid it would come down on us while working under it. It's a pile of ashes now.

We have most of the branches cleaned up. Just waiting on callbacks from contractors not affiliated with our insurance company. All in all we are lucky. The house only has minor damage. Some of our neighboring homes were destroyed. We have a few outbuildings damaged. Very minor compared to what could have been.

 

[LILCBRA]

That's all good news for you about your property in light of things. Sucks about the blood flow problems, I'm sorry. Like I said, if you weren't half way across the country I'd come give you a hand. It doesn't seem that you have a shortage of things that need done - kinda like me..... lol

 

[2Blue2]

What a mess...