Progress Thread HeHateMe gets bent

droopie85gt · Sep 6, 2019

This is what made me decide to clean, replace, and tuck the wiring. When I was pulling the loom off the passenger side, I found this. The green wire on the fender, WAS attached to the solenoid post. Then you see it go to that big black thing, a factory splice. In the other two pictures, it is hard to make heads or tails of what is going on, but the Cliff Notes is that the green wire was the only connection from the 130 amp alt and also was the power feed for the rest of the car! Luckily, my fans, ecu, and fuel pump were wired directly to the battery. Some of this wiring was still nice and pliable, some was hard as a rock with the insulation cracking and falling off. Hence the now 2 year struggle to be motivated to redo all this.

droopie85gt · Sep 6, 2019

Throwback Friday. Beech Bend Raceway. Methanol fumes.

CarMichael Angelo · Sep 7, 2019

droopie85gt said:
Throwback Friday. Beech Bend Raceway. Methanol fumes.

Here ya go Drew,..a little music to accompany the old pictures of when you used to drive a Buick.. ( Back in the Day when Old people bought them)

Here’s an idea...take the kids that you’re putting through college to the counselor...get them signed up for a job to help them fund their own tuition. Go to the financial aid department, and get deferred student loans, put in their names...

Push them out of the nest.....( Fly baby birdies......Fly)

Then,...bask in the new found wealth that you just created for yourself, and go out and buy yourself a Buick.

droopie85gt · Sep 7, 2019

CarMichael Angelo said:
Here ya go Drew,..a little music to accompany the old pictures of when you used to drive a Buick.. ( Back in the Day when Old people bought them)

Here’s an idea...take the kids that you’re putting through college to the counselor...get them signed up for a job to help them fund their own tuition. Go to the financial aid department, and get deferred student loans, put in their names...

Push them out of the nest.....( Fly baby birdies......Fly)

Then,...bask in the new found wealth that you just created for yourself, and go out and buy yourself a Buick.

Unfortunately, he already has loans. And I can relive the glory days by looking in the corner of my garage. There the 455 has sat since I moved in this house. I think it's time my brother had custody of it and put it in his shop for a decade or so. I could use the space.

droopie85gt · Sep 7, 2019

Progress. This is cleaning up nicely. Got a lot done in a short time, but had to come in and watch some football. Sad to see Army not pull off the upset in the Big House.

droopie85gt · Sep 8, 2019

Under the hood is close to being done. At some point will wire the A/C back in. I will probably go ahead and replace the pressure switch, but it's pretty much done under the hood. I am happy.

Now to finish organizing fender wells and start buttoning things up and put the fender back on. I have a big 10 gauge red wire laying on the brake booster area. I am going to run that back thru the car to the fuel pump relay and replace the 14 or 16 gauge wire feeding the fuel pump now.

I guess it's time to start cleaning the nastiness under the hood. It's time to look better.

droopie85gt · Sep 8, 2019

More pics

droopie85gt · Sep 14, 2019

Anyone that's still following along...I pretty much finished up the passenger side today, except for reconnecting the antenna lead and putting the fender liner back in. I put my charcoal canister way up high behind the batter pretty much. I had to heat and smush the cold air tube a tad, but it's back in. The battery box is bolted back in. The harness is tied up with clamps and zip ties. One spot inside the fender was some kind of altitude compensation solenoid. There are still studs sticking out, so I used a nylock and put a clamp there. A little forward of that was a factory hole and I put a bolt there to hold another clamp. I took the excess wire and pulled it up by the marker light and zip tied it to the front fender brace. I need to reconnect the antenna lead (I was planning to remove the entire fender at one point, and test all the lights on the passenger side one more time. If all is good, time to put the fender liner in. Mama wants margaritas and Mexican, so I have to call it quits for today. Tomorrow test the passenger side and work on the driver's side.

I also did a little cleaning today. A little wiping goes a long way!

droopie85gt · Sep 14, 2019

Passenger fender well pics and the battery box.

droopie85gt · Sep 21, 2019

The light wasn't a train! I am getting closer. Buttoned up the relay center today. I had to change the stud for the battery lead out because it was too long to go under the cover...I don't know why. But I've had these things apart enough to get it done even with all the fuses wired up. I need to put all the red blocks in that lock in all the terminals, but I've got to get cleaned up so I can take the wife out for a fancy Italian dinner. I might even drink a little vino...I like the red stuff.

droopie85gt · Sep 21, 2019

I also got most of the driver's side wiring harness loomed up. There are a bunch of splits, or what the Ford diagrams call Tape Outs or Take Outs. I ran out of black electrical tape I was using to seal those so the tape out wire stays in place. I also slit the loom a little so it would close up around the tape outs. Call it Ford Blue electrical tape. In a couple of places I also used this wrap I bought a long time ago from NPD. It says it's 66 Mustang harness wrap. It's basically electrical tape with no glue. SO it doesn't leave the wires sticky if you have to take it off, but you have to tape the end with electrical tape. There's still a lot going on by the bumper cover I need to work on. But compared to a month ago, I am a happy guy today. Just have to make sure everything still works, tie the rest of it up, and put the fender back on. WOO WOO! Only taken 3 years.

droopie85gt · Sep 21, 2019

Hmm, I wonder if I am going to remember to pull that blue towel out of that hole in the strut tower support....??

I also cleaned up my zip tie spark plug wire looms and redid them. I think this looks a lot better.

droopie85gt · Nov 11, 2019

To all you Veterans...thank you for your service and sacrifice.

For me, it's some time in the garage. I finished tidying up the wire harness. I had to weld a bolt onto the fender to nose bracket so I can put the fender back on and see if the inner fender liner will be able to cram all the wires and stuff up to get in and fit.

In other news, I had to go to OK 2 weeks ago for work. While there, I picked up a 2.3 out of an 87 Turbo Coupe. I'm looking to get this thing back together and sell it outright or do some kind of trade on a roller...maybe one already with a rollbar welded in or something cool like a Maverick or 60-63 Falcon. Going to build a 2.3T to play around with.

I found some nice 3 foot long zip ties (HVAC) lying around and used that to zip tie the harness and the hood release cable up to the fender structure. Looks like it will allow the fender liner to go back in. My tiny flux core FC90. I didn't have anything lying around to practice, so I blew a small hole in the bracket, but the bolt is welded on and the paint is drying. I might try to test fit the fender and fender liner later. I also am going to pull the pan on the 351W I have been sitting on, take lots of pics and put it up for sale too. And if I feel really froggy, I might pull the head and pan on the 2.3 and see if I can rering, throw some new rod and main bearings in it and run. I already have the 2.3 to 5.0 bellhousing adapter and 10.5 flywheel. So in theory, I could sell the 5.0 out of my car and swap in the 2.3. I'll probably try to sell or trade for a bit and see if anyone is interested.

droopie85gt · Nov 17, 2019

I guess I am officially going down the turbo 2.3 route as someone is coming today to buy my 351 shortblock and maybe all the stuff, intake, headers, cam, link bar lifters that I have collected for it. Which makes room to collect 2.3 . lol I still have a little voice telling me to get a 4.8 or 5.3 LS and let her eat some boost. I think I'll put the 2.3 in my 85. If somehow someone were to purchase it, I may look at a Falcon or Maverick to LS swap.

For now, I am going to finish up the wiring, put fresh gas in it, and ask my wife to renew the tags for Xmas. I did pick up a HX35 yesterday that looks like it's never been run. It was on a classroom engine. It needs bearings, but it's almost spotless inside. And I finished up the driver's side wire tuck. It's ready to test and put the fender back on....except I forgot to wire the halos....really bars that light up in the headlights. They are on anytime the fuse is in. I think I'll wire them to the parking lights. SOOOOOOO, that means some of the loom and zip ties have to come out.

CarMichael Angelo · Nov 17, 2019

droopie85gt said:
I guess I am officially going down the turbo 2.3 route as someone is coming today to buy my 351 shortblock and maybe all the stuff, intake, headers, cam, link bar lifters that I have collected for it. Which makes room to collect 2.3 . lol I still have a little voice telling me to get a 4.8 or 5.3 LS and let her eat some boost. I think I'll put the 2.3 in my 85. If somehow someone were to purchase it, I may look at a Falcon or Maverick to LS swap.

For now, I am going to finish up the wiring, put fresh gas in it, and ask my wife to renew the tags for Xmas. I did pick up a HX35 yesterday that looks like it's never been run. It was on a classroom engine. It needs bearings, but it's almost spotless inside. And I finished up the driver's side wire tuck. It's ready to test and put the fender back on....except I forgot to wire the halos....really bars that light up in the headlights. They are on anytime the fuse is in. I think I'll wire them to the parking lights. SOOOOOOO, that means some of the loom and zip ties have to come out.

Are you talking about trying to hotrod the 2.3?
Been there,....Done that.
From what I learned, the thing can be made to make good power, but it is so peaky, it comes on so late, and occurs at such a high rpm, you'll only get to experience it for a brief second before having to shift.
I actually had a B234 Volvo head, a turbo block, and was fully intending to build a 400 hp 2.5 stroker when I had the red car.
But,....a deal on a 4.6 2v came along, and I bought that instead.

droopie85gt · Nov 17, 2019

I plan on about 30psi with a 5500 launch, if it is street driven it would be some type of Hot Rod Drag Week pipe dream I have. 4.56 gears, spool, 9 inch ends, the whole nine yards. UNLESS, I go with a 4.8 and a turbo. It would at least have enough torque to be driveable off boost. I have all my 351 stuff up for sale on Facebook Marketplace and once that sells, I am going to try to sell the complete running engine out of the car.

droopie85gt · Nov 17, 2019

I know @CarMichael Angelo does things 2 times. Well, I take so long to do things that I forget what I am doing sometimes. I already wired the Halo's right. And wrote it down. BUT I left the key ON, in the car. SO anytime I plug the battery in they come on. Actually they work the way I wanted to...they come on with the key in the RUN position. But now I need to fix my high beams. The led headlights have a bottom half and top half. On the low beams I have the bottom half of the outer headlights coming on. On the high beams, the top half of the inners.. I think I'll just rewire the highbeams so the entire light lights up. It'll be like a searchlight. Looking for something on Mars. People will NOT drive with their high beams on when I am around! Everything else works, so I can put the fender on, as soon as a fix this. I need to figure out where the washer pump fell out and is laying in my garage somewhere.

droopie85gt · Nov 17, 2019

High beams solved. I can put the fender back on!

General karthief · Nov 17, 2019

That's a cool 'roach clip' holder. Lets see a pic of the entire set up

a91what · Nov 17, 2019

Helping hands, I use one all the time soldering harness connections.

Progress Thread HeHateMe gets bent

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

my rearend will smell so minty fresh,

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

my rearend will smell so minty fresh,

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

Hookers and Beer for life!

wonder how much it would cost to ship you a pair

SendMeUrDataLog

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency