New Guy Here

[jft69z]

Got the main harness in the dash, wired up the rear harness too. Trying to get the wires to the Dakota Digital module wired up but the dog has other plans apparently....

The ECM, D/D module & the D/D EFI interface are mounted to the HVAC box, tucked up nice & safe.

 

[jft69z]

Now the other one jumped in as well. It's real windy out and they're sticking to me like glue. Starting to wonder if they know something I don't right now....

[willie]

Joe they want to go in the hot tub!!!   They are confused!!

[jft69z]

59 minutes ago, willie said:

Joe they want to go in the hot tub!!!   They are confused!!

Just what I need, black dog hair floating around,  lol

[Rob Peters]

10 minutes ago, jft69z said:

Just what I need, black dog hair floating around,  lol

Nonsense, the filter will remove the hair.

rob

[jft69z]

5 minutes ago, Rob Peters said:

Nonsense, the filter will remove the hair.

rob

Still not happening.

Was planning to jump in now after 10 hours in the shop, but it's so damned windy out right now, I'm not going in either. Not happy.

[Glen]

First… I have to tip my hat to you guys that are wickedly mechanically inclined. Just looking at all that spaghetti gives me the vapors. Yeah… I’ll be happy to swipe the credit card to have something like that done.

Second, the doggos are awesome. My lab just HAS to be in the middle of anything I might be doing. Gets to be quite a hindrance at times. The work dog? Meh… NFG from him unless somebody who doesn’t belong let’s themselves into the yard or ventures onto the front porch. 

Can’t wait to see the finished product Joe. 

[jft69z]

3 hours ago, Glen said:

Can’t wait to see the finished product Joe. 

Thanks Glen, I can't wait for it to be finished too 😁!

These 2 are really good dogs for the most part. After 3 years, they still have some puppy in them and eat things they're not supposed to, but wouldn't trade them for anything. 

[DragCat]

Enjoying the progress, my downfall would be the soldering iron lol. And yea i'd let the pup's in the hot tub, my GSD loved the pool. 

[jft69z]

Got most of the wiring done, put the stereo stuff back in the trunk (the power amps are from decades ago, but still work good), and put some power to it.

Crappy pictures but the Dakota Digital stuff all works it seems. I set the color to the '69 green, but it can be adjusted a bunch of different ways. The original clock will be buried behind the Autometer tach that's mounted on the steering column, so no lights or power for that.

Didn't power up the ECM yet, maybe tomorrow to make sure the laptop will talk to it & the D/D interface will take data from it to display on the dash gages. Still need to pull the motor/subframe to paint underneath, so that will start real soon now that this is in pretty good shape. 

 

[Glen]

Looks absolutely stellar, Joe.
 

And the trunk reminds me of my 92 lumina Z34. 6 disc changer, two 12” subs, a couple amplifiers and a cross over. Flashback to being 22 years old!!

[Dtret]

Look great. Very well done. 

[Rob Peters]

You gotta love it when a plan comes together.  Looks great Joe.

rob

[jft69z]

1 hour ago, Glen said:

Looks absolutely stellar, Joe.
 

And the trunk reminds me of my 92 lumina Z34. 6 disc changer, two 12” subs, a couple amplifiers and a cross over. Flashback to being 22 years old!!

Thanks Glen.

I built that car in the late 80's, which would have put me in my mid-late 20's at the time, lol. Couple of updates here and there a few years ago with a new alarm system & Pioneer head unit (the old stuff died), but everything else was pretty much as I built it. Yep, there's a couple of 12" subs back there too, mainly because the car was so loud with the big cam & no tail pipes, the stereo couldn't make enough bass to overcome it.

1 hour ago, Dtret said:

Look great. Very well done. 

Thank you Dennis!

1 hour ago, Rob Peters said:

You gotta love it when a plan comes together.  Looks great Joe.

rob

Thanks Rob, it's getting there slowly.

[DragCat]

Good progress , I gotta kick outta ya keeping the old attometer tach on the steering column. The DD stuff looks sweet but nothing says old school like a tach on the steering column! 

[jft69z]

12 minutes ago, DragCat said:

Good progress , I gotta kick outta ya keeping the old attometer tach on the steering column. The DD stuff looks sweet but nothing says old school like a tach on the steering column! 

Lol, old habits...

Actually, it was a Sun Super Tach II for all these years, but supposedly it won't play nice with the new MSD EFI ignition box without adding more equipment. I decided to get the Autometer tach instead, but that required over an hours worth of modifications to fit perfectly in the limited space there. It's always something...

[DragCat]

1 hour ago, jft69z said:

Lol, old habits...

Actually, it was a Sun Super Tach II for all these years, but supposedly it won't play nice with the new MSD EFI ignition box without adding more equipment. I decided to get the Autometer tach instead, but that required over an hours worth of modifications to fit perfectly in the limited space there. It's always something...

Laughing, I have an old Sun tach sitting on my desk, so long ago I don't remember what car it came out of lol. Probably older than my first cell phone sitting next to it 🤣🤣 

[willie]

Joe she looks Great. But i have to tip my hat to you again, No sleep and fixing all that spaghetti. I don't know how you do it. I would be seeing doubles and triples of each color wire. Nothing would be working for me.     Nice job, always loved that interior, problem is i could never fit in the car!!! lol

[Dtret]

57 minutes ago, willie said:

Joe she looks Great. But i have to tip my hat to you again, No sleep and fixing all that spaghetti. I don't know how you do it. I would be seeing doubles and triples of each color wire. Nothing would be working for me.     Nice job, always loved that interior, problem is i could never fit in the car!!! lol

You’re right Willie. I could never do that kind of stuff. Just beyond my skill/ want to learn set. I have a hard enough time just figuring out if something has power. Joe is a wiring god in my opinion. But the good thing is I know where to take my junk if it needs fixed. Lol. ( I wouldn’t do that to him, it would be to quick and easy and I’d look like a fool). 

[jft69z]

6 hours ago, willie said:

Joe she looks Great. 

Thanks Willie!

5 hours ago, Dtret said:

But the good thing is I know where to take my junk if it needs fixed. Lol. 

Thank you as well! I would be glad to help anytime you need it Dennis, no hesitation.

 

Keep in mind, most of my adult life was involved with electronics, electrical, instrument & control, piping systems, etc. That involved using wiring diagrams, schematics, blueprints, loop diagrams, piping diagrams, etc. to install, program, troubleshoot, repair, & calibrate all types of equipment across the entire plant sites. Involved with a lot of new equipment installations and large scale projects that sometimes involved hundreds or thousands of different things to make work properly. 

Most of that basically crosses over to the automotive side as far as planning out wiring, keeping things straight, and troubleshooting strategies to find problems. 

 

 

[Dtret]

Joe I completely understand. Hence the “god” in my previous post. Proper teaching and good learning/ listening skills are paramount. To be able to take that knowledge and continue to use it is awesome. 

[jft69z]

10 minutes ago, Dtret said:

 To be able to take that knowledge and continue to use it is awesome. 

My current job at the power plant doesn't make use of most of that experience though. I used to go thru the prints sometimes if the generators wouldn't start, etc, but that didn't last too long, lol. They pay other people to do that, why waste my time when there's better things to do, like poke around here countless hours instead 😁

[jft69z]

A little more progress. Powered up the ECM, updated the firmware, it seems to be pretty good enough for now until I get it all back together.

Measured the bellhousing runout, required for Tremec to honor warranty of the TKX transmission. Worked out to .0005", well within the .005 max limit. Removed the old roller pilot bearing & put a new one back in.

Picked up the driveshaft from Denny's. Can't say enough about the excellent quality and customer service there.

Next step, pull the engine and subframe to prep for paint of those, plus the underside floors.

 

 

 

[Dtret]

Awesome work. By looking at the pictures now I fully understand why you wanted to pull the engine and subframe to paint. 

[jft69z]

59 minutes ago, Dtret said:

Awesome work. By looking at the pictures now I fully understand why you wanted to pull the engine and subframe to paint. 

Thanks!

What you see on the floors & part of the frame is already wire wheeled for the most part, and a little bodywork where the prior owner did something near the accelerator pedal, still can't quite figure out what he was thinking there, lol. Needed to pull the subframe to clean up that last bit of floor pan to move forward.

Brake fluid leaked on the frame and made a mess there, plus overspray from when I painted the car years ago. Had to do a little surgery on the bottom where it was pushed in a bit from using a floor jack in the center to lift the car up. No easy way to fix it, so I cut it out, straightened it up with a port-a-power and hammer & welded it back up. No pics of that process on the cell phone camera, but it came out pretty good.