25. On the Road Again

On October 3, 2014, I took the car on a test drive.
 
What works:

• The odometer, which I had repaired while I was wiring the car. They set the mileage at 3000 miles.
• The cruise control.

What's iffy:

• The speedometer shop said they didn't have parts to repair the trip odometer, but it appears that it might be OK. I didn't check the trip reading at the start of the drive.

What doesn't work:

• Overdrive


• The steering wheel is not tight. It won't come off, but it wiggles slightly.


• The headlight switch sometimes turns with the steering wheel, turning the headlights on or off. It didn't do that before I rewired the switch.


• Tach operation is erratic.


• HVAC and Cruise Control lights do not work.

NOTE:
 
The steering wheel & light problem may not be understood by those unfamiliar with pre-WW2 Fords. The light switch actuator is in the center of the steering wheel surrounding the horn button. It's connected to a hollow shaft which runs the length of the steering column and actuates the light switch at the other end of the column. The actuator should not turn with the steering wheel. The horn wire runs inside a rod inside of the hollow light switch shaft and is insulated from the rod and the hollow shaft. When the horn button is pressed, the uninsulated lower tip of the rod touches a ground contact in the light switch, blowing the horn. I decided to keep this Henry Ford (Rube Goldberg?) arrangement. I like it.

To solve the overdrive problem took two steps. Gearvender overdrives are supplied with six conductor telephone cables. They are identified by naming them with colors (The cables themselves are off-white.) To identify them, I put a band of colored electrical tape at each end corresponding to the cable name. The first step was to disconnect the white wire in the "red" cable at the controller end and attach it to the white and black wires in the "black" cable. The Overdrive then operated, but it was on in the off position and vice-versa. I solved that by turning the toggle switch 180°. The ready light and the on light worked normally.

The steering wheel and light switch problems were corrected by inserting two .005" shims between the steering wheel and the tapered shaft. 

The HVAC indicator light was fixed by moving the supply wire to the Mode Switch common terminal. 

The wires to the Cruise Control light were reversed. I swapped them at the molex plug. The light works but now the documentation is incorrect. 

After reading some information about erratic tach operation on the internet and tach and coil instructions, I realized that the problem stemmed from replacing the stock GM coil with a high voltage, low resistance coil. It was solved by placing a 1N4007 diode in the tach supply line. To eliminate a weak spot in the wire I soldered the diode like this:

Then shrink wrapped the assembly.  

When installed, at first the tach still didn't operate properly, but the next time I started the car, it did operate correctly. I don't know why. 

The dashboard, windshield trim, sun visors, and rear view mirror have been reinstalled.

24. Checkout

On August 23, 2014, I checked out the wiring completed up until that time. The following issues were discovered:

The right parking light did not illuminate when the switch was in the parking light position.

By design, the hazard flashers did not operate in the key off position.

The HV&AC fan ran at medium speed in the L position and low speed in the M position. H was high speed.

The electric choke did not operate.

The choke issue was solved by checking continuity of a loose red wire near the control panel with the choke positive terminal. The wire was continuous and I connected it to one of the panel terminals which is hot only when the key is in the run position.

Switching leads L and M at the fan switch corrected the fan speed problem.

I found a broken wire on the body side of the headlight switch connector. After repair the right parking light wire would not reach the plug, so I interchanged the left and right wires and corrected the documentation. All fixed. However during the parking light checkout, two new glitches showed up:

When the ignition key was turned on, the engine cooling fan ran.

The right high and low beam wires were switched.

When I wired the trinary switch, I thought it needed to be grounded to operate the fan. True as far as it went , but the cooling water temp switch grounds itself when the temperature warrents and operates the cooling fan without help from the trinary switch. I removed a jumper to ground I installed because the AC is not charged yet. The fan then operated correctly.

As a safety device, the emergency flashers should operate in all ignition key positions. It was a simple matter to move the flasher feed from E-18 (accessory position) to E-19 (all positions).

The leads for the headlights have polarized connections so they can't be connected wrong. That is, unless some idiot polarizes the low beam wire to the high beam and vice-versa. Yup, that's what I did. Corrected and checked OK.

Since the initial checkout was done, the right taillight and directional, the tag light and the horn have been wired and checked.

The radio and CD changer functions operate including the complex remote function mentioned in Post 13. I mounted the antenna higher in the back window and connected the antenna booster correctly. Radio reception is way better than before.

The next error showed up when I connected the cruise control ground wire. The cruise on LED was lit no matter what position the cruise on-off switch was in. I had connected the wrong terminal of the on-off switch to the set-resume switch. When I corrected that the light acted like it should. 

When I wired the dash, I forgot my own rule about making things easily removable. There are four LEDs that mount from behind the dash in an extremely inaccessible area. It was a real bear to remove the lights, switches and panel. Once that was done with minimal breakage, it was easy to add two Molex plugs polarized so the left and right LED pairs can't be misconnected. But that's what I thought about the headlights.

With checkout nearly complete, I buttoned things up enough to drive the car and check the cruise control and overdrive. I removed the ramps under the wheels to get the car back on the ground.

It wouldn't start. No spark at the plugs or coil. The coil covering was split and some of the windings were poking out. The PerTronix module was burned and fused with the magnet ring. In the Question & Answer section (!) on page 5 of 6 (!!) of the PerTronix instruction sheet, Question 7 of 10 (!!!) read:
Q What happens if I leave the ignition switch on when the engine is not running?
A This can cause your coil to overheat, which may cause permanent damage to the coil and Ignitor™.

I believe this information deserved a tad more emphasis. I would have put it in red caps on Page 1 in the section that started


If that had been done, I would have had a better chance to avoid a two hundred dollar mistake. (I replaced the singed cap and rotor too.)

I'm not sure if Ignitor II™ and Ignitor III™ modules have the same problem, but I would find out before I installed either one. At least one of the Buick websites does not recommend the "cheap PerTronix" (their term) in Buick distributors. This problem may be why. On the other hand, I have run this Ignitor™ for over ten years with out a problem before this.

 

 

 

 

23. Shortcut

Electrical problems can take hours to diagnose. Once the problem is discovered, The repair (usually) does not take a lot of time. I have found that it saves time to approach the diagnosis logically. To that end, I use a flow chart to speed up the process. If the problem is really complex, I diagnose the most obvious symptom first.

 When the lights would not turn on, I sat down and made the following flowchart:   

  

 

On the fourth step, the headlights turned on. What was different? The ignition was turned on in step two.

I was expecting an all day thrash, but the total time including making the flowchart was just over an hour.

22. Sex Talk

Molex Plug is a brand name that has become a generic term for a type of multi-wire electrical connector, much like Scotch Tape and Band Aid have become generic terms for their products. From now on I will not capitalize molex unless I'm Talking about plugs made by Molex. What I'm talking about here is the Radio Shack version which they call an "Interlocking Connector". If you go into any Radio Shack and say "molex plugs" they will lead you straight to them.

To describe and differentiate between all sorts of connection parts the sexual terms "male" and "female" are used. It is generally understood that the plug on the lamp cord is male and the wall receptacle is female.

However, with molex type plugs, descriptions are much more in tune with the present, where no one seems to know or even care what words like male, female or marriage mean.

Designation of pin connections are conventional: bullet shaped male fits into hollow circular shaped female. However, descriptions of connectors themselves are much less precise. "Female" connectors are supplied with female pins, but can use male pins or any combination of female and male pins. "Female" connectors fit inside of "Male" connectors. In common usage that makes "Female" connectors plugs, and "Male" connectors receptacles.

On their package, Radio Shack clarifies (?) the situation with the following statement:

"Male pins are normally used in the plug, female pins in the receptacle. They can, however, be interchanged to provide a great variety of polarization combinations when similar connectors are used adjacent to each other, and when wire leads are not otherwise polarized." (Emphasis mine.)

If that is true, why are plugs supplied with female pins and receptacles supplied with male pins?

Packages containing plugs and female pins are labeled "Female Interlocking Connector" and packages containing receptacles and male pins are labeled "Male Interlocking Connector".

I'm so confused.

21. Wired

So, why would a septuagenarian suddenly decide to rewire a car that has been running without any electrical issues for more than ten years?

Since the last rewire was completed a stereo system, an overdrive and cruise control have been added on, but not integrated into the existing wiring.

The previous wiring system did not account for removal of parts for replacement or access. The battery was located behind the driver's seat and was difficult to service and remove. It was nearly impossible  to remove the dashboard and I have an inner ear problem which makes me sick when I lay on my back for more than a few minutes.

It always annoyed me that when the car was last rewired, they went against my wishes and moved the control panel from behind the seat to the left kick panel. It was hard to work on when I was sixty, let alone now.

The existing wiring did not have a master fuse for either the battery or alternator.

The existing wiring panel (American Autowire) used Wago "Cage Clamp" connectors which grab the stripped ends of the wires and in my experience are prone to poor connections.

 

The car is destined to go to my daughter for her or her boys to use, which magnifies the importance of  safety related concerns.

Since I am now retired, I needed a relatively long term project to occupy my time.

Convinced?  I am. My wife isn't.

 I looked at wiring kits from the usual suspects (Painless, EZ Wire, American Autowire, etc.) and found a lot of features I didn't like. I'm not fond of  factory terminations to the panel. The manufacturer can't know which circuits I need. I have no need for a tiny crowded control panel. Painless Wiring had the only kits I found for behind the seat mounting.

The ISIS intelligent multiplex system is intriguing, but pricey. I sounds like it would shorten installation time, which would make economic sense for professional builders, but was not what I wanted.

I chose to use a Coach Controls Coupe-23 wiring kit. It has 23 circuits (18 fused). There are 14 relays including a 40 amp fan relay to allow low current control of high current systems. The control panel is good looking and well designed, and uses screw stud terminals for connections. The panel can be mounted behind the seat, although it is not specifically designed to. Coach Controls has more than ten years experience in race car wiring systems. They design and build their products in the United States. It does require buying an open barrel crimping tool. Don't you hate it when you have to buy tools? Me neither.

The objective of this project is to rewire my '39 Ford coupe so that the wiring is safer, neater, more logical and so the car is easier to work on. All circuits including the battery cables will be fused. All grounds will be attached to the frame, and multi-conductor plugs or quick disconnects will allow easier parts replacement.

In preparation for mounting the panel behind the seat, I removed the damaged original pressed board divider between the trunk and the passenger compartment. (See previous chapter.) 

The first thing I did was move the battery to the passenger side, still behind the seat. This is not ideal, because battery fumes can be released into the passenger compartment, but this has not happened in ten years of driving the car, so I feel that the risk is tolerable. I discovered that the master disconnect (kill) switch was on the ground cable. That's a good thing. If a tool touches the plus terminal and the body or frame when the kill switch is in use, there is no continuity, no short. In the process of moving the kill switch, I discovered that while the ground cable was made from 1 gauge welding cable, the much longer positive cable was 2 gauge. The plus cable should never be smaller than the minus cable, even if they are both the same length. The 13 foot length of the positive cable exacerbates the problem. Since the 2 gauge cable handled the load without issues, I increased the size to 1 gauge (red) welding cable. 1 gauge welding cable is made up of 780 strands of .01" wire, is much more flexible than standard battery cable, and the insulation is much thicker.     

During the wire removal stage of the project, I discovered several interesting wiring innovations.

 

 

 

These reinforced my decision to rewire.

Before I started wiring, I made a wiring list. This is a working document which I revise as I discover wires needed which I forgot to include, unintended duplication, etc. The wiring kit included a large two-sided plastic coated generic wiring diagram, and there were additional more specific diagrams on line. The on-line diagrams are restricted: you can print them but not download them. So I printed them, then scanned them into the computer as jpeg files and modified them as needed. For instance there is the following published diagram for front parking lights that do not turn on with the headlights

 which I Photo Shopped to

 

After completing the headlight wiring, I decided to test it. The taillights and parking lights lit, but the headlights would not. After a lot of review and head scratching, I wondered if some other circuit in the Coach Control Center was involved. I touched 12 volts to the ignition switch lead and the headlights came on. The system is designed so that the headlight circuit is only activated when the ignition is on.

Who knew?

 

20. Out of Doors

A minor pain in the ass about driving a US model Ford V8 older than 1941 is that they don't have an outside door lock on the driver's side door. My method to secure the vehicle is to walk around to the passenger side, open the door, reach across the seat and push the rear of the driver's side inside door handle upward, which locks the door. Then I close the passenger side door and lock it with the key.

On my car, if the inside handle on the passenger side door is in the up and locked position when the door is locked from the outside, the key will not unlock the door. I don't know if all early V8s are like that, but mine is.

The first time I locked myself out, I broke the passenger side quarter window and used a stick to push the inside door handle down to unlock the door. It was time to remove the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute window decal anyway, but replacing the window cost more than I wanted to spend and I was picking glass out of the passenger compartment for months afterward.

When I found myself on the outside again, I opened the trunk with my key and crawled in. I broke through the paperboard divider between the trunk and the passenger compartment, pushed the seat back up and reached through far enough to push the handle down.

I never locked myself out of the car again. That was my wife Suzanne's job. She left the handle pushed up when I parked the car during a massive cruise night in Golden, Colorado. So when I couldn't unlock the door, I once again opened the trunk and crawled in. I found that it was a lot more difficult than it had been twenty years before. A small crowd gathered to see where the grunts and groans were coming from. They stayed to see what was going on. When only my feet were sticking out of the trunk, Suzanne said "And if he keeps misbehaving, I'll put him in there again."

Incidentally, Bob Drake sells a kit to add a lock to the driver's side door. It includes both door latch mechanisms,  2 lock cylinders keyed alike and a left hand lock cylinder mount. I have the kit in hand, as yet uninstalled.

19   Interference (Part 4)                                            

I had previously changed from aftermarket front wheels to GM code DC Rally wheels because the front caliper bodies needed to be ground down to clear the aftermarket wheels, and because I wanted the front wheels to match the rear wheels (GM code AG Rally). Shortly after I made the change, the front tires began to rub the fenders on turns. I don't  know what it sounded like outside the car, but it was both embarrassing and annoying on the inside.

I decided to replace the ten year old sagging springs with new ones from Eckler's Early Chevy. The existing springs were 1956 Corvette with one and a half coils removed. I replaced them with 1954 Chevrolet passenger car springs, which were stiffer. After a trial fit, I cut one coil from the right spring and reinstalled it. The car still had the front end high look of a Gasser. I re-removed the spring and cut another half coil off. On reinstallation, the front end sat about two inches higher than before. Enough to minimize the scraping and close enough to the look I wanted to be acceptable. I cut the other spring to match and reinstalled it along with new shocks (62 Corvette) and new lower shock brackets from Eckler's.

Attached is an instruction I found on the internet to prevent hurting yourself when working on a coil spring front end:

Materials:
Get a 1/2 inch or 5/8th inch threaded rod about 3 foot long.
Get 3 nuts that fit the rod.
Get an assortment of large flat washers. You need two with a diameter slightly more than the nut (roughly 1 inch dia.), three that are larger (1" to 2"), and then a very large one (3" to 4"). Since the last one is hard to find, I have used ½ inch pipe flanges, as the 3/4 inch hole lets the rod through and the flange is about 3-1/2 inches in diameter, plus they are strong.

Procedure:
1. Remove the shock absorber from inside the front springs.
2. Slide the rod through the small top hole in the frame and the large bottom hole in the a-arm for the shocks.
3. Install two large washers and small washer on top. Put a thin layer of grease between them.
4. Install the top nut.
5. Install the pipe flange, large washer, small washer, and nut on the bottom. The nut should be positioned at least three inches from the end of the rod.
6. Install a second nut as a backup to the first. It only has to be snug to the other nut.
7. Pull the rod up from the top by hand and apply oil to the threads above the top shock mount. Run the top nut down until the nut and washers are snug to the top shock mount. There should be at least 6 inches of rod showing.
8. With a wrench, slowly tighten the top nut until the spring compresses slightly.

WARNING: Do not have anyone or any body parts under the front suspension or to the side of the spring.

9. This next section can be done two ways, depending on if you are removing/separating ball joints or removing a-arms.

a. Removing a-arms

a1. Disconnect the inner pivot bolts on the pivot bar at the frame crossmember. There are two in front and one in back and they are different sizes.

b. Separating ball joints

b1. Loosen the ball joint nut.
b2. Separate the lower ball joint with a ball joint press or pickle fork.

10. Slowly loosen the top nut on the rod to lower the   a-arm down and let the spring loose.

To install, reverse the procedure.

The remove, install, re-remove, cut, reinstall, re-re-remove, re-cut and re-reinstall process brought back fond memories of the exact same procedure when I originally installed the front end. This time, though, I turned the front steering by grabbing the right front rotor on the sides and moving the steering which dislodged the caliper enough to cause it to leak, requiring rebuilding. I also noticed a witness mark where the right front brake hose was rubbing on the spindle. I had all four hoses replaced and the system filled with DOT4 fluid, the brakes bled and the wheel bearings repacked at Morrison (CO) Carworks. After I gave up trying to source the hoses, I asked Clint Raymond, the owner, to find them for me. The rear hoses were replaced with '67-68 Camaro front hoses, but he couldn't find correct length hoses for the front. He had custom front hoses made locally. They turned out to be $7.00 each less than the store-bought rears.

Clint mentioned to me that the frame was beginning to crack where the steering had moved outboard. I called Joe Qualls at Color on Wheels / Masterpiece Hot Rods in Denver. He repaired the crack and reinforced the frame. I expect and get excellent work from him every time, and the price is always a pleasant surprise.