27. Mea Culpa

When I wired the left side of the coupe, I didn't mummify the left harness as I did on the right side. I don't know why. That meant that I had to disconnect all of the wiring on the entire left side of the car and the control panel wires from the left harness, encapsulate them and reconnect them. And it was winter. Fortunately, there were plenty of days this past winter warm enough to work on the car in my unheated garage. By the early part of April, the wires were reconnected and I was ready to check out the car again. I had one wire which the label came off of, so I was expecting something not working. As luck would have it, there were two things that didn't work, the headlights and the thermostatically controlled cooling fan. Both are controlled by green wires. When I touched my unidentified green wire to a hot terminal, the fan came on. So I attached it to the proper terminal.

Since the taillights worked in both parking and headlight switch positions, there had to be a discontinuity in the wire from the headlight switch to the power panel. I checked the connections at the molex headlight switch connector and determined that the problem was between the molex plug and the panel. When I put the plug together, I broke the connector off of the taillight wire so I had to repair that first. Since the entire run where the problem occurred is mummified, I ran a substitute wire protected by clear spiral wrap alongside of the body harness. As before the headlights now operate only when the key is in the run position. I still have to secure the harness with Adel Clamps, another brand name that has become a generic description.

On the third checkout, everything was fine until I tried to bump the starter. It would not even click. I took it to my local O’Reillys where it failed the test. I ordered a rebuilt unit and installed it. This starter weighs nearly 25 pounds. It’s necessary to lift it while flat on your back on the creeper and maneuver it between the left exhaust pipe, the bellhousing and the engine block. I wasn’t sure I could accomplish all that without dropping the starter which could cause a bodily injury or worse. So I put an inverted Homer’s bucket under the car and lifted the starter onto it. After a suitable rest period I loosely connected the cable and wires to the solenoid then lifted the starter between the exhaust pipe and the block and rested it on the exhaust pipe. The third step was to lift the starter into position and start the upper mounting bolt. All things considered, it was easier than I thought it would be. The really difficult part was tightening the lower starter mounting bolt. There wasn’t enough room around the bolt head to get a socket, box wrench or tubing wrench on it. No matter which open end wrench I tried I couldn’t turn the bolt enough to flip the wrench over to use the other angle, so I couldn’t turn the bolt head a sixth of a turn to grab the next flat. I used a combination of hand turning and prying with a screwdriver to nudge the head enough to get the wrench on it again. Of course, GM used a fine thread bolt so that it required doing this 168 times to tighten the bolt one inch. It seemed to take forever. I’m glad I had the rebuilt starter tested before I installed it.

When I tapped the starter again, I heard the clicking sound that indicates a low battery. It wouldn’t take a charge from my charger or my battery tender. (Incidentally, I believe a battery tender is must have equipment if your vehicle is not driven often.) The battery in the car was An Autolite 65HD which lasted over 8 years. A Die hard 65 battery would not fit in the battery box because of the ledge on each side for the carry strap, so I bought a slightly smaller group 35. I bought a wet cell battery because I didn’t want to buy the special charger required by an AGM battery.