[TheSilverBuick]

Hmm, I hadn't updated this in a while, but progress has been going. Started it up yesterday for the first time in the car even.

Dec 14, 2013.

Been doing some minor work. Probably the last update for a few weeks. Leaving town for a week then the country for a couple weeks.

Installed the driveshaft and buttoned up the exhaust system. Still not a fan of welding upwards. I seem to have lost the clips that connect the parking brake cables. I'll pick some up later.


Next up, I put the car back on the ground and started on the interior. I pulled the Grant steering wheel off and have an okay shape OE Pontiac one to install. While it was off I have decided to change the turn signal switch. I cannot remember if the blinkers worked when I drove it home (I think it did..) but the horn piece needed to be replaced and part of the turn signal switch was cracked. I got one from the parts store, but the plug did not match, so I'll get back to it.

Pulled the dash out and removed the hacked non-OE wiring. I think the speedo cable is going out the wrong hole in the firewall, so I'll correct that before re-installation. I'm going to do some re-wiring of my own though, I'm going to wire the Temp and Gen idiot lights to the MegaSquirt to come on at specified settings (like 195*F and 12.5v). I haven't decided about the Oil light, but the MegaSquirt has a "Check Engine" like option now, and I might wire that into the Oil idiot light. I'll be running an electric oil pressure gauge to watch that manually, though I might wire in some pressure sensors into the external oil pressure system, main pressure system and fuel pressure, and program any of those to turn on the check engine light if they go outside pre-determined settings.


Check out the two old flasher relays and the OE clutch pedal neutral safety switch.


Set the dash off to the side for some clean up and modifications.


The backside. Relatively clean.


The heater control cables are trashed, so I'll have to come up with some new ones. I'll clean this up and grease it up good.


And some of my modifications. Added a switch panel and an updated radio (that was collecting dust in the corner). The switch on the left is a starterI switch, so the three switches on the left will be: Starter, high pressure fuel pump, and MegaSquirt. The remaining switches I haven't settled on but one will probably be a water pump and radiator fan ON by-pass. I'll still have the ignition key provide power and the starter switch go through the neutral safety switch. Those are circuit breakers under the switches.


That's going to be it for a good while.

January 17, 2014

Back at this.

Cut down a new transmission dipstick. Using the trick a friend of mine used for a locking transmission dipstick tube I knocked the rivets out of the latch to re-attach when I cut some length off the top. Unfortunately after searching two hardware stores and two auto parts stores I couldn't not find the correct sized rivets So I simply took a regular 1/8" rivet and cut the end off and ran it through the holes and l added a shot of super glue just because.

The top removed from the new dipstick.


The finished product.


Close up view. It's wrapped through two holes.


And installed.



I ordered the heater cables from Summit for $40 and they are quite a bit longer than the original cables which may present an issue. Tomorrow I'll try and hook them up completely and if the length causes issues I'll pull them back out, clip the end off, shorten the casing, trim the cable as needed, then re-loop the ends. If I trim the casing in the middle I'll be able maintain the attaching points.

I removed the control assembly and hosed it down with a fair amount of brake clean and wiped it down from there the best I could. Then gave it a heavy coating of anti-seize and a light spray of silicon spray. I also sprayed some of the silicon spray into the cable housings.


I spent some time making sure a pile of things behind the dash were back to proper. The speedo cable went out the wrong hole in the firewall so I corrected that, the wiring harness wasn't looped into any of the brackets, etc. I painted the cigarette lighter trim with chrome paint, which looks marginally better than the flaking off chrome and yellow it was.


I installed the new vent ball on the drivers side that came with the car as well as the new Head Light switch trim ring and lever/knob. The other trouble I've ran into has been with the turn signal switch. I've gotten three different ones and on all of them the plug would not plug into the car's harness. The connectors are spaced slightly different causing problems. So I kept one and am going to pull the pins out of the connectors and use my old connector housing. Planning on installing it tomorrow.

January 18, 2014

In case you run into this problem with your old cars, the fix it pretty straight forward. I got three different turn signal switches from two different parts stores and none of the plugs would fit my connector, the pin spacing was off just a hair, but enough to keep it from working. So I decided to simply swap the connectors. They make a star shaped tool that is supposed to make it super easy to depress the locking tab to pull the pin, and while I'm positive I own one somewhere I could not find it, so a small watch screw driver did the trick in it's place. The tab is just on one side and after I got the first pin out it was easy to tell which side of the pin the tab was on. The OE switch had the pins installed in some random order that required paying attention, the new switch had all the tabs on one side.

Simple to stick the screw driver into the little hole above the pin, lift slightly and pull the wire and the pin slides right out.



The new one is ready to go. Cost something like $25. It has three extra wires for "corner lights", but they'll just sit unused on the harness. The one with out corner lights was $7 more and the plug still didn't fit, so I went with the cheaper alternative. Flip side is down the road if I go to a full digital dash cluster like the Skylark I can take two MS3 inputs and wire the extra pins to the MS3 for the turn signal lights, where currently on the Skylark I used LED's in place of the OE light bulbs due to space constraints with the LCD screen. I won't have that cover on the Firebird so it would be better integrated into the screen (like the parking brake light is on the Skylark).

January 23, 2014.

The problem with making the engine harness outside the car is sometimes it comes up short =/ It'll work for now, but ideally another 8" or so would be better to bring the connectors all the way to the passenger side. Where they are now should be fine, but I think when I swap in the turbo motor down the road I may lengthen it.

I still need to add the grommets, but one of the connectors connects right behind the head and the other is just under the wiper motor. Both connectors wouldn't fit behind the head at the same time, who'd a thunk? =P


I think I'll mount the megasquirt on the heater box like in the Skylark. The only thing holding it in place right here is the drop light, so there is some room for movement. I may move it to the trans hump in front of the console.


Small area to run the wires through the firewall on the passenger side. I used the stock hole the blower motor wire ran out for one of the harnesses and drilled a second hole right next to it.


Then started mocking up the cooling system. I still don't know what I'm going to do with the heater hoses. I may use my engine stand radiator, but it'll require making brackets to hold it up, but it has a port for a heater hose.... I have a bolt holding the electric water pump in place on the frame that should keep it from flopping around when attached to the hoses. The two plastic (PVC?) hose connectors I used on the engine stand show deformation, from what I am guessing is from heat. They are not cracked or even appear cooked, but the tee isn't 90º and the straight reducer fitting now has a bend in it. Both look like they were cast that way, no discoloration, etc, but certainly weren't.


Messed with the hood tach tonight.

I installed a new capacitor that should convert it to a 6 cylinder tach and a new resistor to replace one that was out of specification. And as expected, my friend was right about needing an inductor to make it work properly. I found a Mega Squirt diagram that with a transistor and modified relay should make this work with the Mega Squirt's tach out signal. I've got the transistor and have modified a relay already, but want to get the assembly installed internally to the hood tach, so it will require some extra wiring to the hood tach, namely a 12v and ground wire, which I might be able to get from the light circuit if I want the lights on all the time.


And because I'm not a purist, and may even end up drilling holes in the face for Mega Squirt indicators and shift light I made my own face to cover the real rough one. Basically took a picture of the face, loaded it into power point and digitized in the lines and texts. Couldn't seem to match the Pontiac font very well, but again I'm not much of a purist.


The new and old side by side. I covered the print out with clear packing tape on both sides to protect it. Similar to what I did for the wheel center caps on the Skylark.


Somewhat put together. I gave myself a 7,000rpm redline =D

January 25, 2014. I am going to be re-doing the whole fuel system plumbing at some point when I install new fuel lines on the driver's side of the car. I am aware the fuel pressure regulator location is not NHRA legal.

I've been working on the fuel system. After talking about it in an EFI Tech thread I decided to make a smaller surge tank and used 1" box steel about five or six inches long and welded in some nipples and capped the end. I seem to have trouble making a nice seal with the welds (more on that) and after going over the welds a few times I said screw it and got some acid core solder out and used it. So it doesn't exactly look pretty, but the flat black paint should hide it okay. I also spent a ton of time trying to set it up so both fuel pumps were back by the gas tank, but a tactical error on having the single exhaust on the passenger side made it impractical with the fuel lines from the frame and gas tank being on the passenger side. Had I used the driver's side I think I could of made it work. In any case, I think I finally got the lay out where I want it and will be bolting every thing together and will just need new rubber lines in a few places. I'm apparently just about out of steel braided so I'll have to get more at some point.

And going back to getting my welds to seal, there was a small puddle of ATF under the car this morning, and my first thought was the trans yoke wasn't sealing but it turned out to be my added drain plug. I cleaned it up and put a bit more torque on the plug but it's still seeping so I'm guessing it's going through the welds. I put 4.5 quarts of ATF in last night, so I'll drain it into a clean container (via my drain plug!) and see about sealing it with the solder since that seems to be becoming my M.O.

Here is a comparison of my new test surge tank compared to my older larger model. The hope was to install the new one at the rear of the car, but still didn't happen. It isn't pretty, but it should do and I may make a new one.


I just have the lines mocked up right there, but I have the surge tank mounted just above where the stock fuel lines come up off the frame. I am running low on braided line so I'll have to get some eventually. I may trim the regulator bracket and lower it down a bit.



I like wiring a lot more than plumbing. You can choose any color wire you want as long as it's red, pink, yellow or black Actually my electric oil pressure gauge sending wire is brown. Managed to sneak that one in.

I wired in the reverse light and neutral safety switches on the shifter as well as cut out a ton of hacked wiring under the hood. There was a lot of twisted together wires wrapped in electrical tape in the engine harness. Got it stripped down to the OE V8 harness now and will keep all the OE wiring on the left side of the engine and the only wire the OE harness will connect to the engine with will be the alternator charging wire.


The switch panel just about wired in. I need to wire in the rear electric fuel pump still, but ran short on wire, so I'll get a new spool tomorrow. There are five toggle switches, a momentary starter switch and five circuit breakers. The toggle switches have lights when on so I have a series of ground wires on the switches too. I'm leaving the keyed starter wire disconnected, or I might hook it to the horn as a joke or to surprise someone trying to start the car. One toggle switch for the MegaSquirt, one for the high pressure fuel pump, one for the low pressure pump (my Skylark fuel pumps are wired like this) and one for a 12v power socket, leaving one switch unused. I'm using the associated circuit breaker for the power to the ignition coils.


(old picture)



Here is a distribution block I installed to power the whole thing. The relay is triggered by the old coil wire so it should come on with the ignition and stay on while cranking, as the main power wire feeding through the relay will come directly from the battery with a MAXI fuse on it. The yellow wires all go to the circuit breakers for the switched circuits. The pink wire there is going to the neutral safety switch on the shifter. The taped together pink and green wires are the OE reverse light wires going to the shifter's reverse light switch. I may have to upgrade the relay or run a set of relays in parallel if the amperage load becomes too high. The electric water pump, electric vacuum pump, and eventual electric fan will be ran on circuits under the hood.

February 1, 2014

Just like when a friend of mine said I can make simple wiring complex, I've done exactly the same with the cooling system. I've been fighting this for a few days now. An engineer I ain't.

The primary hang up was finding a place for the return heater hose, so using 40 hose clamps and 32 hose connector I got a system that I think should work. I have pretty much convinced myself when I build the turbo engine I'll get a new aluminum radiator with a Menziere (sp?) pump attached to it with two 1" outlets since the two ports in the head are 1". Two hoses and done. I'll make sure the radiator has a return port for the heater hose as well. On to the mess. I've relocated the water pump behind the crossmember so I could fit in the tee for the heater hose return. So, I hope all this stuff doesn't leak!




Then I finally got to move onto the fuel system, which progressed much faster. I have a late 80's external Ford pump mounted in a late 80's Ford fuel pump bracket bolted to the firewall at an angle and mounted an OE of some sort fuel injection filter on the pressure side right before the regulator. That particular filter comes with a bracket so I bolted to the heater box, the cool fresh air side of the heater. I got the the quick connect fittings for the pump and filter from NAPA so the fuel lines are fairly easy to hook and unhook. I made a short length of nylon line from the pump to the filter, but might end up replacing it with steel braided line, but I am out of that at the moment. It's all fed by the smaller surge canister. I'm going to move the fuel pressure gauge from the rail to the regulator, and eventually add an electric fuel pressure sending unit to the rail end. Here is a similar picture.

February 8, 2014. Last Saturday.

Okay some engine noises and movement may happen tomorrow. Test day in any case. Tomorrow morning I'll hook up the battery and watch for smoke =P and if no smoke happens I'll plug the the laptop in and make sure the megasquirt is seeing the sensors and doing megasquirt things. If that checks out then I'll fill the cooling system with water and run the pump and check for leaks. If that checks out, then at the end of the day I'll drain it and fill it with an anti-freeze mix. If the coolant system checks out then I'll pressure up the fuel system and check for leaks. If there are no leaks, then it'll be time to make engine noises! It should fire up reasonably easy if everything check's out as I did not change anything from the engine stand. I'll have to start feeding it large quantities of ATF until the cooler is full (and probably the torque converter, I added as much as I could to it before installation). I'll run it through the gears and keep checking the fluid until I'm satisfied it's full. If the transmission hasn't eaten itself by then (remember "I" rebuilt it...) then I'll put the car on the ground and back it out of the shop and consider that a great victory. Crossing my fingers as a dozen things can still go awry. I'll have to call a friend over to help me put the hood on if all is good.


I ended up abandoning the main relay under the dash and switched to a Taurus continuous duty fan relay to power the fuse box there and the power strip under the dash that has circuit breakers on each circuit.


On the other side is the gutted Caprice LT1 smog pump to use as a crank case vacuum pump. I still need a good container to use as a catch can. I'm wondering if I can make one out of a PVC tee fitting, cap with a drain plug and a valve cover breather on the top? I guess it would depend how much oil, etc it traps. For now I'm going to stick a drain pan under it to quantify what is coming out and since there is snow on the ground I have time before it sees any real road time. (I did end up putting a hose clamp on the hose at the end of the red pipe)


The only aftermarket gauge at the moment. The shifter console is way taller than the OE console so a triple set of gauges doesn't fit underneath the dash. I'll hook the temperature idiot light up to the MegaSquirt to let me know if it's getting hot (set to like 190*F or 200*F) and figure I'll do the same with the GEN light and voltage.


I set the MegaSquirt behind the center console for the time being. I may move it eventually so it's just sitting there at the moment. Maybe I'll velcro the bottom of it.... The carpet seems to have seen something that bleached the black out. Who am I to complain, the Skylark hasn't had carpet in a decade or more now so I'm just happy there is carpet.


The driver's side is a constant reminder the car used to have a stick shift. Maybe one day I'll make use of it, or not.

And yesterday's bitter sweet victory.
The highlights of today are, I heard the engine run, a couple of times, but it certainly wasn't smooth sailing. Long post warning.

Started the day pretty good. Hooked the battery up and no smoke, sparks or pops. Headlights, tail lights and dome light worked, figured I'd check the stock systems first. Then tried the key. Found my trigger wire to my relay didn't power with the key. Not a big deal, found the needed power source. Then had the megasquirt and fuel pump relay power reverse. No problem, swapped plugs moving on. Things were looking good at this point. The system powered up, the megasquirt was reading the sensors, the engine cranked when pressing the start button. Though it seems the neutral safety switch is out of adjustment as it won't crank in park, but will in neutral. Won't crank in any of the gears so it somewhat works. Problem for later. Then it started to go down hill from there....

Started working on checking the fuel system and first the lift pump wouldn't prime, so I threw 7 gallons of fresh fuel in the tank (probably needed fresh fuel anyways) and used the shop vac to blow air into the filler neck and the lift pump promptly started leaking at both ends..... After tightening up the fittings, the filter, breaking at least one hose clamp, I tossed the pump and got a new one that had the fitting built in and a new filter. Only bathed in a gallon of gas in the process *blah*. Had a minor leak at the fuel rail and ended up moving the fuel pressure gauge to the regulator. By now it was mid-afternoon so I figured I'd skip filling the cooling system with water because I'd have to promptly drain it, and proceeded right to start up :thumbs:

Started the car up a couple times for ten or so seconds at a time and topped off the transmission fluid as well as ran it through the gears (speedo works now! Didn't when I got the car), and while doing this had no problems. The engine started reasonably well and shut off when I turned the key off like it should until......... it didn't...... The big difference between when it was working fine and when it didn't was I rev'ed it up high enough to get the alternator charging, and when I turned the key off the alternator was feeding the system, but cut off from the battery because I had the charging wire on the wrong side of my master relay and then bad things started to happen. The engine didn't shut off, but didn't sound right either, and I hit the power switch to the megasquirt to kill the engine but it was too late, the damage was done. When I key'ed back on the megasquirt did not power up. I checked and the fuse was good, it had power on the wire going into it, but nothing. Took a sniff at it and it smelled burnt =/


Dragged it into the house and opened it up and yup, a few cooked parts, some obvious and some not so obvious. Using the obvious visual cue's was easy for the damaged parts, but I hooked it back up to the JimStim and started testing the power circuit to find the two bad diodes. Started testing and replacing parts until I had power at the processor pins, and turned out just to be the two diodes.

Here is an obvious exploded capacitor


And an obvious burnt out power trace. (the copper color, it's not copper and doesn't conduct)


So I started troubleshooting. The exploded capacitor is essentially the first part that is installed when building a megasquirt and is part of the power circuit. So I started there. Fortunately I have some spare parts (not that any of them are exotic, but I was able to get it going again today). I replaced these four parts. The capacitor on the top right may not be bad, but I didn't trust the way it looked compared to the good ones. The bottom two diodes were toast, no conductivity in either direction.


New capacitors installed.


A jumper wire installed in place of the cooked trace. (it doesn't look pretty, but will work and is hidden in a case!)


So I went back out and took a video after the fact =D The phone picks up the fuel pump sound more than you can actually hear it in person.
http://youtu.be/ljgzz8O__Ck