It seems like there are millions of little things to do and sometimes the little things get very time consuming. I tried to pop the trunk with the electric trunk latch. All I got was a buzz and no unlock. Since I had tested the latch with a battery many months ago I assumed that it was something in the wiring. I ran a ground wire from the trunk lid to the body, nothing changed. I finally took the latch out and tried it at the battery, loud clank and the latch opened. Installed the latch again, no luck, sounded like the solenoid was moving, just not hard enough. Removed the latch again, shot some silicon lubricant in the moving part and reinstalled. This time I only put the bottom two bolts in. This time the latch worked. Put the upper bolt in and tested one more time, this time no motion, a weak click. It turned out that the mounting surface for the latch was slightly distorted, the upper surface of the latch was about 1/32" from the mounting surface and when tightened it caused the latch to distort around the solenoid to the point that it seized. I gave up on installing the upper bolt, its not really needed. A number of the available power latches only have the lower two bolts anyway. I mainly chickened out on straightening the latch mounting surface, since I didn't want to risk damaging the paint. This little problem killed about 3 hours of time.
I'm hoping to get the electrical system compete and the car ready to crank by the time the driveshaft arrives. If I have too many problems like the trunk latch, I may not make it.
This is the mirror I'm using. It has a compass, reads outside temperature and has two map lights.
A shot of the kick panel with the speaker grill installed.
I have started on cleaning up the wiring under the hood. I used a plastic wrap to wrap the PCM harness and GM under-hood harness together.
Power distribution is complicated on this project. Ground from the battery connects to a bracket on the frame. The other wire on the frame connects to the engine. +12 connections are done, except for the amp. I don't have everything connected since I don't want to power everything just yet.
The body gets it ground from the firewall to the frame. That's a 8 gauge wire. The brown wire on the frame is for the PCM.
The core support needs to be grounded for the head lights to work. This a 12 gauge wire, but I have determined that it may be marginal and will replace it with a 10 gauge wire.
Other problems I am facing are the fuel lines. The hose I am using is no longer considered good enough for E10 fuel. It has been suggested that the hose I am using would need to be replaced every year or two. It seems the only fuel line that you can install once and forget for years is a Teflon lined hose. The OEMS were using a nylon line but OEMS are switching to Teflon lined fuel line. I have two short sections between the tank and the steel fuel lines (supply and return) and another short section where I need hose between the steel lines and the regulator.