[fbrown]

As I said a few posts ago, it seems that everything is fighting me. I forgot to mention the problems with the windshield wiper. I did a quick check to see it the windshield wiper motor worked, then did a cosmetic restoration on it. Looked really good.



Then I discover that the wiper won't stop sometimes. Keeps on running after turning the switch off. This was around July, I ordered new wiper motor and washer. Was back ordered and I forgot about it. Checked on it last week to find no record of my order and none in stock. Checked Rockauto found no listing for a wiper motor under GTO but found that it was listed under Tempest. Ordered wiper motor, arrived a couple of days ago, broken, they put it in a box with no packing and one of the mounting ears broke off. So waiting for a replacement.

It seems that the last few remaining items are the creating the most problems.

Some things are kind of funny, my girlfriend is laughing at me, she said now that its winter you got the air conditioning working.

Anyway I have to get in high gear and clean my basement. It's takes a lot of time to clean the dust out and get it clean enough to paint. It's been almost two years since I painted the car and still have the hood to redo. There is only about a month before it's too cold to paint.

[cuz68]

As aways looking great, Thank you Fred for the updates. Randy.

[fbrown]

I got the Speedhunt tach installed and it works.



This is what the reproduction in dash tach looked like after breaking it open. It was held together by some blobs of silicon.



Looks like the Speedhunt unit can be installed in the old tach housing.



Test fit



I did have to cut the housing a bit. The side that got cut was slanting in.



I will say I give the aftermarket tach housing an "F" for quality. The fit of the lens and bezel was very poor. There was 3/16" gap on one side of the bezel. However at least when it's put together and installed you cannot see the poor fit of the parts. One of the reasons the tach was held together with silicon was because the parts just did not fit together. They used silicon to bridge the gap.

I did remove the lens on the speedhunt unit. There might be glare if I had both the Speedhunt lens and the GTO tach housing lens.



They glove box took far more time than it should have, but it turned out well.

I added a light strip to light up the box. The factory light is almost useless, I also installed the USB port for the radio in the glove box. The trunk release has also been mounted. This is a shot of the glove box in the dark.



Another view - You can see the light strip here. The green unit is my USB strip. I used a panel plug to hide the hole left for the factory glove box light.



Still fighting the windshield wiper motor. I got the replacement for the damaged one and found things still didn't work right. I have only one speed and the park does not work. After testing and tracing wiring for a while, I believe the wiper switch I have is for a non-park wiper motor. It was on of the few things I did not replace. I didn't replace the switch because I don't expect to need wipers very often. That is so say I don't plan on driving the car when its likely to rain. It turns out that the original wiper motor was completely shot, extreme wear, no grease, the switch that reverses the motor was cracked. Anyway I ordered a wiper motor switch today.

[fbrown]

I'm overdue for an update. Things got real busy at work in November so I was unable to paint the hood and bumper. By the time work eased up it was too cold.

I got the windshield wiper worked out. I had the wrong switch. I had a switch for a non hidden wiper. This was the switch that came with the car. New switch made it work perfectly.

I had some leaks from the transmission pan, so I replaced the gasket on the transmission pan.

Engine still seems a little rough. Maybe I need to clean the injectors. The engine sat for several years from the time I first cranked it till I got it running again.

Now for the picture updates.

Hoses from vintage air hang down. Something the girl friend would complain about.



So I made a cover to hide the hoses.



Powder coated and installed.



Now the hoses are hidden



Time to finish the console/shifter

A graphic was supplied for the Hurst dual gate Overdrive conversion, but no clear plastic was supplied. Since I started with a used ebay shifter I was missing some of the indicator parts. Home Depot to the rescue with a sheet of lexan.



The finished result. The back light was very dim so I substituted a bright LED replacement bulb. Worked very well bright enough to see, but not too bright.



I needed a shift knob. While black reproduction knobs are available for the Hurst, I wanted a wood grain knob instead. It turns out that no aftermarket knobs are currently available so I made my own. I started out with a bare wood ball, drilled it for a threaded insert, and then stained it.





I had sanded the hood and bumper. Now I just need warmer weather.... Maybe by mid March it will be warm enough for painting.



One of the problems with an LS3 engine swap is controlling factory gauges. There is really no good place to insert a 68 GTO temperature sending unit on a LS3 engine. The sending unit is too large to be inserted in the head. Some have used the location that is plugged on the passenger side at the back of the head. I think it is very risky to drill such a large hole. In addition the sending unit would almost touch a header pipe. A second problem is controlling the GEN light. There is no provision in the corvette alternator to control a GEN light. My solution to the problem is to use a computer to read the battery voltage and light the GEN light if the voltage is less than 12.5. I also read the coolant temperature from the ECM and have programed a PWM output to drive the coolant temperature meter. I calibrated the gauge so that the middle mark is 200 degrees, the normal operating temperature for a LS3.
The marks on the gauge correspond to 100,150,200,225,250 so now the gauge is useful.

These are the components I used to read the factory ECM. The red board (OBD2 code reader) connects to the diagnostic connector (will be hard wired when I finish) . The red board reads data from ECM and returns the result as ASCII text. The blue board, actually two boards plugged together are an Arduino Mega 2560 with a proto board plugged into it. The Arduino board contains the program that issues commands to the OBD2 reader. The proto board contains the circuits necessary to interface with the car. A relay drives the GEN light and contains a driver circuit for controlling the temperature gauge. The LCD is a diagnostic aid and won't be used normally.



Here is the board polling data from the ECM. For diagnostic purposes the data is being displayed on the LCD.



And a shot with the board controlling the GEN light and temperature gauge in the car. When the ignition key is first turned on the GEN light is blinked and the gauge cycles from cold to hot and back to cold to show they are working.



I don't have much left to do now. Current list.

Paint hood and bumper
Mount temperature/GEN light controller in an enclosure and install under dash.
Figure out why the engine is a little rough
Finish out the trunk.
Install cornering lights.

That's about it. I plan on having the car completed this spring.

[cuz68]

Wow, Fred the dash looks great i like what you did to the glove box also, Did the speakers on the kick panel come with covers for them? Thank you for the update Randy.

[fbrown]

The speakers are JL Audio and came with grills. The speakers were deeper than the space behind the kick panel, so I had to enlarge the opening in the sheet metal.

[Aus Goat]

Your the man Fred love your car and the build notes and pictires.
I was thinking about a metal glovebox like you. My cars RHD conversion made a mess of the cardboard. Why don't they make a metal one they would sell hint hint.
I am currently drawing up the glovebox in CAD so I will R&D your idea on lighting