[RamAirBirds]

Dennis...this is Ross....Call me on Monday and i will take my heater cable for my car thats at Jim's and go look around and see if i can find one in his stock...
I will PM you my cell # shortly....Jeff D. has it as well...
Let me try to help.....Great Car....
RA

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by RamAirBirds

Dennis...this is Ross....Call me on Monday and i will take my heater cable for my car thats at Jim's and go look around and see if i can find one in his stock...
I will PM you my cell # shortly....Jeff D. has it as well...
Let me try to help.....Great Car....
RA

Thanks Ross...you have been PM'd.

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

We found a new (2006 date) copper-brass heater core at a local radiator shop sitting on a shelf for the '70 Firebird Formula ($90), but also ordered a new one from Rock Auto, who had 2 listed for non-AC, so bought the one that cost a couple bucks more thinking (hoping) it would be slightly better quality of the two...who knows ($47 including tax & base shipping). Got that in yesterday, so we put the two side by side to see what differences would be obvious. I have to say we were surprised that the aluminum piece is just slightly smaller at the core perimeter and they include a foam gasket to seal tightly, and hose outlets are bent correctly for the tight bends needed coming out of the firewall behind the pass cylinder head. So, at half price, maybe they'd be OK. We'll keep the aluminum one for back-up.

Dennis

[Transamric]

Betting the aluminum one is Chinese made?

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by Transamric

Betting the aluminum one is Chinese made?

Transamric, You are totally correct! TYC (Totally Yucky Chinese) for a 'Camro'!

Dennis

[Transamric]

Originally Posted by SD455DJ

Transamric, You are totally correct! TYC (Totally Yucky Chinese) for a 'Camro'!

Dennis

Camro.....gotta love it. Surprised it also doesn't say Firbird.

[SD455DJ]

Got to work on the Formula gauges/tach and heater core swaps today. We needed to take the hood & hinges off to access the both the fuse block below the brake booster and the heater box nuts. Since we were replacing the non-gauge dash harness for one for gauges, we decided it would be easier to do that with the complete dashboard out of the car...not to mention, the removal of the inner heater box as well.

We discovered that the dash and everything underneath was never tampered with all it's life...and discovered interesting assembly 'techniques' as well. Of the 5 intended nuts needed to fasten the dash pad to the core, only 3 were installed and the other 2 had no witness marks of ever having nuts installed, both above the glove box. A couple of the red harness retainer clips were also MIA that hold the wire loom as it routes over the glove box and down the far side...plus the usual half way installed screws and nuts in a variety of places...very interesting to observe and imagine that these cars were assembled quickly and they didn't stop the line because you missed a few screws.

We have the new gauges installed in the dash and are routing the new harness in and around the maze of brackets and controls. The new (old original) dash harness has enough 'memory' in the wires that most of the connectors go where they need to be connected...making it pretty easy for us to figure out. Now we just have to find a new heater control cable (floor/de-ice) which is holding us up temporarily.

Looks like the dash was made by Uniroyal (in Canada) on 4-8-70. We're not sure what the 'B' or the '84/8' chalk mark means...?

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

The heater core was the original Harrison unit that was still in excellent shape. We are going to put the new copper-brass core we found in anyway, but are keeping the original for posterity. Interesting that the original core retaining clips are painted baby blue. There was an original inspection sticker on the heater box/housing too. No mouse nests either!

Dennis

[keith k]

Cool. No doubt assembly quality was not great in those days. I sometimes wonder if the engineers knew that, and designed the dash to be held on with 2 more screws than were really required!

The bar under the glovebox (visible once it's removed) on the dash in my 70 TA was signed by a "Linda". She signed a few others as well, as I've seen them posted on here in the past.

Funny you mentioned the baby blue clips holding the heater core. When I rebuilt the heater plenum on mine, I blasted and repainted those in baby blue paint. And I remember asking myself why I bothered to worry about the "correct" color on something that would likely never be seen by anybody again!

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by keith k

Cool. No doubt assembly quality was not great in those days. I sometimes wonder if the engineers knew that, and designed the dash to be held on with 2 more screws than were really required!

The bar under the glovebox (visible once it's removed) on the dash in my 70 TA was signed by a "Linda". She signed a few others as well, as I've seen them posted on here in the past.

Funny you mentioned the baby blue clips holding the heater core. When I rebuilt the heater plenum on mine, I blasted and repainted those in baby blue paint. And I remember asking myself why I bothered to worry about the "correct" color on something that would likely never be seen by anybody again!

I guess mine was signed by 84/8...lol. Here's a pic of the underside of the dash above the removed glove box with the missing nuts.

Dennis

[unruhjonny]

I have an intake (that I have for a spare engine) which I need to remove that plug from, so I'm all ears on precisely how you pulled it!
Was it simply:
1) douce with penetrant
2) heat with torch till it stops bubling/smoking
3) try to move plug
4) repeat
??

I had my car's original rad recored about twenty years ago;
unfortunately for me, I didn't realize till later that the old guy tossed the ID tag that my rad had on it!

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

I have an intake (that I have for a spare engine) which I need to remove that plug from, so I'm all ears on precisely how you pulled it!
Was it simply:
1) douce with penetrant
2) heat with torch till it stops bubling/smoking
3) try to move plug
4) repeat
??

I had my car's original rad recored about twenty years ago;
unfortunately for me, I didn't realize till later that the old guy tossed the ID tag that my rad had on it!

Yep. Dan had to do that procedure for an hour, so probably 5 or 6 reps. Most of the time was for the PB Blaster to soak for a 10 minutes between heatings.

Dennis

[Region Warrior]

Originally Posted by SD455DJ

Yep. Dan had to do that procedure for an hour, so probably 5 or 6 reps. Most of the time was for the PB Blaster to soak for a 10 minutes between heatings.

Dennis

Next time try candle wax.
Get good and hot around bolt, plug, stud.
Then melt candle wax on threads.

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by Region Warrior

Next time try candle wax.
Get good and hot around bolt, plug, stud.
Then melt candle wax on threads.

I'd be surprised if he has any candles being a bachelor, lol! Maybe he does for power outages...I have read the candle wax really works well and we'll have to try it on the next tough nut, bolt, plug. Thanks for the suggestion.

Dennis

[unruhjonny]

I seem to remember reading somewhere here of how to check if a temp sender was working;
I cannot recal reading of a similar test for the oil pressure sender.

I have read of grounding issues for temp senders when teflon tape ect was used on the sender;
The pulsing makes me wonder if there's a possible grounding issue.

You replaced, or adjusted the non gauges engine loom to work with the gauges dash loom right?

[johnta1]

I'd agree with the grounding issue.
Is the dash grounded?
Engine to firewall grounded?

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by johnta1

I'd agree with the grounding issue.
Is the dash grounded?
Engine to firewall grounded?

Yep, dash grounded, engine grounded and confused too!

Dennis

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by unruhjonny

I seem to remember reading somewhere here of how to check if a temp sender was working;
I cannot recal reading of a similar test for the oil pressure sender.

I have read of grounding issues for temp senders when teflon tape ect was used on the sender;
The pulsing makes me wonder if there's a possible grounding issue.

You replaced, or adjusted the non gauges engine loom to work with the gauges dash loom right?

We installed the factory dash harness for gauges I bought from you and everything checked out for continuity before we installed it, but it's possible some of the connections could be slightly corroded and not making good contact yet. The pulsing made us think a grounding issue too, but we're also thinking it could be a worn printed circuit just slightly grounding on the cluster housing, which does have a separate solid ground. We do have other temp and oil pressure senders to try as well. Both senders are new from Ames, btw. We didn't use any teflon tape either.

Dennis

[RicksGTO]

I had some weird ground issues on my gauges that turned out to be the Z shaped ground from the headlight switch to the speedo housing. I had the metal Z-bracket ground sandwiched next to the plastic speedo insert instead of directly contacting the metal speedo cluster. Might not be it but fairly easy to check

[SD455DJ]

Originally Posted by RicksGTO

I had some weird ground issues on my gauges that turned out to be the Z shaped ground from the headlight switch to the speedo housing. I had the metal Z-bracket ground sandwiched next to the plastic speedo insert instead of directly contacting the metal speedo cluster. Might not be it but fairly easy to check

Hmm, I don't recall a 'Z' bracket ground from the original dash and harness. Do you have a picture, or an assembly manual exploded drawing to illustrate it and how/where it attaches?

I do have a new printed circuit coming from our host in a few days.

Dennis