Going thru the details I hit a snag on the alternator battery hookup. How to mount a megafuse so its not grounded, thingieverse came thru!

Mounted and wired, I now have a working charging system.

The that dang ignition switch. I made an overhead switch box ages ago and never got around to it till now. Made a bottom, cut the holes out, wrapped it in pleather and ran some wire

Turn the key on, hit a few switches, and press start n it fires right up!

Cant get the front brakes bled, the gasket is loose on the reservoir now and the top lets out pressure. Got some brakes tho, need it too. This thing freakin LURCHES hard outta the garage. Clutch is kinda an on or off kind of clutch, but can wait to put some power down. Gotta stop first lol. Been starting out in second lately. Made an extension for the select cable so I got 2nd n 4th back. No oil to the rockers, so gotta figure that out. Didnt have a whole lotta faith in the boneyard motor, car wasnt wrecked and looked abused. The other motors there were in pieces so I took that one. Not opposed to getting a new motor. Kinda wanna pull the motor out again anyways to install a heat shield, redo some hoses, and other firewall stuff, move the battery, and make more room around the motor to work on. Then thinking about a different trans long term cuz the granny gear in this 4 spd wont be very streetable, so I have a 3 spd basically. Also thinking of rewiring the car since its a butchered mess, start w a fuseblock and go from there. Decisions decisions, as if I dont have enuf on muh plate.

I coulda just painted the turd when I got it but it woulda looked like crap. Im always looking for other ones to justify all my work. They pop up from time to time. Heres one on fb
https://www.facebook.com/ma...rral_story_type=post
that pisa dash is pretty coo, I plan on making something similar wraparound style. Someday......

shem

Workin on the nio oil to rockers issue, I pulled the lifters and they looked ok. Got a new set of lifters and reusuable(what an idea!) rocker bolts from zzp. Got it all back together and my injector rails leaking, guess I shoulda left those orings dry lol. Now I have injector clips coming tuesday from zzp and will fire it up then. In the meantime ive been cleaning up the engine compartment. Getting to the firewall valve cover was a pain, too much stuff in the way. I removed the pass side trunk mount thingie from the firewall, cut off the right side idler from the tensioner, moved the dis pack to the firewall, moved the map, evap purge, and boost bypass out of the way, got my vacuum lines and boost gauge line connected, and cleaned up the wiring. Now I can get either valve cover off easily and have some room around this motor.


Researching and printing out some parts for the new dash, and getting some of the car audio stuff together/planned. Made my appt at the dmv and have all the pages printed for my trip there. Im sure its going to be a nightmare, anything other than a standard transaction results in a bad attitude. I need a certificate of sequence and im all good. Ill have all the dmv pages printed out so they can get up to speed quickly lol. Hopefully it goes quickly, have to get some forms, get the car inspected, then go to the referee for my smog exemption.

shem

Swapped the car to the udder side of the garage and shoehorned the mustang into my "office"

prolly about a month ago now. Its nice to be able to work on the car inside. Pretty much done w motor stuff for now, still some wires I want to lengthen. I did another round of cutting on the tensioner, took off the top ear mount and it opened up the area even more. Got my fuel lines run against the firewall, looks much better. Cuz said it looks factory. I think it could be factory-ish, with more cleanup. But thats after the new motor arrives.


Looking at the evap vac can, it looks like an old coffee can to me. Had an idea, couldnt help myself


heading to bed a few days ago, I felt the urge to peep inside the car. I looked at the dash and shazam! It all came to me. Mostly. Next day I had some time before work, so I raided the dump pile. I got a sheet of 1/8 particle board and started cutting and drawing shapes with a sharpie yay!

Then got some plywood from the pile, found a sheet of aluminium, and made more shapes. Took a sawzall to the instrument cluster housing, and cut up the center of the dash to fit the plywood pieces.

Today I wound up making a new dash. The original was too flimsy after I took it apart. Didnt plan on keeping that anyways. Hit hd after work and grabbed a sheet of 7/16 ply. Cut it into the shapes I needed. Ran outta hardener, so hit hd for more fb. Fb gallon #21 here! $95 friggin dollars now wtf! Dollar is worthless! When I started this build it was $30 at hd, crazy. Anywho, I got the first layer of glass on the new dash, get more done tomorrow. Pics soon, gotta be doneish soon. All the parts are starting to show. Having a hard time finding space for everything, running outta real estate. 2 7" dubble din receivers, 1 back up cam, 17 gauges(lol), 3 power port outlets, 2 usb, 1 big ass rally ebrake lever, led lighting, hvac from a mazda, custom dual window switch, new brake master reservoir, wink mirror, lots of random switches, and much more(if i can fit it). Then rewire everything dash related. Looking into new wiring harnesses cuz the only wiring that hasnt been butchered is the hvac(soon), and power window/door lock switches (soon). The whole things a rats nest, I know where everything is mostly- but it looks like chit, and its always in the way lol. So thats coming towards the end. Hope fully by the time im done w the rough in of the dash/door panels, the new motor will be here and I can knock that out. Then all the rough stuff is done. Then I can switch out this dirty bonnet and switch to a finer grit of polishing compound and really shine this turd.

I was thinkin about how to finish the roof vents/air brakes. I want them to funnel air inside. Was searching around and stumbled upon a subaru rally website, I saw the same thing I made its crazy. But they mounted em backwards lol. It did give me an idear of how to finish them nicely. So thats on the stove now. Lots more fiberglass. Yay!
forgot the link lol
https://www.antonenko555.co...ve-roof-vents-group/
shem

[This message has been edited by shemdogg (edited 12-22-2022).]

More parts acquisition issues, one order on amazon has been sent twice and never makes it the carrier. Ordered stuff the beginning of the month and its still not here. More stuff supposed to show tomorrow. Need all the parts for placement on the dash, its going to be tight n cluttered. Cuz said it looks like a 747 dash. I want it to look confusing to deter thieves lol. Got some really nice 7" blaupunkt head units from the place where all audiophiles and car audio aficionados shop, home depot! lmao. First one showed up, looked like the truck backed over it. It was a box in a bag and the bag was ripped, the box was sticking out and obviously smashed, but it was taped up w a single pice of tape and an official "inspected" sticker. I opened the box in front of the lady and saw the stereo was crushed, so I returned it right there, went home and ordered another. Most of the fam is on vacation for the next 2 weeks, so I got plenty of undisturbed time to work on the car. But now we got lotsa rain for these 2 weeks so im using the hood of the car as a table to work on lol. Making good progress, tossed the original center console because the laminate flooring I was using wasnt wide enuf to cover the ebrake lever housing. And I need some storage and am procrastinating on making a glove box, so I made a box in the center console. Center section of the dash was too wide, sitting in the passenger seat felt like most of your body was under the dash. So I cut that section out and shortened it.
Heres version 1 and the ol center console


Heres the new ones

Getting that dash into the car and into position with the car in the garage and the doors not being able to open all the way is a pain! Ive got it down to an art now, can do it in about 15 seconds. Has to be thrown in like a javelin lol. One or two more finish coats and I can primer it. My cuz gave me some lacquer primer, real heavy duty boat stuff to shoot onto the interior pieces. He has some textured epoxy coating he put on his hand made trailer left over, and some black dye, so ill be putting that on the pieces. It looks really good, and I think itll work great for the dash, center console, and oh yeah, I gotta make a ceiling console as well. The wink mirror is hitting my overhead engine control panel, so ill have to integrate that into da roof.

Heres the rat infestation, hence why I wanna do the whole car rewire

Nows the time....(head droops lol)

shem

I like the new dash, and wiring is always so tedious.

Thanks man! Dash is going to look crazy for sure. Burned thru your build on skoolie, youre a beast- thats a lotta work! Gonna be crazy schweet when done! Pluggin away at the dash, got a cupla primer coats on the dash, center console, and overhead panel. That thing came out like a racing boat lol. Still have to cut the whole hole for the switchbox up there, but I left enuf slack in the wires for them to reach nicely. Wow I just realized right now I have to prep the subwoofler box also.

Ordered some black dye to tint the dash coating stuff, but w all the black trim rings and stuff I printed for everything im thinking detail will get lost in the sea of black. My cuz had a bottle of grey dye for the stuff, its the same color as the car, it would make all my black pieces really pop and drive the eyes crazy with all the stuff to look at. Grey it is, hopefully I can shoot tomorrow but I gots some work. But tomorrows the only break from the rain, gotta make it happen. Working on a table on the porch in the rain, I applied 2 coats of primer with a brush on everything 2 times now. Its laquer primer cut w laquer thinner so it burns off even in this freezing cold conditions we have here in ca right now, its like down in the 30s gosh! Cut out the openings for everything in the dash and test fit most of it. My aviation gauges showed finally, ordered 12/8 lol. Would up getting an hvac unit from a prelude cuz it looked tiny and it was one of the few ebay sellers that would throw in the pigtails. Things friggin yuuuuuge dag nab it. Outta real estate for the switches, as in the 10 pack of switches that showed awhile ago. Hafta get most of it together then see where I can shoehorn them in. Pulled the plug on a 21 circuit wiring harness. I passed it up the first time cuz it didnt look right, I had 2 circuits for radios. Then I remembered I have 2 radios, ebay loves me lol.

Hoping to have it all assembled by the end of the week and see what it looks like fully loaded up

shem

Jeez nothings drying in this cold, and the rain wont stop. Been using the hood and rear louvers as worktables lol. Today was the only break from the rain, had a ton of work calls. 3 on the same street lol. Yesterday I rolled out the bedliner stuff onto everything in the grey color. Its called air force grey but its a really ugly grey. Tried sanding it and it does sand and leaves a pretty cool texture. Gonna rattle can it in my fav grey. Got home around 5 today and went to town like a madman. Got everything in, had several idears, and got em done too. Im pooped but it looks crazy good, I cant get it all into single pics theres so much going on, but I did find a way to shoehorn not only the air ride controller but all 10 switches and make it look good. Well just 9 in the pics, one more will go on an aluminium panel under the 6 hole cluster for the hatch enable. Took so many pics in stages, never thought id get this much done but I was on a roll. This dash brought by the letter D, dio, dokken, n deep purple

dont mind the piece o 1x4 holding up the steering column

subwoofler and center console w window controls and rear hatch controls

yawn, wink mirror and overhead panel thing

back to me old tricks

Pics dont do it justice at all, came out good. Now to pull it all out, paint it, and start the wyering. yay

shem

Shem,

Just got caught up on the last two pages of your build, and wow I am still drooling! The body mods and the dash all came out spectacular ! You have the eyes and skills to pull it off.

A lot of times you see guys with great skills, but terrible taste, or guys with great design vision, but no skills to pull it off.

Congratulations your project is a homerun !

Damn bro thanks for the mega kudos! Believe me the feelings mutual, I love your car! Cant wait to get my hands on another fiero to start modding. A fiero or bug will be next, but ill probably make an imsa gtu fiero . Almost got a bug a few weeks ago but seller never responded Havent done much else on the car lately, had to do a buncha work on me trucks, chevy needed a new front suspension, toyo needed some ignition system love. Wires are less than a year old and 3 had blue corrosion on the ends


Started thinkin about wiring the dash up, found the pinout for the honda hvac. New wiring harness showed up and its got me sceeered, thats whole lotta wires!


Then I got even more scared when I saw the instructions or lack of lol

yeah thats all I got smh.
So im in the planning stages for that. Just need to id a few hundred wires and I should have some idea of how to install it. Easy peasy. Its the beginning of the year, so time to get cracking on dmv nonsense. Went to the first appt, they say I need to bring the car in for a vin verification. Lady wont give me a moving permit, tells me to make another appt and bring it on a trailer. Wednesday was the appt at 10, I had the timetable all set up in my head. Everything went to hell early. Wifey left late, so I left late, hit a ton of traffic getting to uhaul, uhaul dude didnt come to the desk for 20 mins, got back home w the trailer, cant get the trailer into my short driveway with all the cars on each side of my narrow street, wound up backing over my fence and blocking the street lol. Fired up the car by touching the right wires together and started driving it on, somethings hitting about 2/3 of the way on. Cant open the door more than 3 inches cuz of the trailer fenders, trying to rush cuz im already late, one of my cousins shows up to chat lol, I tell him to guide me, get stuck again, hes got a weird look on his face, I contorsion act my way out to see he had me drive up crooked and one tire is so wedged into the side of the trailer, I dunno how it didnt pop. back tires are waaaay too wide for this trailer, wtf!? Then the motor died and wouldnt restart. No power, found out next day I kicked the power wire out from its socket. Anywho, grabbed the atv winch and a jetski battery, and some ratchet straps. I drilled out the front crossmemeber and got some beefy bolts and mounted that front tow hook properly the day before. Finally get the car all the way onto the trailer, both rear wheels are dragging the side of the trailer. Get on the freeway and theres an accident so all 5 lanes are stopped, get to dmv an hour late, wait for 30 mins for the guy to tell me I didnt need an appt, just drive up in the verification line. Yay more time wasted! Get in the verification line, 30 mins later a guy shows up and tells me the truck and trailer combo are too big and I have to move. Then he tells me he wants the car off the trailer be cause he will get in trubble and they have cameras. I tell him its not running, I can get it off the trailer, and the vins visible from the side of the car. Gives me a buncha bs so I know its not gonna happen. I drive off pissed and stressed out, then remember the highway patrol did some vin verifications for me several times when I was flipping motorcycles, quad, n jetskiis. Call the redwood city chp, lady gives me an email for the officer. I drive home and call the san jose chp, thats where I did all my verifications before. Tell the lady the story, she says- be here tomorrow at 1, I say- god bless you. Now I call uhaul and tell em I need the trailer another day, the manager goes ballistic starts yelling at me because its already reserved tomorrow. Long story short, I told her the trailers not coming back today. She told me she would charge me for 2 days usage, I said fine. I was keeping it more than 24 hours no biggie. Total waste of $150 and time, but its gotta get done. Went to chp 45 mins early, he saw me after 20 mins, wrote it up in 2 mins, and stopped traffic for me while I backed out like a pro. Now I have another appt monday at redwood shitty dmv and I should get more bullchit cough cough, I mean papers.

Made a mold of this gauge pod ive had in about 7 cars, itll go on the left side of the center console.


Going to start installing the whole car harness soon. Going to install it and wire this up one by one and when everythings working, Ill remove all the fiero wires. Sounds like fun, not lol. Figuring out the sub-harnesses to leave in and fish out of the oem harness will be fun as well. Yay

shem

Looks great! Don't forget some sort of fire suppression system!!!!!

You must be referring to the halon system, its still in r&d. The fire extinguisher behind the passenger seat will hafta do for now. The batterys disconnected right now so low fire risk, till I rewire the car and connect the battery. Then the gauge may move lol.

Redwood city chp wrote me back about the vehicle inspection and his next appt is 3/1 at 8am lol

What a friggin adventure going to the dmv. Had an appt yesterday mornin, had all my papers like a good comrade. Get into the appt line its just me, I can feel the glare of the non-appt line wrapped around the building. Theres a check in person to give you a number before you go in. She ignores me and helps a few other non appt folks, then glares at me "you have an appt! lemme see your id and your paper, what are you doing here?!" I said special construction registration n she got a blank look, froze, then gave me my number. Step 1 done, bypass the evil gatekeeper check. Wait 30 mins, then get called to lucky window 7! "What do you want?" the non-jovial oversize woman asks. I say special construction registration, handing her the giant stack of papers that has 5 forms, reg, title, and pages i printed from the dmv website detailing exactly what im doing and the vehicle codes. She gives a yuuge sigh as she flips thru the stack, looked like she was going to send me away then she saw the papers I printed, asked the lady next to her. She had some idea, mentioned something about only a few hundred of the certificates available per year. Then she asked a guy at another counter, " You wanna help him?" The guy looks right at me, pauses, then says "no". I just start laughing, I had to. He tells the lady to "get the manual". She asks where the manual is. He says he doesnt know. I knew it wasnt going to be, but had just a teeny weeny bit o hop id get outta there unscathed. WRONG lmao. The lady goes off looking the holy manual, after 20 mins, dude goes to help her look. 15 mins later they come back with a top secret clandestine "orange" folder with the markings "SPCN" on it featuring all the classified docs needed to pull off the job. Hopefully. The manuals tellin them one thing while the computers asking for different stuff. 30 mins later she tells me to take a seat. 15 mins later she starts helping other people. After a while she calls me back, has me pay up the reg, enters some stuff in the computer, then tells me the "manager" is going to take it from here. Turns out the manager is the dude that didnt wanna help in the first place. Im in that damn chair for ages waiting. Im way bored of looking at stuff on my phone, wanna get up and move, getting crazy drowsy, big lady come and sits next to me that just took a bath in some god awful perfume that makin me crazy nauseous. I have no number, they have all my papers, getting paranoid. Finally after im about to drop dead, dude calls me. He got all the info into the computer, I owe more money lol. He says he has to call for the certificate now. I say I gotta go to work, I had to get outta there. I asked if I could come get the stuff later, he said yeah and took my number.

Whatta waste of time! Squeeze in a quick bike ride then my buddy comes over to finish painting his truck, came out crazy good. Even my cuz whos a awesome painter said I did good, hella compliments from people driving by. Neighbors gardener asked me to paint his truck, I said no lol.

Was in a huge rush as there was tons of prep work, he didnt wash it, I had to bounce in a few hours to get the kid, ran outta hardener. Still got it done. Starter tripping as the day went on tho, "theyre not gonna call me man" I kept saying and thinking all day. They got everything, I did have an old registration tho. Halfway thru painting the truck, I saw an appt for 9 this mornin and made it. Sure enuf, they never called.

Got there this morning, had a rough time w the evil gatekeeper. She was trying to get me to use the kiosk at safeway instead of letting me in. made up some bs and got inside. Looked for the guy that helped me, nothing. Saw the same lady that helped me at #7 again. After awhile I saw the guy with another employee. I waiting till she left then shot him a mental"look at me". He looked right up at me instantly for a sec but didnt give any indication of recognizing me even though I had the jeff spicoli smile going. I walked up to the counter hes at and with out looking at me, starts talking to me. Hands me all my papers back, and says the magic words," you got your certificate". I say now what just call the referee, he says yeah and goes back to work.

Who is this magic referee guy? Is is some dude w a shop? Is it an actual state of california thing? Does he wear a referee uniform? I called to see! You can wait on hold for the "estimated wait time of 35-55 minutes" due to high call volume, or leave a message and someone will call you back within 3 days lol.

Someone called back in a few hours, and I asked what the process was for my situation. He said I have to wait till dmv mails and actual certificate, then get a vin from chp, then I can make an appt w him. So I got some time.

Trying to figure out how im going to run this huge wiring harness, the front was nasty to run new wires in so

I attacked it w a chisel, paintbrush, and some rags to get all the fb drops and dust. Tons of leaves and random connectors hidden deep under stuff. Dug out a can of flat black

Cleaned up nice! the hvac and relay wires are on the top part of the front harness, all the light and fan stuff in the big lower. Those were all cut up or had unused ends so I pulled that whole bottom cable out. Drilled a 9/16 hole thru it, and ran the "front" section of wires. enlarged an existing hole in the rear. Ran the tail section wires. The column section had gm style plus so they plugged right into the column plugs. Has the right connector for the switch lever, but I have to pin it. Going thru the manual and labeling the wires that are listed to simplify as much as possible since this is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over my head. Keeping in mind this harness is for a front engine front battery car, i will have to move some things. And I have to decide the final battery location. waaaaah its just one more thing, nothins easy lol.

shem

Wow what a DMV saga, I admire your patience lol. And regarding the bus build, thanks! It has been an insane amount of work. I have more updates I will post soon but I have been slacking on the bus to work on my Fiero, and I been swamped at work. Your progress is looking great though! I gotta pick your brain on painting on a budget, that truck looks mint!

quote Originally posted by shemdogg: You must be referring to the halon system, its still in r&d.

Yep, get a 2 nozzle system with cable activation.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/lfl-101-225-011

Yeah anything dmv related is a total nightmare lol. My buddy needed his truck painted cheap so he could sell it, I need practice- so I found him a gallon kit for $250. Kirker automotive finishes/ says tcp global on the can. Single stage stuff. Did come out super good though, orange peely but nice shine.

That kit is perfect, even comes w nozzles for driver and passenger lol! Thatll be down the road, gotta get thru this electrical jungle foist. Need directions though. Went on jegs and found instructions on a similar 20 circuit harness and all the wires match. Now I have directions lol. Got all the wires identified and labeled, everything routed to where it needed to be. Found 1 wire routed backwards, so re-ran that. Had the column, some of the dash, all the taillights wired up and tested w a 2ah battery. I got to hooking up the parking lights and found it was routed backwards too. Hot end terminated in the tail harness, all 4 light ends terminated in the cab lol wtf. That was the last straw, pulled it and shipped it back as defective. Seems like ages ago, been going to town on starcraft 2 co-op. Screen name LigmaJohnson lol. Got a gooder harness coming, painless- we shall see. All my grounds are already run.

Made a notch in the plastic to fit the battery, gonna fab a tray and hunt down cables. New harness should be here tomorrow.

shem

Havent worked on the car much at all, procrastination in full effect! Work picked up, got a 20 square roof job to knock out once the rain lets up and lots of roofing and fence repairs. Drove to nevada to get my toy hauler outta storage, 5 hours up, 6 hours back in one day. Located the owner of the empty lot behind me and asked if I could pull my trailer thru his property into my backyard. Cool cat, asked if I could mow the almost acre of space he has so now im looking for a sit down mower. Going to town on the trailer, replaced some of the roof, changed some pipe flashings, installed 1x1 alum angle on the roof corners and sealed w dicor, replaced all the screw trims, made a tile entry and stove backsplash, new flooring, shelves, solar panel and controller, got a sticker kit for it- tons o stuff getting done.

The few hours I have put into the car is going good, column wiring is done, taillight harness is done loomed and working(lights never been so bright!), power windows and locks hooked up and working, everything routed to where it needs to be. Having trubble w the hvac hookups trying to convert it to the honda one. Once thats done ill throw in the dash and finish up. Got the original harness tail section pulled thru the dash, now I have to find and remove the wiper and blower wires from the main harness and it can come out. When I was looking at the back of the car yesterday trying to figure out how to get the tail harness out from under the battery tray, I had a- now just whut in the hell bobby moment. Thru one of the holes in the battery tray, dark as it was, I saw a wire nut wrapped in tape underneath. Reached under the tray and pulled it out, and a whole slew of chinese names came outta my mouth. Ho lee phuc!

started unwrapping the entire roll of tape that was on it

The entire harness had been cut and spliced and every wire boogered together w wire nuts lmao. wtf?! Disconnected all that and pulled the harness into the cab. Once I get the blower and wiper wiring figured out, the rest is easy peasy. Just time consuming, tedious, and hard to find wires in the main harness. These whole car harnesses come w the basics for hookups, Im having to keep the original wires for the locks, windows, wipers, and hvac, the window and lock wires are in their own harness so that wasnt too bad. Everything else is in the main and I gotta dig em out. But yeah, almost there lol

shem

That hurts to look at. My buddy bought a super clean Foxbody that was built by an electrician, he was like "I wired it all myself" and we were like "wow, wired by a real electrician, this thing must be done right". Fast forward to electrical issues and pulling the loom off to find A MILLION WIRE NUTS WTF.

That is some next level stuff right there though.

Mighta been the same "electrician" who did mine lmao. Quite a few wire nuts fell off or came off w the entire roll of tape by the time I took the pic. But yeah, taillights never worked right, I had ran new brake and parking light wires. And at least one turn signal too lol. Finding some of those wires brings me back to that time.

Sooooooooo, I threw a few hours at it and the entire harness is out now. Errythang. Except what I wanted to keep, got all the hvac wires and wiper wires IDd andcut outta the harness. Hands took serious damage wedging them into the areas where the harness was. Sadists installed those harnesses, how they got it in-I dunno. I had to cut the sumbiotch out in sections. The car was definitely built around the harness lol. Comparing the amount of wires in the oem harness to what I have in the new one, new one looks much better and cleaner. Heres the old harness


and its heavy!
Stuck on the honda hvac conversion, wires arent putting out power and its not lighting up. Only the fan high works. Prolly just gonna move on but im attempting to modify the innards of the thing to work my way. Its holding me up, everything else is ready to be wired up. Ordered some headlights, 6"round so I can finish up the wiring on the front end.

shem

Figured out the honda hvac. Its fried! All the board traces have a short to ground, and the board is sealed so I cant see the traces well enuf. Got the fan to work as I want by wiring it backwards, then did some magic to get the display lights working. Fan and lights work, good enuf for me.



Now the dash can go in and I can start to wrap this up b

shem

Dash is in and a fair amount of wiring done. Pulled the roof scoop and drilled a hole in the roof to run the rear camera. Was nice to see the displays and other stuff come to life. Got a good view w the camera but has those backup lines showing all the time.



Camera was made to be mounted under a trunk lid, so I made holes in it to flip the bracket to mount it the way I want. Cut a groove in the roof scoop for the camera, and got the first layer of fb on. Also got some on my center console gauge cluster thing, ready for some futzin n bondo. Had an idear fer the headlights, ordered a chrome eyebrowed motorcycle headlight, and a turn signal housing, and boogered it all together and came up w this

Eyebrows didnt fit, so theyre getting canned. Gonna make a shroud for the lights to poke out of, and im at the stage to wire up the headlight switch. Most of the headlight wirings done, waiting for the udder headlight. Stuck on how to make the turn signal and parking light work together, I think I have to wire in diodes to each and connect em both to the hot wire. I dunno lol. Thinkin about where to put my relays, and connect my accessories to everything.

Pretty much done w the toy hauler remodel, showed it to the wife. She wants to keep it now lol. Finally figured out my roof leak, I went over my work so many times lol, it was killing me. Went overboard on the roof and its was still dripping inside the back top vent. Finally I gave up and started to pull the ceiling panel, wanted to see the roof leaking around the vent. Tried to wedge my chisel between the panel and the rafter around the vent, it was almost like it was glued together. Chisel didnt wanna go in. Started hitting it w my hand and the chisel started going in. Got it in deep and turned it and boom. Hella water started puring out from the hole. Tons of water lol. I opened up all around the vent and water just kept coming. This is 2 days after the rain stopped lol. Turns out there is no roof leak. When I drove it home from reno thru the snow and rain w the damaged roof, that much water got inside and stayed in until now lol. Waters all out, areas dry, went thru some rain and no water inside at all.


Got me a sitdown mower. Craftsman 42" 24hp automatic. Rebuilding the deck once the parts come in, took it for its first mow today. Hauled ass thru18" grass, luved it.

shem

Can you elaborate on the camera?

It's going to go on the roof, but be positioned under a permanent fiberglass scoop, facing forward? What is it's purpose? Just sort of like a permanent go-pro? Is it going to be sitting close enough to the opening to where it can be removed and another installed if needed?

You also mentioned the Honda HVAC controller was (mostly) fried, and it sounds like you did some jury rigging to get it to partially work. Is it an expensive part to replace?

Congrats on finding the leak reservoir and drying it out!

Whatup Trinten! Top monitor is for the rear view, lower one is for tunes. Its a rear view camera cuz the blind spots are big on this. Have to pull an ace ventura and stick my head out the window and look back. Just got it hooked up, I may need to move it further up the roof.


Still raining here, trees falling everywhere its crazy. Got the front end all wired up w a fan relay, and I can see the finish line on this rewire job. Interior hookups almost done. Burning thru butt connectors n heat shrink like crazy. They sell these "assortment kits" of heat shrink, but only 2 sizes are needed. The rest are too small for anything! But its very cool to see things lighting up


Still plenty more wiring to do, then its onto harness cleanup, then the engine sensor connections n battery cables n im done wiring. Found a good shop to get the motor rebuilt at, they say they can knock it out in a cupla weeks. Told him ill bring it by in a cupla weeks lol, so Im off to get in some crazy cramped position to run some wires n wrap this chit up.

Headlights are different colors, doh! lmao


shem

Nice work, Digikey sells spools of heat shrink so you can get a buttload of the size you need. I like to get some larger stuff with a high shrink ratio so that it can be used with a large variety of wire sizes. A lot of the assortment heat shrink has a pretty low shrink ratio and has limited use.

Good to know but after I bought this assortment kit, I found 2 more in the garage lol. Rain started showing signs of letting up (been raining since thanksgiving), so I started that big roof job. My buddy owed me for that truck paint job n bodywerk, blew his back out in 1.5hrs lol. Rocked the whole thing solo, tons of setbacks. The day to start the plywood I was ready to throw down the 67 sheets. I keep a few racks of nails in my framing gun case, got halfway thru those and the gun jammed. Had to stop everything run to home depot for a new gun. Out of a selection of 6, 1 is in stock. Get back to the job, burn thru my nails, go to get some from the new box I ordered. Guy sent me 2 boxes of shingle nails. GAH! Worked on other stuff the rest of the day. Next day I have a box of gun nails, get halfway thru. Cust now wants hanging lights over the porch. So I gotta pull 6 sheets up, put in jboxes n wire. Nicest old lady, till something goes wrong. Then the mask comes off and the f bombs start flying wow she lights up quick. Not at me so far lol. Roof delivery truck backed over one of her small trees, she lit them up like the 4th of july lol. As usual, she just got a "no englich". One of the guys started chatting w me in espanol and i told them it was ok, I was gonna buy her a new tree. Tree was worthless, 4 ft tall, grew 1" in the past 5 years lol. Roofs done, almost done w the solar arrays. Gonna talk w her tomorrow to see what she wants to do, 36 panels and theyre all fried- ~40% output. I can string em all to one inverter. She saw her meter spinning backwards again n gave me a huge hug. Heres a progress pic, got all the shingles down in a day n a half


So not any time or energy for the car. To slow things down even more, I got a fiero to love Did do a wee bit on the car tho, got the new oil pressure gauge n sender kit and installed it. Also figured out why the old one didnt work, I didnt put in the sender durrrrrrrrrrrrrrr lmao. Started wiring up the pcm, injectors, obd port, and fuel pump relay. Got the cluster stuff installed, then realized this kit didnt come w dummy light wires. Gonna hafta figure something out, no free cpu time to throw in that direction lol. Working on eliminating the red and ferrari emblems from the car, I decided to give that steering wheel I bought awhile back a try. Looked good but didnt fit the adapter on the car. Bought one( damn adapter cost more than the wheel), and installed it. Love it!



Glassed up some damage on the fiero and glassed up a pod on top of the hood scoop for the rear camera. Pics to come, almost caught up on all the work I ignored while doing the roof. Be able to throw some time at the cars soon.

shem

Took a brief hiatus to acquire n fix up an 88gt for me.



Driveway rearranged, be back at it very soon. Gotta pull the motor for rebuilding, finish a few wires on the harness


excited to get to it

shem

Dropped the motor yesterday, slid it out and pulled it from the cradle today. Got hf moving cart, added some 2x4s and it worked great as a cradle cradle. Gonna drop it off at the rebuilders tomorrah


Reading up on brazing fuel lines and doing research, dont want anything covering that blower. Plan on extending the harness in areas to go under it.

Shem

So the rebuilder pretty much doubled his price to rebuild, I went and got another l67 the udder day

Guy had it at his shop forever, thinks its outta a bonerville
Had the wrong oil filter adapter but has 2 dogbone mounts. In much better shape than my last one, looks like bad vc only. Ill change them and the intake mani gaskets first. While everythings off im going to paint the blowers n vc in red.
Here it is pressure wershed

Came w a butchered harness, at least the sensor connectors are all good.
Hope to have it in this week

shem

Finally got some days off, works comin in hot. Whole summers booked w big jobs, not looking good for the car. Got the engine fired up saturday, bad rod knock lol. Primed the hell out of it in n outta the car, has great oil pressure. Po is gonna refund my money ill be putting towards a rebuild. Got it in pretty quick n test hooked up.

Drove it back into the garage today, replaced it w the fiero that needs the flywheel swapped. While its out gonna change the cat n sway bar links. More to come

shem

Drove this out friday and got reacquainted w what needs finishing up. Moved the rearview camera to the top center of the roof scoop, didnt like the view. Was staring at the bottom length of the scoop and the rear wing. Moved the camera back to the original location, just gonna live w it for now. Says its a fisheye camera but its really not. heres the view

Was trying to get a rear view and see the blind spots. Good enough for now, moving on.
Started cleaning up the wiring, adding connectors and heat shrink where I had wire nuts for testing. Long way to go before cleanups done. Made some labels for all the switches, and connected the starter to the over head panel. Got the oil pan off, gonna check the main n rod bearings to see if I can find whats knocking. Pulled the plugs off while running to see if the sound changed on any cylinder but no dice. Took the first engine all apart, looked like a good motor w 180k. No spun or damaged bearings, journals were smooth n clean, really nothing that would catch a fingernail. Plastigauged the journals, everything within spec. No wall damage and the bores were smooth. Took it to a machine shop for a second opinion, said it all looked great.

shem

Finally figured out my battery cable dilemma, just made my own. Ordered some for a riviera but they were 4awg, Wound up getting bulk 2awg welding cable lengths from hd. Got some fittings from kragen and ran each line in its own jefferies tube from the spare tire area thru the heat shield. Hot cables close to the exhaust mani so I ran the conduit close. Almost done here


Cleaned up a ton of the wiring w connectors n heat shrink, wirings getting closer to being dunn.

shem

Was in sac a few weeks ago and saw this lmao. Chp had em sitting on the curb lol. I was doing an hd run about an hour later, was in the left turn lane right next to it watching while the tow guy destroyed the car getting it off the median. Hooked up chains and yanked it off the median w the truck.

Huge oil stain from the car to the end of the median, was going pretty fast for how far they went.

[This message has been edited by shemdogg (edited 08-29-2023).]

quote Originally posted by shemdogg: Was in sac a few weeks ago and saw this lmao. Chp had em sitting on the curb lol. I was doing an hd run about an hour later, was in the left turn lane right next to it watching while the tow guy destroyed the car getting it off the median. Hooked up chains and yanked it off the median w the truck. Huge oil stain from the car to the end of the median, was going pretty fast for how far they went.

You know how many idiots do this in my town? The difference is we have big cobblestones set in the concrete in the islands so the cars send rock flying all over the place and they REALLY get stuck. Amazes me how stupid people can be.

But back on topic........Your car's coming along pretty awesome. I hope I have a chance to see it some time.

[This message has been edited by IMSA GT (edited 08-30-2023).]

I’m amazed at the stupid people running into the rocks

Lol probably tweakers. Adam if youre ever going to be down this way, lemme know.

Got the car hooked up to the front mounted battery today, everything under the front trunk is all cleaned up, connected, heat shrunk, and covered in loom. Got a wee bit more wiring cleanup inside, mount the fuse box, and wirings all done. Then get some time to throw at this motor, then finish up the paint and details.

shem

More progress today, finished up the battery cable connections up front, all done up there. Then I cleaned up a ton of wiring inside and under the dash, mounted the fuse box, made a plate under the side gauges for a switch and left room for something else. Pulled out the console gauge cluster I made and trimmed it to fit without hitting my leg. Overhead wiring is done, need to cleanup and finish the center console and pcm wiring and the cab wiring is done. Gave it a lil cleanup



shem

Had a lil time after work today, pulled the pan and wiggled me some rods. 2 had play, pulled em the bearings didnt look too hot. Much worse than on the first motor, they looked fine and after scuffing met spec. Anywho the journals had a few imperfections I could feel w my fingernail, so I polished all the the journals, flushed em, and changed all the rod bearings. Heres the rod bearings all mixed up

Not too bad but not salvageable either and bearings are cheep cheep- $30something for clevites

Threw in a new pan gasket tray thingie and bolted up the pan, filled it up, and cranked it dry. Oil pressure went up to 25lbs very quick but I wanted more. Did it a few more times, jacked up the driver side to shove the oil toward the pickup, same chit. Put the 3 plugs I took out back in(guess what 3 lol), and cranked it. Sumbitch fired right up and idled(as it always did), but it felt different, sounded different. No knock from this block . Its was pretty cool- I never heard a motor in this car that didnt knock, this was the first time. It sounds great, like a normal motor. I just let it run and enjoyed it. Few exhaust leaks, one from the crossover pipe, and a few pinhole ones in the mani to exhaust connection. Fuel gauge is pinned on empty , temp gauge not getting a signal, tachs reading dubble.


Cuz called me over to show me the trailer he build, hes down to the details. Showed him the motor, he was stoked. He gave me a compass off one of his boats, this bad boys going in the dash! Whats one more gauge at this stage

Schweet! And it lights up red

shem

After seeing fierogurus Rembrandt of an engine, I pulled my harness and ran a buncha the wires under the blower. Only have the egr and 1 injector wires going over the motor now.

Drilled a 2.5" hole in the firewall and ran the wires thru that w a grommet to the pcm. Bled the clutch cuz it felt like little pressure, no air and it works fine. My fieros got a much stiffer clutch. Fired it up and hooked it to the scanner, everythings gravy. In the middle of redoing the heater lines now. The way its set up the firewall heater hoses are almost touching the exhaust mani. I pulled the rubber and metal pipes and bent the ends closer to the firewall. Dunno if ill run metal or rubber tubing to the motor from there yet. The belt design I had was slipping a lil bit, so I rerouted it to the setup I have a pic of above and no more slippage. Got a few engine and electrical things to wrap up.

shem

Shem,

you gotta be one of the best story tellers ever on this forum. Always a joy reading your update. That car is kickass.

Thanks Duke! Dont get me started on storytellin.... lol

Almost done w the in cab wiring, moved a few things around. Only thing left is the cleanup of the pcm wires behind my seat. And few more lil details on the swap and this things ready for the referee. Was working on udder stuff when I put the front lip back on n snapped some pics from ground level


Forgot a buncha parts lmao

Hoping to wrap it up this week n get back to the body details

shem

Shem, your craftsmanship and attention to detail on every part of this build blows my mind. I'm gonna have to make a trip to "The Ghetto" CA at some point

Thanks man! It is looking pretty epic in those pics. "The ghetto" has cleaned up considerably. It was the early 90s when this lil town was murder capital of the nation. I was the white kid on the skateboard lol. The place has gentrified bigtime and the cheapest home is just over a million. Still some unsavory characters that seldomly pop up here and there, but the biggest problem is parking lol. Not like I help I have 5 vehicles, and getting more!

Went to the renaissance faire last weekend, it was awesome! Sexy shoes/feet, fishnetted legs, dolled up faces, hot costumes, and a hooterpalooza. All the voices in my head turned into various types of marine engines all at or near full throttle. It was deafening!

Saturday im working on the cars, and these 2 mormon kids( one of em looked like he just turned 18 that day lol) come around the corner. Their faces light up when they see the cars. Before they could speak, the faster part of this song started up lmao
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8VFpGhP0JU
(How fast are that guys fingers hitting those strings?! Bad assery!)
The were peeping out the kit car and asked what it was. I said that theres a fubbabi. They just kept staring at the car and started nodding their heads lol. They checked out the engine on the stand in the garage, let em peep the mustang, and showed em the fiero. Didnt say it was a fiero, and they were def car guys. Then the youngest one starts asking me about fieros and telling me what a pain they are to get the motor out, and his friend had one, and yada yada yada. The whole time hes "edjumacating" me on fieros, I make a point to turn my eyes and head to the fiero(ace ventura style), then to the kit car, then back to his eyes. Did it about 3 times and kid didnt get it lmao. Offered em some water bottles and sent them on their way.

Got the cooling system completed. Pulled the heater tube that runs along the passenger frame rail to the back. Where those tubes connect at the firewall leaves the rubber part of those hoses damn close to the exhaust mani. I cut the tube and bent it up w a 5/8 bender so it just has a small connector hose holding the two ends together at the firewall, and routed the tube over my tensioner.

Ran the motor a bunch, let it heat cycle a few times. Started troubleshooting the fan circuit, fan is now fried for some reason. New one coming. The theres the issue of the temp gauge not working. Some guys keep changing the 3800 temp sensor till they fins one that runs the fiero gauge, or some folks have drilled and tapped the head. I went on kragens website looking at gm temp senders and ordered the smallest one. I had planned to remove the coolant bleeder and drill/tap to the senders threads. Turns out I got the right size, this sob threaded right in.

I gots me a working temp gauge now. Reads a lil high compared to the pcm but good enuf for now. Wondering if itll be off on the fiero temp gauge, mines aftermarket and came w its own sender. Cough cough which I misplaced lol.

Now the speedo and tach arent working, and im doing some things to the air ride to cleanup. Really running out of things to do besides body stuff.........

Had a lil berfday fiesta ayer, dusted off and rolled the mustang around a bit.

Smoked up some ribbage for hours. They came out so tender the meat jumped into your mouth off the bone

Wifey and her seester made alambres

Those were crazy silly good!

shem