Farrar's car blog

[Farrar]

This may be a dumb question, but at what point does the giant red cable from the battery become all of the smaller wires which go to the fuse box? Since I have a problem with no voltage at the fuse box on at least one of my circuits, I need to be able to trace the wires back from there.

Thanks in advance.

Farrar

[sean]

Take off the rear carpeted wall. You should see the bundle of "Hot" wires coming off a threaded stud on the passenger's side.

[Farrar]

Thanks, Sean! I will hit that with a test light on Saturday. I desperately need to see some more progress with this car.

Oh, by the way -- I thought I had a picture of this but I don't, so I will just type about it instead. I did find out last weekend that my car has the "starter relay mod" described in that TSB long ago. And THAT was definitely a "Dreaded Previous Owner" strike: somebody had lengthened one of the brown wires to the starter relay socket by taking a snippet of one of the red/white wires not used (presumably for hot start relay socket) and splicing it into one of the brown wires to the starter relay socket -- using WIRE NUTS. Then they took the end of the red-white wire they had snipped and put a wire nut on it to prevent it coming into contact with any current or ground back there. Seriously. Whoever it was couldn't be bothered to buy some wire, solder, or butt-crimp terminals?! Wire nuts, oy. No wonder I occasionally had problems starting the car -- for all I know one of those connections inside the wire nut was tenuous. Good grief.

By the way, I have not totally removed all of the wires back there I am not using -- the car COULD be returned to stock form if needed. (Of course, I'd like to think another owner would appreciate having a functioning "cooling fan fail" light and one relay/CB per cooling fan, but what do I know?) All of the unused wires are simply taped off and tucked away, including that red/white one left by the previous owner. I guess I could remove the hot start relay socket and wiring, but I didn't feel like unwrapping the harnesses back there. Perhaps I will get around to that eventually, but the area back there is not very crowded and it's not doing any harm just sitting there idle.

Farrar

[Farrar]

The cool weather is supposed to finally arrive this weekend. I have therefore decided to concentrate on getting the engine running properly before I dive into the courtesy light situation.

Question: which is better material for a gasket where carb meets manifold? I tore the black paper gasket that came with the carb rebuild kit. They sell sheets of that black paper stuff at AutoZone, but they also sell cork.

Farrar

[Ron]

Cork is not good there. Get the dark green-grey looking stuff they all carry. The counter monkey should be able to tell you.

[Farrar]

Thanks, Ron. You have to buy packs of the stuff and I didn't want to waste my money.

Farrar

OK, I managed to get to the auto parts store and buy the appropriate gasket material, but it's too dark for me to work now, besides which the last time I worked near sunset I got eaten alive by mosquitoes.

Tonight, I decided to make a "cheat sheet" to keep with me in the car for electrical reference. I noticed something interesting: the only things connected to Fuse #12 are the diagnostic plug and the courtesy lights, and it doesn't go through a relay. Since the diagnostic plug on my car has never been seen by me, I can only assume a previous owner of the car removed it. This should make troubleshooting the circuit much easier.

Here's hoping Saturday stays clear. It is supposed to get near 40°F the night before, so maybe the mosquitoes won't get me.

Farrar

[Farrar]

I had a thought this morning while driving my Chrysler to work: what if the DeLorean had a "compressor on/off" switch? My Chrysler, like many a late-model vehicle, has a little button marked with a snowflake which means "press this to turn the compressor on and off." This comes in handy when, for example, you want heat, but not WET heat -- especially when you're running the defroster.

Now I know there is a way of altering the DeLorean's mode switch to turn the compressor on with the defroster, but I was thinking a simple push-button like in my Chrysler would be nice, but I would have to use a rocker switch since that's what I have available and I don't know how to convert a momentary switch to a constant feed.

If memory serves, I would have to re-route the source of power for the orange/pink wire behind the HVAC Mode Switch: change the source of the current from the HVAC Mode Switch to the new rocker switch (marked with a snowflake of course!), and make sure the switch is rated high enough to pass current to the compressor.* Anyone know off hand how much the compressor draws, or the rating of Houston's blank rocker switches?

Also, what's a good reason I should NOT do this? I know there has to be one, since most of my ideas suck.

Farrar

*On second thought, current passes through the pressure switch, doesn't it? So it can't be THAT much, right?

[Bitsyncmaster]

Just measured the resistance of the clutch. It reads 3.4 ohms. So if your getting 12.0 volts at the clutch, it would draw 3.5 amps.

[Farrar]

Just measured the resistance of the clutch. It reads 3.4 ohms. So if your getting 12.0 volts at the clutch, it would draw 3.5 amps.

Thanks, Dave! I am sure that's good enough for Houston's rocker switches; they are after all defroster switches without the symbol on them.

Now the question is do I want to take the console out and do this before putting the car back on the road again now that the weather is cooler... of course, I will have to buy new door struts now that the weather is cooler so I suppose I might as well tear half of the interior out of my car again.

Farrar

[Farrar]

Okay, so I am having my morning coffee... and I am thinking about the question I posed above: why would I not want to make the change so that one can engage and disengage the compressor circuit manually?

Also, suggestions for where to mount an indicator lamp would be helpful. At the moment I can't think of anywhere to put one that wouldn't require drilling into the radio bracket. I am not against this, since the bracket was already hacked at by a previous owner who must have done so before DIN-friendly units were available from DMCH; the bracket can be replaced -- I am just looking for other suggestions.

Farrar