Farrar's car blog

[Farrar]

Is it greasy feeling or just seem like water?

I haven't touched it with my fingers but I can tell you that it comes off looking dirty on a white cloth -- a dark grey color. I will investigate more when I get home tonight -- maybe get some photos for reference if they would help.

Farrar

I got home after dark so it was difficult to see much of anything. However, I thought up a new theory on my way home from work: what if the fogginess is a result of me not having any air conditioning and driving in high humidity with the windows open? When I get to where I'm going, I roll up the windows and park the car, and then it sits for days while the moisture inside gets to 140°F or above. Meantime, I got sweat on the seats, steering wheel, door panel, and armrest. What if the "fog" is really just evaporated water and sweat?

So I put a desiccant pack in the car tonight. I have some work to do on the car tomorrow, but it is all in the engine compartment so I can leave the doors closed at least until Sunday. I will see how much water is sucked up by the desiccant in the meantime.

Farrar

Well, I managed to get the yellow harness unwrapped today and remove the spare red plug with jumper (used in the event of a manual transmission, so I'm not sure why it was included on my car) just as it started to rain. Now I'm trapped inside, more or less, until the rain stops.

Fortunately my engine compartment wiring is independent of all of the other wiring back there, so if need be I can finish up this evening. I need to drive the car tomorrow afternoon, so I hope I can remove the unused wires from the yellow harness and re-wrap it before then.

One thing I noticed when I was unwrapping the harness was that there were a few places where it had touched something hot enough to melt away some of the original wrapping material, so it's a good thing I decided to do this job anyway. Instead of silicone tape, I believe I will use wire loom and zip-ties to re-wrap. It's quicker and looks neater when completed.

And as I sit here at my computer desk, the rain is getting harder and harder...

Farrar

The Radio Shack pin extractor is useless -- too small. I will be cutting the wires off instead. This will be the first irreversible modification to my car, so there goes the resale value!

Farrar

[content22207]

You can buy replacement K-Jet wiring harnesses if necessary: http://www.delorean.com/store/c-347-...r-harness.aspx.

Bill Robertson
#5939

[stevedmc]

I will be cutting the wires off instead.

[Farrar]

You can buy replacement K-Jet wiring harnesses if necessary

I know. I just thought I'd make a joke about DeLorean resale value.

Like most of my jokes, it wasn't funny.

I need to make jokes in the absence of progress. It's still raining here. I haven't finished re-wrapping the yellow harness. And it looks like I won't make any progress until either later tonight, or first thing in the morning -- assuming it quits raining some time between now and, say, Christmas.

Farrar

[DeMopar]

Yes, Farrar-I think this is like day 10 of consistent rain here in the tropical weather capital.

I feel your pain!

[Farrar]

OK, so there's good news and bad news...

Good news: the rain slackened off to the point where I could work. I have now finished getting rid of unused wires and wrapping what's left in wire loom. Fortunately, the auto trans harness is 100% removable, so I got to do that part out of the rain.

Bad news: when the first downpour occurred, I gathered up all of the wires I had then removed and threw them in the dumpster. Unfortunately, one of those wires went to my choke heater!

So now I have to figure out where would be a good place to tap 12v for my choke heater. Maybe somewhere from the auto trans harness?

Farrar

[content22207]

Tap it into a keyed wire in your ECU compartment and run it out the same grommet as the hall effect sensor. I used the Green wire that used to power my CIS ECU. You can put a 1/4" male quick connect on the end and plug it into the factory harness connector if you want to keep what is left of your car original.

Bill Robertson
#5939

[Farrar]

Tap it into a keyed wire in your ECU compartment and run it out the same grommet as the hall effect sensor. I used the Green wire that used to power my CIS ECU. You can put a 1/4" male quick connect on the end and plug it into the factory harness connector if you want to keep what is left of your car original.

Whoops! I wish I'd stuck around to see that reply (or that you had been home, Bill, when I called you just before posting). I also had the idea of running a wire through the grommet, but as it is raining outside I felt no urge to work with the doors open. (I have had a hard enough time with foggy windows recently without exacerbating the problem by choice.) Instead, studying the wiring diagram I see that the solid Green wire which sends 12 volts to the auto trans computer is indeed keyed and pulls through Fuse #13. So I used a quick-splice connector and tapped into that. At the moment I am out of spade terminals, so I only had one chance at making a new wire for the choke heater. Let us hope that it works. I haven't tried to use the car yet -- I just put on my third set of clothes of the day and I am enjoying being dry for the moment.

Farrar

[content22207]

In a pinch you can simply relax tension on the choke spring by rotating the housing clockwise. It will eventually heat up and expand from ambient heat anyway (I left the 4100 for one of my buses sitting on the front seat of my truck last week. By the time I installed it, the choke wouldn't close -- spring had already expanded from heat in the cab).

Bill Robertson
#5939

[Farrar]

Well, using the same Green wire as the auto transmission computer worked beautifully. I'm inclined to keep it that way -- even though it means having an "unsightly" quick-splice visible in the engine compartment.

I must say though I am rather proud of how it looks back there now. It's not perfect, but it's much better!

SANY0834.jpg

Farrar