Today, I rebuilt the light switch. It was in excellent condition, just a little gummed up from dried grease. I cleaned it up and used some “Lubriplate NO. 105” grease on the contacts and the other sliding parts. Continuity checked out too.


The harness is mostly unmolested. I made several splices here and there from an alarm/remote start I installed years ago and eventually removed. The car was basically a showroom for my little auto electronics business I had back in the 90’s. I had all the latest gizmos on that car to showcase to my customers what I had to offer.

I am rethinking about my plan to reterminate the terminals on the harnesses. The difference in resistance between the old and new crimps is pretty much negligible. At that low of a resistance, it’s probably barely within the voltmeter’s ability to measure that low. I think just a recrimping for good measures will suffice.

I cleaned the harness, rewrapped a few places with harness tape and did a more thorough job on the butt splices by using bare splices with heat shrink.

On the engine bay harnesses, I think I need to totally rethink those wires and terminations. Being aluminum wire, there is a specific repair procedure to repair that type. Since most of the wiring in the bay is emissions related, I will just leave those terminals alone and explore the possibility of rewiring the other circuits with copper wire. Due to its tendency to crack the service manual specifically says aluminum wire is to be used only in areas that do not flex. It can also be corrosion prone. With those restrictions in mind, I think I would rather just get rid of it. I have lots of left-over GXL wire from wiring kits I’ve used in the past. Hopefully, I can find all the colors I need.


The bulkhead connector’s gasket was trashed so I made a new one. I removed all the excess sealant from around the connector too.

 

What did you use to clean up the bulkhead connectors?

 

Scraping off the majority of the sealer with a small pick and common screw driver then using an acid brush and tooth brush with lacquer thinner.

 

The ignition switch came in today. Just to satisfy my curiosity, and for a peace of mind, I went inside to take a peek at the condition of the lubricant. It was still in good shape. The contacts had a little bit of tarnishing, so I cleaned them and reapplied more Lubriplate grease. Column is officially completed.





I also cleaned up some more of the dash parts, specifically the AC ducts and vents. I applied foam to the necessary locations too. The black, low-density foam weatherstripping doesn’t seem to exist anymore. All I see is the firmer, gray stuff. So, I got some 1.5”x1.5” window air conditioner foam and cut it to fit.

 

Got my dash in today. One word:

Awesome! The edge is no longer curved and it's much more vertical, like it should be. They also fixed the screw inserts that were missing.

Still expensive as hell, but I would recommend them. At least they try to make it right.

 

Worked on some more dash parts and the steering wheel today. I stripped off the old covers. Instead of padding, there was a thick coating of some sort, sort of like a non-hardening sealant but stickier and gooey. I removed the gunk and bead blasted the spokes. After one thin coat of epoxy primer, I shot a couple of thin coats of a single stage urethane satin black. I then baked it at 150 degrees for good measure.

Even though I baked it, I will let that fully cure for a week or two and send it off to Redline Goods to have it covered. I was going to do it; I even got the cover and materials from them but decided let the pros do it. I recovered it years ago with a generic cover and it turned out great, but I only have one shot at it and don't want to ruin it.

 

Nice work! As 'apart' the rest of the car is, I think I'd hide the 'million-dollar' dash pad somewhere in the house until you are almost done with the rest of the car. It's an easy R&R, even for an old person like myself. Sure sux if anything fell on it while working on other things.

 

Good idea! It came in a very sturdy box. I'll store it in that, out of way.

 

I am working on the computer harness now. Since it will not be operable, I am just refurbishing it to look good.

All of the convoluted loom was brittle and falling apart. It basically crumbled when I removed it.




I don’t know what the service manual is talking about as far as the harness containing aluminum wires. I skinned the insulation on the majority of them and they are all copper. I haven't checked the engine and lighting harnesses.

 

I cleaned up the ECM harness along with the connectors.

The kick panel bulkhead pass-through was also relocated back to the factory location. When I first installed the aftermarket AC system soon after I got the car, one of the mods was to open the pass-through and move it down the harness a few inches so there would be enough slack to mount the ECM in a different location. Instead of injecting a potting sealant like the factory did, I gobbed a bunch of RTV into each of the housing halves and snapped it together at the new location. You can see how messy it was.

The potting material block is on the right.







All the connectors are cleaned and ready to go. I ordered the correct high temperature, nylon convoluted loom. I’ll install those when they come in next week.

 

Where did you choose to get the loom from?

 

It looks like the silicone did a good job of protecting the connectors. Nice job.

 

On my ‘84 trans am the wire harness that runs along the driver side from the kick panel to the rear of the car for the fuel gauge, brake lights and reverse lights are all aluminum wires. While rewiring my car, I moved that connector around too much and some of those wires broke near the kick panel connector. Wasn’t fun fixing that.

 

I went to McMaster-Carr. Prices weren't too bad except for shipping, which was more than half the merchandise cost. Plus, I got way more than I needed at 25' of each size as the nearest length increment was 5'. I think 10' would have been perfect.

I probably could have found it cheaper but sometimes you can't beat the way McMaster provides very good details of their products. I was able to match the sizes almost exactly. Some of the sizes I measured of the original loom were in 1/16" increments but I was able to find sizes +/- 1/16". Close enough, I think.

 

That's interesting. The service manual describes the aluminum wire in the "Forward body", which I assumed was the engine compartment.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be careful in handling it. I don't want to repair or rewire if I don't have to.

 

Another topic:

Both of my seat recliners are slipping. I had no choice but to weld the driver seat. I haven't touched the passenger side.

Has anyone been able to repair this issue on their seats? I found an NOS passenger mechanism to buy if I have to. I'd rather buy a brand new one and not have to worry about a used one having the same problem.

 

A good cleaning and light lubing has always worked for me. I've repaired probably 10 of them over the years.

 

And that keeps it from slipping? I guess I could see this helping if a sticky mechanism is being prevented from engaging the teeth.

Anyway, I bought that right NOS one. I'll see if cleaning helps the original. I wish the NOS one was the left one. That's the one I welded. I believe I just did a few tacks. Maybe I can still salvage it.

 

Please let me know if I'm on track with this. Do they wear well through the years? I dont believe I reclined the seats that much.

 

Yeah, I haven't done one in a while so I can't say exactly. But the mechanism will stick and not lock the seatback into place properly.

 

All I got done today was strip down the engine harness. I still have to clean it to see what needs to be done, but for the most part it’s OK. I think this one is the grungiest of them all since it sits right behind the engine. There are several splices and mods I made through the years, mostly to get the cooling fan to operate with the two versions of AC I installed. I designed it to turn it OFF when going down the road when the airflow would be enough. (Corrected). The factory system has it running full-time.

I need to pull some of the terminals out of their connectors to see if any of the wires are aluminum. I don’t believe I saw any in the mods I did.

The harness has a couple of connectors that aren’t being used because it is an AC delete. However, since it’s an HO, it has the correct circuitry to control the fan but the donor AC harness I installed when I did the factory conversion didn’t match. It came out of mechanical fan car, hence one of the reasons I had to make the mods for the electric fan to work. I now have an 84 and up AC harness that has the correct fan circuitry to work correctly.

 

Wow, you were running the A/C without the engine fan while stopped and at idle? That is extremely taxing on the compressor and the condenser becomes extremely inefficient.

 

Duh, I explained that incorrectly. I designed it to turn it "OFF" when going down the road when the airflow would be enough. I corrected my post.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

 

Still working on the harnesses. I am going to finish the engine harness later when I install it in the car. There are too many circuits that have been modified over the years, so I don't know exactly how to route them nor do I know the lengths.

I finished the ECM, AC and cruise control harnesses. The high temp loom is a much better quality than your typical auto parts store variety. I used various sizes of harness install tools to make things go a little faster on the longer lengths.

 

 

 

Your connectors look good. I had a few that i had to replace. Auveco had most of what i needed and i found a few at the wrecking yard.

 

I don't recall ever seeing one of those tools. Looks like a real time and skin saver.

 

Zips them right in!

 

This is awesome, I never knew this tool existed! Thanks for the enlightenment. I ran a bunch of wire to a subwoofer not too long ago and this would have saved a lot of aggravation.

And thanks for posting the resto, I'm having fun following along.

 

Your very welcome. I'm sure a lot of my posts might be considered boring. Some people do this every day and it's common knowledge. I try to keep it consise and to the point.

 

Then there's the crowd who does not own a third gen and needs to live vicariously...

 

@69-er
since you're going above and beyond restoring everything on this car i have a question for you:
do you know if it's possible to rebuild OE door lock actuators? replacement ones are cheap and flimsy. i would love to restore and reuse originals if that is possible. thanks.

 

I thought about it. I haven't even looked at them closely to see if they can be disassembled. My first thought is, if they are worn out, probably not. The brushes are the first thing that comes to mind. But, they get so little use, as far as the total numbers of rotations they experience throughout their lifetime, they may just need a little cleaning up inside.

That said, I experienced the frustration of weak actuators on a 68 C10 project. The linkage required a fair amount of force to actuate the locks. I eventually found an actualtor that was strong enough to do the job. Finding a spot on the linkage to with the most leverage to attach the actuator was a large part in getting them to work.

We'll see in a little bit!

 

I got a few more harnesses completed. The front lighting harness wasn’t too bad, similar to the engine harness.





I expected the rear lighting harness to be in better shape, maybe just very dusty. However, there was a thick, hard crusted gunk covering a portion of each light socket. There is a fair amount of bulb grease that’s inside the terminal cavities and inside the sockets. I don’t think that could be it. I had to send it through the bead blaster to get it off. It discolored them but they’re clean. I was able to reuse the looms.
[img alt="Notice the tan wire for the added fuel pump. It was incorporated into the main connector and
strung along the body harness to the front.
"]https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.thirdgen.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/img_4298_9a71c187ddeed4beba954ffb07dd8ff8e8170e75.jpg[/img]Notice the tan wire for the added fuel pump. It was incorporated into the main connector and strung along the body harness to the front.

Sorry if this post is confusing. Pics and captions aren't upload properly again.

 

The body, courtesy lights and rear speaker harnesses are also now complete. No repairs were necessary, just a cleaning. I can tell, as battmann mentioned, the conductors in the body harness running down the driver’s side are aluminum. The insulation has a shinier look to it along with it being noticeably lighter. I wonder if the conductors are solid as they are very stiff. After re-reading the service manual I now see this particular harness is the one that’s named “Forward Body Harness”. I can’t see a reason why this harness was picked to have aluminum conductors.

 

Can anybody look at their defogger power wires and tell me if the braid is insulated at the end of the wire where it attaches to the strut? Since it's on the ground side of the grid, it doesn't really need to be insulated. I just can't remember. It seems like it was.

 

No insulation on the ends that connect to the struts. Just braided wire like in your picture.

 

I haven't been active here in years, my car sits in the garage and I ride dirtbikes and JEEP for fun these days. However I found your thread very interesting and read through it all!! Great work by the way, lots of details you've covered....and correctly!!

I will offer my services, if helpful, as my car is mostly assembly line original and been in storage all it's life. I have never had it our in nasty weather, so it's fairly clean. It's a Trans AM from Van Nuys in the spring of 1983. I ordered it and have a fair memory of all the details. I did change the engine and replaced the transmission and exhaust, so it's not completely original. If I can help with pics or descriptions, let me know.

Can't wait to see it done!!

 

I would appreciate that! I am always searching for owners of untouched cars. Even though mine is mostly original, I had my hands on it quite a bit and can't always remember what I did.

 

I’m going say it’s a no-go on rebuilding the door lock actuators. They look to be permanently assembled, maybe glued together. There is no hardware, clips etc., to allow the halves to separate.

So, I just did a light soap and water cleaning, making sure no water got under the boots. I didn’t even bead blast them.

I did bench check them, however. I also rigged up a digital scale to measure the extension force. It was somewhat inconsistent. It ranged from about 8-10 lbs. It seemed to be stronger at the end of the travel. But it also seemed to get lower as the motors heated up. They eventually started to trip the internal circuit breaker, so I stopped there.

 

I got my booster back from brakeboosters.com. It looks very nice. Compared to reproduction boosters I have used in the past, the sheen is a bit flatter. Since I can’t remember what it looked like new from the factory, I guess it’s correct enough. Long as it holds up, I'll be happy! I also took the liberty of reapplying the bar code label a little towards the front so it could be more easily seen. Why not?





Now I need to get my wiper motor restored. I’ve attempted to rebuild the 60’s style rectangular style with unsuccessful results. But I figured I would try the round style anyway. The one that I have currently installed is a pulse, (Intermittent), style I installed when the car was about 4 years old. I got the wiper switch and motor from a Citation when I worked at a local salvage yard. The harness already had the extra green wire that controlled the intermittent function.

I removed the cover and immediately noticed a plastic part was cracked. I stopped right there. I’m pretty sure that part isn’t readily available even though the motor worked fine before I removed it. My first thought was to find someone that rebuilds these motors. But since my original motor is just a few years old, operational-wise, I might see if I can scrounge some parts off of it. Or see what it would take to modify it to perform the pulse functions.

Stay tuned…

 

That brake booster is beautiful!! Nice work!!

 

Thanks to brakeboosters.com!

 

I believe both the wiper motor and gear box are the same as (79?)80-81 fbodys. You may be able to pull parts from one of those. I have for my 82. 82-83 cars are tough in this area. Same w the steering column.

 

I took off this past weekend to do other things. Well, after swapping parts from the pulse wiper motor to the original motor and doing a refurbishment on it, I’m not too sure if it’s working properly. Everything is working as advertised but now I notice that the output shaft does not appear to be rotating correctly. I’m pretty sure it should be centered as rotates but it’s off center and revolving around the center too. I believe it’s supposed to do that only when it’s parking. So, for now, I’m pushing this off to the side.

It’s getting warmer and I need to switch gears to bodywork mode again. As you may remember, I left the body in Featherfill until I was ready for the final primer/surfacer and wet sanding. All of a sudden, I feel I need to get going on this. I still need to repair the bumper covers and bodywork the rear hatch. I’ve been here before, thinking I have plenty of time and then I find that I’m out of time. It’s gonna get windy and then too hot for my taste to paint.

On top of that I have to do a side project first. I wish I could learn how to say no. I felt obligated to do this as a favor payback. It’s a couple of kayaks that have damage to the controls on the top. That’s going to be at least a two-week project. I’m not even sure if I can find parts for them.

I’ll probably see you all in couple weeks or so.

 

I got the car in primer-surfacer. I will wait a couple of weeks or more to wet sand in case there are sanding scratches in the substrate that would show through as the primer shrinks. By the time I finish the other side project, it will be ready for sanding.

I still have to work on the bodywork of the hatch and repair the bumper covers.

 

I’m back! The parts for that side project will take several weeks to get in so I gave it back to the owner until they arrive.

I worked on the hatch today. There was only one shallow dent, so the bodywork went quickly. It is now in epoxy primer. It’s very flat and no waves, so I’ll will go straight to primer-surfacer tomorrow. I’ll let that cure for a day or two and flip it over to blast the underside. There are some surface rust spots. Blasting will work great for this since it’s a very contoured area.

As I mentioned before, I do not plan on attempting to separate the two parts. But, I may have to. The hinges have very little play. I hope it’s not the two pieces sliding apart that caused the misalignment. I probably should do a mock up to make sure.

 

do you think you will be ready to paint this spring or summer?

 

Keep it up! Looks great. Thanks for sharing your project with us, its motivational.