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Tech / General EngineIs your car making a strange sound or won't start? Thinking of adding power with a new combination? Need other technical information or engine specific advice? Don't see another board for your problem? Post it here!
I’m new to the Camaro world and just recently purchased a 1983 Camaro, and I apologize for this lengthy post. This whole post may need to be moved elsewhere, but some of what I’m going to cover will be engine related. Now I’m going to be honest for a moment, I don’t know much about the car other than what’s been told to me but I got a decent deal on it. An old man who was restoring it got too sick to finish the job and had to get rid of it. So what I’ve been told about the car - interior is gutted completely, all parts are there to put it back together not a huge deal. Engine is said to be a 355 with a decent cam, headers, etc. Transmission is a TH350 with a Hurst Pro-Matic shifter. Car runs and drives great... when it’s running, but now we get to the problems I’m having currently. The wiring is obviously butchered together. He had the electric fuel pump running to the ignition switch, and then a push button to actually start the car. Also the electric fans are run to two separate toggle switches, which leads me to the next problem. One fan runs perfectly, the other one was running but the power and ground wires to the toggle switch were getting significantly hot and the fan then quit working altogether. I’m not entirely sure, but I believe this is why my engine is running hot and getting hot enough to where it shuts off and will not start again until it has cooled down. I can get pictures of this mess in the morning sometime if need be. If I’m going to be redoing all of the wiring in this car though is there a place that sells an entire wiring harness? Or would it just be easier to cut and splice what I have? I should also mention that despite the cluster of rigged together wiring, all of the lights and everything other than the electric fans work perfectly. Again sorry for the lengthy post with multiple problems, but I figured if I could get it out you all could chime in and make a young mans dream of having a Camaro come true
Well - post up some pics so we can see how much of an abortion it is. *sigh*.
Heat typically means a bad connection - check the connections to that toggle switch. May need to replace the switch and put new ends on the wires.
Sometimes old geezers really know their stuff - sometimes it's a turd sandwich. If you can afford a commercial full-car harness or race harness it might not be a bad idea. Depends on how bad it is, and how much you like grin-*ucking the $hit out of turd sandwiches....
Wiring (proper) is a REALLY time consuming process. I often turn away (or scare away) prospective customers that own cluster-*uck's like your describe. Those of us that have real professional training and experience building wiring harnesses charge a LOT for the privilege.
Oh and for *uck's sake - don't run the engine till it's so hot it ceases to run and won't restart. And change the oil before you run it again. You'll be wanting a whole new engine if you do that a couple more times.
Well - post up some pics so we can see how much of an abortion it is. *sigh*.
Heat typically means a bad connection - check the connections to that toggle switch. May need to replace the switch and put new ends on the wires.
Sometimes old geezers really know their stuff - sometimes it's a turd sandwich. If you can afford a commercial full-car harness or race harness it might not be a bad idea. Depends on how bad it is, and how much you like grin-*ucking the $hit out of turd sandwiches....
Wiring (proper) is a REALLY time consuming process. I often turn away (or scare away) prospective customers that own cluster-*uck's like your describe. Those of us that have real professional training and experience building wiring harnesses charge a LOT for the privilege.
Oh and for *uck's sake - don't run the engine till it's so hot it ceases to run and won't restart. And change the oil before you run it again. You'll be wanting a whole new engine if you do that a couple more times.
GD
I’ll get pictures of the wiring tomorrow. I only let it get so hot it shut off one time because I bought the car believing it was a running and driving car with no engine related issues. Was told all it needed was the interior put back together. I wasn’t sure whether the temp gauge was actually working in the car when it did get that hot. As for the wiring again though, it doesn’t look “that” bad, but it’s definitely not something professionally done.
Heat typically means a bad connection - check the connections to that toggle switch. May need to replace the switch and put new ends on the wires.
With all due respect to the General ;
When discussing hacked/butchered radiator fan wiring , complete with the trailer park toggle switch , heat typically means that the poor switch can not handle the full current of the fan motor !
None of these backyard dolts ever hook the switch up to operate the relay's coil , nooo, they bypass the relay , the device that's actually supposed to switch the high current draw of the fan , and wire the switch straight to the fan motor instead .
There really should be an extensive electrical/electronics test to buy a set of wire cutters , with failure resulting in a firing squad !
Oreo , your mission will be to restore the fan circuit back to it's factory state , my next post will include the wiring diagram for your engine ....
Yeah - they probably did run it directly to the switch. The mA load of the relay coil probably couldn't generate that level of damage to the switch and wiring unless it was *really* tiny wiring.
I was just thinking that since he says the other fan works fine.... perhaps the switch and wiring is properly sized.... but that could easily not be the case. In any case it sounds unlikely to be wired correctly with a relay.
