I used WD40 on the evap case, and it looks great, not too shiny.

 

Sean, will finish it tonight and post some pics of the individual parts as well as the assembled unit.

 

Lance, does mine not look shiny enough? I was thinking it might be a little too shiny! All I did was just clean it with a towel, lots of water and an interior cleaner.

 

A frustrating session tonight (2 hours)

Parts store let me down on the Expansion and POA valve seal kits that were supposed to be in today, so I could not complete the evap case reassembly.

I finished lightly wire wheeling all three connection fittings on the evaporator. Rather than replace, I cleaned and repainted the blower motor wheel, and JB welded the loose connector on the resistor (thanks Banny). Decided to paint the expansion valve by cleaning with a Hand wire brush, then scuffing with a green scotchbrite pad and shooting with high heat aluminum. Was a little too shiny, so I oversprayed a little Eastwood's silver cad over it. I think it mimics the cad plating pretty well.

Went ahead and installed the evap in the cases, bolted together, installed the resistor and blower motor. Will definately finish it tomorrow.

 

A good session after a bad one (1 1/2 hours)

Finally finished up the evap box. Very special thanks to 69442Murph for sending me the OE insulating wrap that goes around the expansion valve bulb on the evap outlet - makes the assembly look so correct in my opinion. I cleaned it with Purple Power and a toothbrush. Heated it up with a hair dryer and re-wrapped it around the tube. Carefully assembled all the components using pics from before disassembly to make sure I got all the line routings and screw directions right. Pretty happy with the way it came out - see below pics of this first major sub assembly completed for my car.

Moved on to the heater core/under dash assembly. Still had the original Harrison heater core. Can these be rebuilt?

 

Also, here's a before and after pic of the evap box. I tried to take them both close to the exact same position so as to make it easy to see the differences.

 

Looks really good to me! I may just let you do mine to make sure you have the process down.

 

Looks great. Only thing, I would use just a little of the black refrigeration tape and put around the bottom line where it exits the box. Not much but use it as a seal so it don't have an air loss through the open spot. It don't look like much of an open area but any air loss in that area can affect the discharge temp.

 

I have a NOS heater core for sale, in the original box.

PM me if interested.

No comparison to either what is being reproduced or sold new.

 

Those rims would look GREAT on my olds! Good luck with the resto!
Alex in Idaho USA

 

Alex, if you really want them, you can have the set of 5 for 100.00 plus the freight to you in Idaho when I get done with the resto. (they are 15 X 7 's)

Joe

 

If he doesn't want them I'm interested in the set. The car is going to be beautiful when done. Keep up the work making us amateurs looking bad. Haha

 

Joe, don't forget you have at least 1 door in decent shape.

 

Lance, I'm not understanding - are you talking about the doors up at Brian's?

 

Heater Box day - complete (4 1/2) hours.

Got it done in one long day. Following are some highlights.
1) Completey cleaned, inside and out all metal surfaces.
2) tested the servos, cleaned the vacuum hose and brackets,
3) Removed and reapplied the very fragile date code label for the heater core case. (Dated Dec 19, 1969)

Too sleepy to write more. Tomorrow will fill in more details if I can remember them.

 

Yes the blue one's..

 

Moving on - got in a few hours, but was really wanting to just do nothing (2 1/2 hours)

A milestone today - began work on the wiring harnesses. When I have done them in the past, I typically have just taped over the original wrapping, but since I am keeping to my standard of "if the original part can be cleaned or detailed to 95% of NOS appearance", I am thinking of trying to simply clean the original wrapping, and fix any trouble spots. I know whatever I do in trying to rewrap, it is never going to look right (i e randomly sloppy in places as the original is)

Going through first, section by section the front engine/light harness. All the connector plastic covers are removed (one at a time so as to not get things all confused), and cleaned on the inside with Q-Tips pipe cleaners. The actual connector is wire wheeled or dremeled to remove all the tarnish or corrosion. The tab is bent back up, and the plastic connector reinstalled. The bare wires are cleaned by rubbing a paper towel with carb cleaner over the insulation till all the nastiness goes away. The original harness tape gets Purple Power sprayed over it, and then brushed with a toothbrush to get the junk out of the wrinkles. I then wipe the tape with a dry cloth being careful to go in the direction of the wrapping so as to not peel it up as I wipe. Tears and little missing pieces are patched with new tape as required. Below are pics of half the harness completed.

 

No work tonight. Wasn't feeling it. (0 hours)

 

Had band rehearsal tonight, so no work on parts, but did pick up the two tubs of parts Quality Powder Coating blasted for me. I think it was ridiculously cheap - 175.00 - to get all this stuff done. Pic below does not included the exhaust manifolds done, and does not clearly show all the individual components wired together, as well as some tiny parts in the plastic baggie. I will send the control arms, sway bars, frame, and rear end housing to them when I get my rolling frame back from the paint shop for blasting and powder coating.

Pump and gear box are on their way back from Chip at Power Steering Services. Got the super detailing upgrade on both, and requested he leave the PS pump pulley nut bare. Like the way it looks, and I saw some pics on CO of the Lansing big car line in 73 where it clearly showed dressed 455's on the line with that nut not being painted.

 

Back to the harnesses (harnesi?) (about 2 hours)

Still have not finished the front light/engine harness. It is going pretty slow mostly due to trying to keep the original wrap intact, yet looking clean. Have reached the horn connectors, just have the RH side light connectors to do.

Incidentally, the actual metal connectors that plug into the head lamp bulbs are way more corroded than any of the other metal terminals I have run into so far. It is worth completely disassembling those connectors and spending the time to clean them well - it will avoid issues with headlamps not working properly. I had a bunch of issues on the '72 with headlamps flickering or not having both beams work when on high beams - now I know why.

 

Got a tiny bit of work in (3/4 hour)

Almost finished the first harness. Just a few terminals left to do. I am amazed how much time this part is taking. This one harness (at the level of detail/ correctness I am trying to achieve) has already has already taken more time than the heater box/plenum took to recondition.

 

Not that you probably already did not know the time it takes to do a car nice...many don't. Most have NO idea the hours involved to make a car shine. People up here have the $3500 paint job mentality and they want to pop the hood and inside of trunk and have it be stellar like your car will be. It is frustrating. Keep up the great work!! (As a side note, the last car I did for myself I did give in and buy a engine harness from M&H electric, and I was very pleased.Brighter colored wires i feel from original but HOURS saved cleaning with thinner all the old grime/paint and re-wrapping cloth tape.)

 

I hear ya Joe! So many details. In my mind a job will take 1 hour and in actuality it ends up being more like 10 if I was doing this for a profit I would have been bankrupt long ago. Keep up the good work. Your car is an inspiration.

 

Thanks. Lots of great cars being built right now including yours. Looks like it was a beautiful day for the first drive of your vert!

 

It is always fulfilling when someone else who knows what goes into doing it right gives you a compliment. Thank you.

 

One harness down (2 1/2 hours)

Finally finished the engine/front lighting harness. Total time on it was 6 hours. At 50.00 an hour, you realize why lots of times it makes sense to go with the repo part if money or time is concerned. I'm still trying to "Keep That Great GM Feeling - With Genuine GM Parts" (I still remember that jingle). Probably the single biggest time hog (at least for me) is cleaning the actual plastic connectors after they are removed from the harness. It takes a lot of time to get the gunk out of all the nooks and crannies on the inside of the housing.

One final thing I did was paint the side marker light ends. They are originally white soft plastic, but despite my best efforts, they were unacceptably yellowed and stained. I masked them off and spray bombed them with the semi-gloss white vinyl dye.

Got a start on the harness that goes to the wiper motor, starter, coil, and TH400 kick down. Will have to replace most of the harness wrapping after the wiper motor since it is all badly deteriorated due to heat and tranny fluid soak. Also, one of the wires is broken off flush at the transmission boot. I will have to scavenge a connector from another harness since it is a molded connector.

Below are pics of the painted bulb ends, and the before and after (1st pass) of the second half firewall harness connector. Does anyone know how to remove that bolt that holds it to the fuse box?

 

Looks great. The detail that you are putting into everything is awesome.

 

Did a little more work today (2 hours)

Well, of all the different areas tackled in this project, harness reconditioning now officially wins the prize for least enjoyable. Almost done with the second one, and am looking around the garage to maybe do something else for a while before beginning the dash harness.

Here's another series of pics in the evolution of cleaning/restoring the main firewall connector. Today, I tried to clean the bolt in place some more since I can't figure out how to remove it from the connector. Still was unsatisfactory, so I masked off around it and painted with high heat aluminum. Then, remasked around the rubber insulation, and shot a small amount of the black spray Plasti-Dip around the connector and wires to freshen the rubber look and make sure it remains water tight. Then lightly polished the plastic connector itself with the Meguiars stuff.

Tomorrow will check on replating of the booster, rear bumper, and bolt plating, and finish harness #2.

 

An afternoon of resto (3 1/2 hours)

Finished the 2nd firewall harness, but ran into a problem with the trans kick down switch connector. It is a special molded 2 wire unit that snaps onto the trans and a wire got brittle and broke off flush. Went to look through Chris Dreiling's stash of used junk harnesses. No luck on that specific connector - I will have to find a TH400 harness - I guess it is different from a TH350 or M21.

Started and finished the A/C harness. Had to replace the 3 wire connector at the high blower relay since it was partially melted. Also, have to find a AGA30 fuse for the fuse holder off the horn relay. I broke it when I took the two halves apart to clean the holder. Thus harness came out especially well and looks very OE since it needed to have very little of the wrapping replaced.

Found in Chris's stash a OEM sun visor support and interior door handles that may clean up well to use.

 

Received today my P/S pump and gearbox done by Chip at PSS. Looks pretty good, but havd a couple more tweaks to do to then (filler cap should not be painted, pitman arm I'll paint the darker detail gray, etc...)

 

A mixed day of mixed work (3 hours)

Started and completed the dual gate console harness. The light switch in the compartment was not working, and found out it was because one of the leads leading to the switch had the female terminal end missing. Grafted a new end on the wire, cleaned the contacts in the sockets with the Dremel tool, installed new two sided tape on the retaining hooks, patched a couple of slight tears in the wrapping, and cleaned the original wrapping.

On the PS stuff received today, I repainted the pulley in a slightly glossier finish and eliminated a run it had in the paint. Removed the paint fron the reservoir cap, and shot the pitman arm in a darker cast blast color for a little contrast against the gearbox body. Very happy overall with Chip's work.

For grins, I polished out the original interior door handles to see if the were better than those given me by my friend. I will post here and on a separate post a pic of how they turned out. They have a little pitting, but I'm not sure they should be replaced, especially with me trying to keep the interior as original as possible. The sun visor support Chris gave me polished out fine - saved a few more bucks.

Contacted the Camaro guy about reskinning my intake. Anyone have experience with this?

Tomorrow, onto the long body harness - see pics below

 

Another harness down. (2 1/2 hours)

Started and completed the long body harness. This one went pretty quick. Here's a list of what I did to it.

1) Sprayed down with purple power the complete harness, after shielding the number tag that goes on it near the end
2) Wiped the complete harness down with a shop towel
3) Began at the front by using some carb cleaner to get some factory adhesive overspray off the main connector
4) Used a small sharpened flat screwdriver to clean the aluminum contacts on that same connector.
5) Lightly polished the connector to get some shine out of it
6) Added a little electrical tape at the beginning to refasten some of the original tape that had come loose
7) Got old adhesive off that short channel tubing that attaches to the firewall
8) Cleaned and removed the old adhesive off the long flat plastic sheathing that the wires run through. Big tip I learned. There were two types of gunk stuck on it - something orange and some stuff that looked like two sided tape. What removed that stuff the best was to simply scrape it with a dull hard plastic blade. It just turns to powder with enough pressure and does not damage the sheath. Then wiped the sheath lightly with Brake-Cleen. Almost looks new.
9) Disassembled all three rear connectors. Carb cleaned the wires themselves. Wire wheeled the contacts to remove all the tarnish, cleaned the connectors inside and out, and black phosphate painted the clip on the end connector and the clip that holds the harness to the trunk.
10) Gently removed the "9731" sticker without damaging it
11) Rewrapped the whole harness from the end of the flat sheath back to the end connector. The original wrapping was too far gone here to save.
12) Taped back on to the harness that plastic push in retainer that is taped on with the cloth style tape.
13) Reapplied the 9731 sticker.

Pics below. Still excited about that Twilight Blue/White interior 70 442 vert with a three speed I went to see today. If I only had more room....

 

No work tonite. Took a break from the harnesses. (0 hours)

Engine should really, really be ready for pick up tomorrow. Getting back the block with pistons/rods already installed on the crank. Heads done and had the rocker covers, oil pan and timing cover tanked. Will probably be a while before I assemble the engine.

Going to start on the dash harness next. It's in pretty good shape, but can anyone help me with the following?

1 ) I can't find the light that goes to light up the "sign" above the headlamp switch. It is like the car does not even have this lamp. (This car does not have the courtesy lamp option)

2) Does the harness that goes to the console plug into the harness that seems to be for for the power windows (again my car does not have this)

3) Does a car without the courtesy lamp option have a ash tray lamp?

 

The light at the headlight switch and ash tray are part of the courtesy light option. It also included the mirror, floor, under dash, hood, and trunk lights.

The 70 console extension harness runs two differant places. The lights run to a 3 pin socket that is between the glove box and radio on the dash harness. This is also the same plug that the light package would have plug into. The other part of the console harness run to the steering column. The wires that would have plug into the column shift neutral switch now plug into the console harness.

The console harness will plug into the console extension harness. This is a 4 pin (maybe 5?) plug in 70.

 

Thanks Eric. Got a handle on it now. I've never seen where there is a listing of what is included in the courtesy lamp option. It is a lot more extensive than I thought.

 

Took a couple days off. Went to great car show yesterday with a bunch of the Olds club guys, but today back to work (3 hours)

Began the dash harness. I am starting at the fuse block and working my way to the very end of it. As I get to a branch of the harness, I follow the branch to the end of it before going back to the main harness. It the only way I can keep track of exactly what I've done.

Spent most of today's time on the fuse block itself. Began by removing all the old fuses, and saved the original ones with the paint on the glass. Also removed the 170 Signal Stat emergency flasher. Carefully cleaned it to not remove the yellow silk screening on the front face. On the engine compartment side, I lightly brushed the foamy gasket material. It was dirty, but after repeated tooth brushing and flushing with Windex it came out looking like new. Spent a lot of time cleaning the outer casings again being careful to not mess up the white printing on the front face, or the assembly line "9" grease pencil mark on the bottom panel. Then got out the trusty Dremel tool and VERY carefully wire brushed the fuse contacts (that made a huge difference in the appearance of the unit). Lastly, got out the Q tips and cleaned the dust out of the recesses where the fuses go.

It looks like I'll wind up having another 3 hours in the main dash harness, and maybe two in the trunk wiring. It's not as much of a whipping as I thought after doing it, and the improvement in the appearance of the harnesses is pretty gratifying.

Start spreading the news - going to New York City with the wife for a few days of stumbling around the city with a mild buzz. We're doing is a Mad Men tour of some of the shows locations, finishing at The Oyster Bar in Grand Central with an Old Fashioned.

 

Back to work after a fun time in The Big Apple (3 hours)

I predicted it pretty well - it took almost exactly 3 hours to finish the main dash harness. I went to the trouble to remove all terminals from their plastic connectors - even the back of gauge cluster connectors - to get them all free of any corrosion or tarnish.

Here's a pic of the finished fuse block. I am missing one white band AGC25 and am hoping I can get just one from somebody.

Tonight and tomorrow it is the trunk and dash/console extension harnesses. I think I am going to do all the external lamps next to finish off the wiring harness refurbishment part of the resto.

 

Finished the harnesses today (3 hours)

Finished the console extension and trunk harnesses. Of all the harnesses, the trunk one was the one that needed the most cosmetic rehab. Lots of loose wrapping, and a fair amount of overspray on some of the connectors.

In total, I have 26 1/2 hours into reconditioning all the harnesses on the car. At my mythical shop rate of 40.00 per hour, it would cost someone about 1,100.00 (shop supplies included) to have me go through all the harnesses and return to OE appearance (assuming the cores are good) I guess it is about the same as buying all new harnesses. (I got a lot faster though as I progressed, so maybe it might be only 20 hours)

Got all the lamp assemblies out and ready for tomorrow - see pic below. Also will be picking up my plating and rear bumper. Engine is ready and need to go get it before it disappears.

 

I just did some work on a set of backup and a license plate light. You may know this but I figured out that if you take the plastic off the connector you can push the entire wire out the back side. The connector will just fit through the hole. Makes it much easier to redo the housings.

 

Eric, I did not know that - thanks so much. I've always just kind of taped everything off and cleaned/painted and it never look right. Do you have a tip for the front marker and rear tail lights? Those look to me like some wires have to be cut somewhere to disassemble them.