This week-end was a great milestone for the Chevelle project. THE CAR STARTED AGAIN!
Yes I am proud to announce that I successfully managed to not turn the garage and our house into one big ball of fire. After a full day on saturday working on the rear harness, I was able to make the car start. Ok it first started with some smoke coming out of the engine ballast resistor so I freaked out a little. I immediatly disconnected the wire that fed 12V to the starter solenoid during startup (like painless wiring was suggesting) and disconnected the 6V wire to the choke. Car wouldn’t start still. Then I realized I saw some Safety switch wires that I dismissed (since I thought they were for the Console and I have a steering column mounted shifter). But this safety is actually used to make sure you can’t start the car if you’re not in Neutral. I remembered that when I removed the steering column, it was bypassed (because I later found out the safety switch on the column was busted). I remember this security was not working one day when I started the car while in reverse. Thank god I had a big rock behind my back wheel! So anyway I connected the 2 fat wires together, made sure the car was in Parking and tried to start it again and VOILA! It started immediately! Of course, I want this safety so I found someone on ebay selling exactly that. It made me realize also that the switch has more purposes. When in reverse gear, it lights up the back-up lights (which I though meant lights for back-up as if when the others die ;-)). There’s also a 3rd purpose, it makes sure you have the seatbelts on before you can start the car but we won’t care much about that, will we ? :-)
Other than that, all gauges lights work well (HOT, OIL and Blinkers). Even the high beam and brakes lights are working! The dome light is also working.
Now I just need to find a radio and some extra gauges (VOLT, AMP and OIL) to fit in the dash, change the headlight switch or maybe just tighten it. Connect some speakers. Figure out how to make the doorjam switches work (to turn on the dome light when you open the car doors), insulates the floor, put back the carpet, seatbelts and seats …
For the engine compartment, I need to waterproof the wiring, install the overflow tank for the radiator coolant, see if the wiper motor/pump still work, install back the wheel wells and the hood and front bumper (after I find some brackets since I can’t for the love of god remove that damn bolt on my old bumper)…
It’s amazing how much I have learned about cars in the last 6 months. I decided that if the software industry is not for me anymore, I can always convert to be a mechanic ;-)
