It's good to be the King.

 

 

This is a story that I believe most all of us have through. About  a year ago I took my 68. Bird to install a 4 wheel disk using the parts I had already bought. That was 700.00 dollars for labor. He still has the  bird which I have added several other upgrades  now to the car and we are past 13000 so far what can  I say thanks all

OFF TOPIC ALERT:

Okay, it seems there are a bunch of us who all grew up about the same time. So, who remembers The James Gang? As a kid, as part of my 'childhood,' I would plant myself next to one of my father's quadrophonic floor speakers and make cars out of Lego whilst listening to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Santana and The James Gang whilst the old man would enjoy a joint. I recently rediscovered The James Gang and downloaded the Yer Album and JG Rides Again. Truly great stuff. Joe Walsh was a master of the heavy guitar riff.

The car? It's still sitting there.

23 hours ago, Grapeape said:

This is a story that I believe most all of us have through. About  a year ago I took my 68. Bird to install a 4 wheel disk using the parts I had already bought. That was 700.00 dollars for labor. He still has the  bird which I have added several other upgrades  now to the car and we are past 13000 so far what can  I say thanks all

Hi Mike, I'm hearin' ya. Prices for everything have skyrocketed and playing with old cars is now akin to buying paintings from the old masters. Lotsa cash involved and most of what you pay for is hidden from sight. Spent lotsa moola on new suspension & steering? Unless you crawl under the car, you'd never know! We all know that unless you've had the car forever and paid almost nothing for it initially, you're not going to make any money. Let's be honest - it's throwing money into a black hole. The way around this is to quantify those dollars as 'pleasure.' Yeah, I know. I also struggle with the concept of setting fire to money and getting apparent pleasure from it. Lots of peeps have an addiction - gambling, alcohol, drugs, whatever. If like me your addiction is an old car, you're doing fine in comparison to what you COULD be addicted to. And anyway, once you're tooling around in that nice Firebird, it'll be worth it. Kids these days will be raised on fuel economy and greenness instead of horsepower. We got lucky.

4 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Hi Mike, I'm hearin' ya. Prices for everything have skyrocketed and playing with old cars is now akin to buying paintings from the old masters. Lotsa cash involved and most of what you pay for is hidden from sight. Spent lotsa moola on new suspension & steering? Unless you crawl under the car, you'd never know! We all know that unless you've had the car forever and paid almost nothing for it initially, you're not going to make any money. Let's be honest - it's throwing money into a black hole. The way around this is to quantify those dollars as 'pleasure.' Yeah, I know. I also struggle with the concept of setting fire to money and getting apparent pleasure from it. Lots of peeps have an addiction - gambling, alcohol, drugs, whatever. If like me your addiction is an old car, you're doing fine in comparison to what you COULD be addicted to. And anyway, once you're tooling around in that nice Firebird, it'll be worth it. Kids these days will be raised on fuel economy and greenness instead of horsepower. We got lucky.

I will drink to that 🍻 

Yea, the James Gang.  Joe Walsh the guitarist was in that band.

Rick

Well look who's back. I have been fiddling with the wiring on the GP and despite my flowery rose tinted visions of neat perfect wiring under the dash...it's still messy, but better and slightly neater. I sent the Frosty Tach & my fuel gauge to a specialist (a real one this time) and they were returned with both apparently working. I haven't tested anything yet but the fuel gauge was taken apart and recalibrated and the tach got new modern guts, so I'll be sure to let you know. Pulling the interior apart gave me a chance to right a few wrongs and everything is snugly back together except for the driver's seat as I'm still fiddling with the headlights & wipers. 

The headlights were NOT playing the game. I tested the power to each of the 4 and 12.4V to all and all the earths are clean and in good shape. Only one worked. I took it out and tried it amongst all outlets and it worked. For some reason, 3 of the sealed beams decided to go at the same time. You are suspecting a voltage spike like I did? No evidence of that whatsoever. It seems that the seal on sealed beams will eventually fail. The lower lights seem to be the 60 year old originals, so I ordered 4 new ones thru Rockauto for less than the price of ONE Australian one.

The wipers....after days of experimentation and blowing fuses I have ascertained that there's no juice getting to the motor. The switch simply completes the ground and makes them work. I Frankensteined a wiring setup that fed the battery directly into the wiper motor and success! I will supply the motor with a switched wire when I next get time.

I fitted new dual duty LEDs as my front park/indicators. They are a bright white when on park and flash amber when indicating. I tried to fit LED stop/tail indicators WITH a new LED flasher can but the car didn't like it, so back to incandescent rear lights.

Next time I'm home, I'm gonna finish the wiring, bolt the seat back in and fire her up. If the tach works, I shall post footage. I know, it's exciting.

Hey Fitzy,

   I don't envy your wiring woes.  I am still waiting on a new engine harness to solve a lack of power problem inside the passenger compartment.  There is a fellow on You Tube called "Craft Customs" that explains the wiper and pump motor in fine details with diagrams and testing procedures. 

 

Rick 

Hi Rick, thanks for the vids. Because the wipers & washers were working fine before I touched anything, I knew it was a simple wiring issue. The 1965 factory wiper washer setup is enormously complicated and I had already bypassed the ancient washer setup with an electric motor pump just like all modern cars. Somehow I had lost the 12V feed to the wiper motor. I found time today to run a fresh wire from the fuse panel to the wiper motor and they now work again as they should. If anyone's interested, it's the yellow & black wire that plugs into the centre of the 3 terminal plug that plugs into the motor that is the 12V feed. The only minor remaining issue is that the factory wiring plug refuses to sit snugly on the switch's spade terminals. The switch is a replacement and although functions as the original, the connection points are slightly different. There is a cutout in the moulded plug that is supposed to fit one way on the switch, but it's all arse about. Tomorrow I will splice some spades into the factory wires and discard the moulded plug altogether. Then the driver's seat can go back in and I can start 'er up. Whew!

Finally - all 4 headlights work, wipers work, everything works. Headlight relays are in, wires tidied up. LED instrument lights look neat. Seats are back in and will fit refurbished original steering wheel tomorrow before I fire her up.

You don't need any more pics of my car - everyone must be sick of looking at it by now.

4 hours ago, Fitzy said:

Finally - all 4 headlights work, wipers work, everything works. Headlight relays are in, wires tidied up. LED instrument lights look neat. Seats are back in and will fit refurbished original steering wheel tomorrow before I fire her up.

You don't need any more pics of my car - everyone must be sick of looking at it by now.

Come on ! Show us the referb steering wheel 😜

And the dash lights ! 

A day of mixed emotions. Tried to start the car but could hear that it wasn't even trying to fire up. No volts at coil +. Checked output at ignition switch: 12.7V. Hmm...

Ran a hot wire from battery to coil. Fired straight up. This tells me that ignition switch is cactus. In addition to that theory, when I reinstalled the switch after fixing some wiring, the barrel will now fall out when the key is withdrawn. Strangely, the ACC, ON & START positions all do their thing - just no volts to coil. Has anyone else had an experience with a dud ignition switch? - I know I never have.

And some pics for Kiwi: I simply cleaned up my body filler work on the rim, etch primed it, then gloss black and finally a coat of clear fibreglass resin for durability. The crappy GP centre piece remains coz I can't find a reasonably priced good condition secondhand one. If you're at a Swap Meet and you see one, grab it for me will you? It'll be an excuse for me to come Stateside and collect it.

Does anyone know if a generic 1965 fullsize GM ignition switch will do the job?

Oh, and the Frosty Tach works! Shit hot.

Finally, for sale: Grant woodrim wheel, suit fullsize 1965. Cost me a small fortune - yours for about half retail price. VERY little use!

Edited May 24, 20242 yr by Fitzy
Added something.

1 hour ago, Fitzy said:

Ran a hot wire from battery to coil. Fired straight up. This tells me that ignition switch is cactus. In addition to that theory, when I reinstalled the switch after fixing some wiring, the barrel will now fall out when the key is withdrawn. Strangely, the ACC, ON & START positions all do their thing - just no volts to coil. Has anyone else had an experience with a dud ignition switch? - I know I never have.

yess mate !!! i pulled my one apart and cleaned all the contacts ! its easy as ! and that kept it going till i scored that brand new 1964 one from our mate there in ozz ! i am sure i scored the very last nos 1963-64 ignition switch on the planet !!!

take it out carefully bend the crimp edge back and remove the guts, there is nothing to them !

Edited May 24, 20242 yr by 64 kiwi boni

love your antitheft devise!!!

You did a fantastic job of your steering wheel mate !!!!

 

1 hour ago, Fitzy said:

Does anyone know if a generic 1965 fullsize GM ignition switch will do the job?

justA check how many pins on the generic mate 

It's a great anti theft device, as it locks in place in the RUN position, then turn it off and take it with you!

So, I removed the switch and connected the BAT & G terminals to some jumper wires to my car battery, then activated the switch through it's 3 positions and checked for continuity with a test light - works perfectly. I did this several times. I then rechecked using a mutimeter and same results. So now it has to be something to do with the wires.

I'd happily run 2 fresh wires from the IGN 1 & 2 terminals but don't know how the factory did it. One is for 12V START and #2 is about 5V for RUN. Any ideas how they wired that up, to end up with a single wire to the coil +? My factory wiring diagram doesn't even mention the resistance wire, although I've seen it printed somewhere. The START wire somehow bypasses the resistance wire.

Glad you like the wheel. It'll get me through.

Okay - hold the bus.

I (once again) downloaded some wiring diagrams from The Old Car Project - a great resource. Once downloaded and screenshotted, that means I can expand them and see what's going on, unlike the factory diagram where no amount of squinting makes it any clearer.

It seems that the pink from ignition switch is the RUN circuit, via the resistance wire. The yellow from switch is the START wire which bypasses the resistance with both terminating at the bulkhead connector together. They then plug into the engine harness wiring which is a black/pink wire that feeds the coil +. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I run a fresh resistance straight from IGN 1 to a connector, run another fresh wire from IGN 2 to the same connector, then from connector run a fresh wire to the coil +, that should fix it. It's the ignition switch that completes each circuit thereby ensuring the separate voltages stay separate. Kapich?

1 hour ago, Fitzy said:

Okay - hold the bus.

I (once again) downloaded some wiring diagrams from The Old Car Project - a great resource. Once downloaded and screenshotted, that means I can expand them and see what's going on, unlike the factory diagram where no amount of squinting makes it any clearer.

It seems that the pink from ignition switch is the RUN circuit, via the resistance wire. The yellow from switch is the START wire which bypasses the resistance with both terminating at the bulkhead connector together. They then plug into the engine harness wiring which is a black/pink wire that feeds the coil +. Correct me if I'm wrong but if I run a fresh resistance straight from IGN 1 to a connector, run another fresh wire from IGN 2 to the same connector, then from connector run a fresh wire to the coil +, that should fix it. It's the ignition switch that completes each circuit thereby ensuring the separate voltages stay separate. Kapich?

Correct !!!

your switch will have two feeds to that + on the coil , start and run , I sm not sure but I feel you issue maybe at the bulk head connection. Not a wire fault … just take ya time mate and I am sure you will find the issue . Switch first I feel !!! Pull it 

clean it’s internals 

then bulk head plug 

Dave has a 66 switch if it’s the same amount of pins as your 65 one 

Are you certain that you don't also have a failing "ballast resistor"?  I thought that resistor only dropped the voltage at the "Run" position to about 9 volts to prevent burning of the distributor points contacts.   Your 5 volt reading is anomalous to me. 

  Definitely take your ignition switch apart and clean the internal contacts.  I've brought dead ignition switches back from across the River Styx using a very good electronic contact cleaner such as "Caig's DE-Oxit D5".  Don't use anything else that might be greasy or oily that will eventually attract more dirt.

Rick

 

Man that tach looks good in that dash! Of course I am pretty bias on that point! 

Kiwi: yep, I had already had a look at Dave's switch. Mine has 8 pins. I'll pull it apart today. If it's wiring, it's a head scratcher coz I never touched anything to do with the switch.

Rick: no ballast resistor - only resistance wiring. If I have to run fresh wires, I'd rather install a ballast resistor but also you don't seem to be able to buy resistance wiring anymore. The lid on the can of worms continues to peel back because if I do that, then I believe I need a resisted coil. Never had a car with either. Or, I could enter the 21st century and buy a Scorcher distributor with a single 12V feed. Easy fix, but pretty costly. And you're right - I meant 9V. I think I saw 5V when I wasn't making a good contact with the multimeter probe on the earth.

Frosty; your tach lives on. Imagine my delight as I revved the engine and watched the needle soar to...2 grand. I have set the "Name Your Redline" knob to 4 grand. It even has it's own little LED light so I can impress all my friends as we tool around late at night. Okay, well some of that paragraph was true.

What a DAY! I stuffed around with the car for 4 solid hours trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Removed & dismantled the ignition switch - a little grubby but all in all in good condition. If this is a task you haven't done before, be careful when you decrimp the last holding tab - the guts are spring loaded and shit will fly everywhere. Ask me how I know...I sparked up each terminal with emery and reassembled & retested. Works as before. Then I separated the relevant bulkhead connector. As before, all the contacts are neat, straight & shiny so put that back together. Now it was time to check the 2 ignition feed wires that plug into the ignition switch. I had previously inserted a length of wire to give me some room to manoeuvre under the dash and my eye kept being drawn to the heatshrink coated self soldering connectors that I used. I figured I had nothing to lose, so cut that off the factory wire and tested it for continuity - nothing. I then cut the similar section off the factory pink wire - nothing again! So, I made up 2 fresh wires with crimped, soldered & heatshrinked spade ends and connected them to the factory wires. Strode out confidently and tested coil + input. Nothing. Then I saw another one of my soldered connectors at the coil, so cut it out and tested it. Nothing! Made up another fresh spade ended wire, hooked it up and there you go - voltage at the coil. Sat in the car, turned the key and she fired instantly into life.

Those bloody self soldering connectors never worked. Once everything has melted & shrinked into place, you can't tell if it's a goer or not. Tomorrow I am going to do some test solders on scrap wire and test for continuity. A bad batch? Dickhead in the workshop?

Chucked some fuel in and will gingerly take it out tomorrow. As long as it makes it out & back I can now get on with the rest of my life. Yes, beers are on the menu quite soon. Cheers!

What kind of solder connectors are you using mate ? 
I only ever twist the wires together 

solder them and heat srink over the top 

 

Matter of fact , I slip heat shrink up the wire , twist , solder then slip the heat shrink over fast while the join is still hot and it shrinks 

I found time yesterday to do some test joins with various connectors on scrap wire.

It seems the 'heatshrink crimp connectors' I was using do NOT contain solder. They look like they're full of solder but it ain't so. They won't even shrink with heat - the plastic just starts to bubble!  I also have the correct soldered connectors that are essentially clear with a coloured ring of plastic on each end to denote size and a ring of solder clearly visible in the middle. THEY are the ones to use - work perfectly. So, I'm going to get a nice big assortment of the correct ones off ebay and throw those other things in the bin.

And yes, Kiwi is right. When space is tight and you're upside down under the dash using the last 6 inches of factory wire available to you, the only real option is to twist the wires together and heatshrink over them. If I had attempted to solder those joins yesterday, my face would now be covered in solder burns.

I slept like the dead last night, finally free of waking up at 3am trying to figure out why the damn car won't start!