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Pontiac of the Month

FBIRD69's 1969 Firebird

2024 March
of the Month

95naSTA

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Everything posted by 95naSTA

  1. I cleaned up both of my cars today.. Might as well throw both in here. The engine bay is filthy right now but if you look close you can see all wiring with the exception of the ICM and spark plug wires have been re-routed. I got a new wheel bearing in to replace a noisy one but the ZZP oil volume kit I ordered didn't make it in time for my day off.
  2. I shaved the handles on my old Bonneville. Getting the tension on the cable that attaches the solenoid to the latch was an art form.. I'd be willing to bet the cable needs to be adjusted. This issue and the spine tingling feeling I got from people slamming my doors (worrying about cracks) were the 2 main reasons I didn't do it again.
  3. Here's a part of my engine harness wire tuck. I'm relocating the coils to rear of the engine. From the top, you won't be able to see any spark plug wires. Front or rear. I'll actually be able to reach this from the passenger side too. The ICM bracket is from an 3800 F-body. I used one threaded hole on the block and one on the trans to mount the assembly. This location is similar to where GM mounted the 2.8/3.1 MPFI ICM, just on the other side of the engine. I'm not too worried about heat since my headers are ceramic coated. Water should be fine too. It's pretty far up there in relation to the subframe (especially with the engine and trans 1.5" taller than stock). The bracket will be powder coated wrinkle black to match the 6-speed swap brackets. After I got done this and a couple other little things at my buddy's shop, I picked up the gf and had her get a vid of me rowing through the gears. https://youtu.be/8EuLcKyuSdI
  4. I know you said fuses are all ok but that grouping sounds like one of the main fuses in the engine bay popped. Theres 2 groups of large fuses on either side of where the positive side of the battery connects at the top of the engine bay. It might be different on your 99 but on my 95 on the group closer to the driver's side, it's the 60A fuse 3 positions from the connection to the battery.
  5. For this time I would check all your fuses. Mains in the engine bay, panel by the driver's foot well, and panel by the front passenger's foot well. Check the battery ground wire that's bolted to the unibody next to the battery. Also check your ground buses for excessive corrosion. There's 2 that can cause all sorts of electrical issues. One on each side of the car, where the carpet meets the front of the front door sill. They'll be wrapped up in electrical tape. Location on the driver's side:
  6. Thanks! One other thing that I didn't mention is I put a ton of time over the winter into diag-ing an electrical problem I've had for at least a year and a half. The charging system wasn't maintaining a steady voltage.. Long story short it turned out to be the PCM. This issue is why I never finished wire tucking my engine bay. I still had my engine left to do. I have all the wires re-routed and hidden except for the ignition control module and spark plug wires. When I'm done, you'll be able to see the TPS/IAC/MAF wires for a very small run, a very small run of the alt charging wire, and that's it. No ICM/coils/wires/loom, nothing. I almost have my bike back together, so that should free up some time I can put toward finishing up the wire tuck.
  7. Thanks guys. @ Ringo, no motorized option unfortunately, I can't bring myself to hack these up to make that happen either. I got my 22mm solid Addco rear sway and brackets back from powder coating a couple weeks back. It only took 5 years but it'll match the 32mm front now. Here's the lasted mini project almost wrapped up for the Bonneville. I wanted a new shifter trim that looked OEM. I searched for what I thought would be close and ended up with a Camaro 6-speed shifter trim. It was close enough to fitting within the Bonneville center console but obviously needed a ton of work.. I used an airless plastic welder to join the parts, wire mesh backing on all joints, and a heat gun to convince a couple of the lines to come together. The goal was not to use any filler or epoxy and have it look as stock as possible. A couple other Bonnie guys have done some interior plastics work before so finding the right SEM products was easy: Plastic Adhesion Promoter: 39863 Texture Coating: 39853 Color Coat: 15303 In the pic above, you can see the 6-speed trim not wanting to cooperate. I used a heat gun here to bring that section down to the Bonneville base. That's everything right up until paint and install. I hope to have it finished up soon. One nice thing about going with such a common car for the shifter trim is I can replace the boot with a stock or aftermarket part readily available.
  8. I haven't done as much as I would like the past few months but I was able to get a set of euro folding mirrors (RPO DD9) painted, wired, and installed. A while back on another forum I saw an overseas member had bought a donor 92' SSE/i with the euro export package and was going to junk the car once the drivetrain was pulled. I immediately pm'd asking to buy the mirrors. I made an offer without any detailed pics of the condition figuring anything cosmetic could be fixed. The deal took a while to materialize but the mirrors arrived a few months ago. The connectors were cut, 3/4 studs were missing, there were dremel grinding marks, and the paint was faded past the clear. So, they weren't in the best shape but I was more concerned with seizing the opportunity vs. condition at time for purchase. I had my painter buddy repair the dremel marks with plastic filler and paint them with the same Black Onyx 202 paint code as the body. Since they were off a SSE/i, I knew they were going to have a heater circuit but didn't know about the memory function. My non-heated, non-memory, power SLE mirrors have a 3 wire connector and the new DD9's come with a 6 wire connector. For whatever reason the wiring diagram for the power function was missing from my FSM.. Three of the 6 wires matched the colors on the SLE mirror (grey, dark blue, light blue), and there was continuity between 2 of the remaining wires (heater circuit).This only left one wire remaining (green). Next I used a 12v power supply to verify the heater circuit worked. Both did. Then I compared the power vs function of the 3 similarly colored wires between the DD9 and SLE mirrors. Some of the fuctions were the same between the two but not all worked on the DD9. I figured since theere was only one wire remaining on the DD9, it needed to be grounded/powered by at least 2 of the other 3. Turns out if I coupled the grey and the green wire, the DD9 functioned the same as the SLE's. I also decided to extended the heater wires down to the connector so I can add this function later without removing the mirrors. All wires were soldered and epoxy lined shrink tubed. And here's the folding action: >http://youtu.be/L2Auzc7rojU As far as I know I'm the only one in North America with a set of these.
  9. ^^Thanks Did a couple quick fixes. Turns out the pegs were aftermarket and the right one was cracked/welded. I replaced both with stock. The middle plastic chain guard had a broken mounting tab and the rear guard was missing. I picked up some stock ones and replaced the middle guard. I'm not sure if I want to install the rear or not at this point. I also bought a new chain and gears. The rear is a quick change rear with +1 tooth. And I'm also planning on dropping the exhaust to polish it. When I picked up my Duc I was a fan of the ex-box exhaust but it was pretty tarnished.. I looked around, found Stain-Magic and decided to give it a shot. I'm definitely happy with the results. I did try to use stainless polish on the outlet face of the box before this and it did help but didn't get rid of the orange hue. It also made it look a little inconsistent, so I ended up lightly polishing that face after I used the Stain-Magic.
  10. Rough day today.. it started off by not being able to find my stainless MIG wire. All of the welding supply places in my area were closed. I found a spot open on the other side of the city, took my bike, and battled traffic there and back. When I went to head to my buddy's shop, I realized my electrical problem came back.. Pulling that 6a fuse on the way over didn't help, nor did datalogging. When I got there, I tried pulling every fuse in the I/P fuse block and relay center that I could with the engine running with no change. I tried a new alternator, and it does a slightly better job of charging but the problem is still there. Other stuff I disconnected without change: The +12v reference sense wire to the alternator that I added The auto trans rewiring. (shift solenoid dummy bulbs, reverse light, wiring to make it think it's in drive) NB O2 All the aforementioned fuses with the new alt Disconnecting the PCM alternator signal wire stops the pulsing but also the charging (makes sense) and connecting only the voltage sense wire doesn't make it charge. Adding an extra engine ground didn't help. I got a intermittent cam sensor signal code that went away and manipulating the wires running to it didn't change it. I think there's a couple other things we tried.. but my head is kinda fried. While there, I was able to weld in a resonator I bought last year. I needed to center the exhaust better in the rear tunnel to gain clearance for the the resonator. The tips also needed some clearancing and work to get them lined up perfect in the bumper cut outs. The tone is a bit tamer but there's still rasp at high load/rpm. At this point, I think I can live with it. lol.. At least there was some progress today. There were quite a few tuning heads while driving it too.
  11. Today was a good day. I ended up repairing a few other things in the process of diagnosing that voltage issue. I repurposed the following pins at the PCM firewall connector for convince: White C6 (EGR and IAT ground) I didn't see the IAT ground initially. -fixed that White C10 (EGR +5v) Blue E10 (boost control) since this was originally a S1 L67 car Blue F12 (EGR position) Blue F14 (trans temp) All those checked out ok with the exception of the IAT ground. I checked the main fuse block - all fuses ok Passenger side relay center fuses - ok Driver's side I/P fuese block: 1C blown - Airbag - Replaced airbag module under the passenger seat what had water damage - fixed So it turned out not to be the corroded airbag module after all.. 5D A/C - missing - Replaced - fixed And while doing all this I noticed my fans weren't working properly. Everything forward of the firewall worked properly. If I grounded the wire on the relay running to the PCM the fans would turn on. I was getting +12v at the low speed pcm pin but not at the high. So, I rewired the high and all is good. With all the misc stuff out of the way I just started pulling fuses on the driver's I/P fuse block to see if I could isolate the problem. Sure enough when I pulled 6A, the interior light/sunroof/trunk light fuse, the problem went away. I disconnected the connector going to the headliner, trunk light, all interior lights, and still nothing. Then I finally disconnected the puddle lights I hooked up to go on with the interior lights.. That was it. Problem solved. It feels great to move on from this. It's been over a year I think with this issue. I drove the car around a bit, did an oil change and washed it up before I lost sun light.
  12. Thanks! The stainless cleaner didn't come in so I decided to work on the cluster. The MPH gauge had a small crack when I got it.. It eventually went up and diagonally more than 3/4 of the way across the bezel's face. New gauge clusters are 7-800, used are 400+ and every once in a while you'll see one for under 200. The face can't be bought alone and there's no easy way to cut out the convex lens without destroying the bezel. I wasn't trying to spend a few hundred so I've been looking for a compatible gauge off a similar Duc. I found one on ebay month or so ago but it had a crack in the bezel that wasn't mentioned in the description.. Returned without issue though. I've been keeping an eye out on part outs too without much luck in my price range. I found a 2002 Ducati Monster 620 IE gauge on ebay that looked similar and decided to give it a whirl. It was very similar in size/shape but held together much different. The face did not mount to my SR2's bucket and gauges.. What I decided to do was swap my S2R's guts unto the 620's. Some dremeling, cutting, and gluing was required but I was able to make it happen. And since the lens was in rough shape I wet sanded it with 2000 grit and sealed it with 50/50 thinner/urethane. The good thing is none of the S2R parts were modified. So I can swap it all back. The bad news is it's relying on a tight fit of the rubber grommet, and HV-350 (sealant/adhesive) to keep the face on. The HV-350 dries rubbery so it should be good with vibes. And the S2R gauge was slightly larger making the grommet tighter.
  13. I've had my license for about 3 years but never got not a bike till early May. It's an '07 Ducati Monster S2R800 and had 15k on it when I got it. The mods are: K&N panel filter, EX Box exhaust, tail chop, integrated LED tail, and a few deletes. The seller picked it up a year ago and said the valves were adjusted and the timing belts were changed by the original owner but there's no paperwork. It needed a battery, a good cleaning, and the gauge bezel had a crack. He was asking 5200 and I picked it up for 4200, so the final price reflected all that. It is crazy fun, sounds awesome, and I love the style. I did an oil change right after I got it but had the valves adjusted and belts done by a friend of a friend who owns a Euro bike shop. It was tough to pay someone else to do it but I didn't get the bike as a project.. and it was relatively cheap compared to estimates I've seen. I've also been slowly trying to clean it up. The drop mirror had an iron cross on it and I wasn't feeling it so I did this: Full pic here. The bike up it had these odd stains on the side plastics by the seat. Soap and water yielded zero improvement.. I decided to use Forever Black on them and they turned out great. The included cleaner lightened some of the stains but wouldn't remove them no matter how much I scrubbed. But, when I used the dye, it covered it all. Next up is cleaning up the exhaust. I've got about 2k on it and I'm loving every minute of it.
  14. Thanks guys! On the exterior, I'm sure I could cut/buff a lot of the scratches out but it honestly needs more than that in some areas. The glass has to come out to address some rust that popped up after the respray and the headlight conversion needs some touch up. Got lots to do before I revisit that though. I think I may have figured out what's been causing an electrical issue that's been going on for a while now.. The voltage pulses about every second and a half unless I'm datalogging. (weird right?) I went over some of the rewiring I did, fuses, I know it's not the alt, tried grounding out the data pin on the DLC, nothing. But.. The PCM isn't the only thing that uses that data pin. ABS and SIR (airbag) modules do as well. My airbag module is corroded to all hell (been on the to repair/replace list for a while) and it's fuse is blown. I'm going to replace it with a spare I have buried somewhere and repair/replace wiring as necessary. Hopefully that'll happen this weekend. If that works, I'll be beyond thrilled.
  15. I've got a few updates from my last. In May I finally got the car up on truck jack stands, transmission dropped, and took measurements to verify that the hydraulic throw out bearing was not over extending. The measurements checked out ok. (recap - HOTB was leaking from either over extension, bleeding incorrectly, or from the trans sitting in storage for a long period of time?) With the Spec HTOB spacer installed on a new HTOB: Fully extended: 2.51" to engine/trans mounting face Fully compressed: 3.395" to the engine/trans mounting face Both measurements above were taken with the bleeder screw portion of the clutch line installed and bleeder open. Distance from the engine/trans mounting face to the pressure plate fingers: 3.26" So, clutch disengagement happens almost immediately in the HTOB stroke. Or after 3.395-3.26= 0.135" into it's stroke. The plan always was to paint the trans similar to the auto trans I had previously: Man, I miss having a shiny side cover.. With the trans out to replace the hydraulic throw out bearing, there was no excuse not to: Like the first, the color is a bit odd to catch on camera. It doesn't flop and it's very close to anodized purple. And it's back on the road! The car is pretty dirty in the last couple pics.. I was in a bit of a rush to get the test ride in before the thunderstorms hit. I still have some minor electrical stuff to sort out but the drive went well otherwise.
  16. The headlights are finally finished. I picked up the BMW style corner bulbs and sockets to replace the stock Bonneville ones that I had been just jamming into the headlight. They didn't clear the rear mount I made I chopped them down, soldered them in through the bottom, and filled the plugs with potting epoxy to seal them. For sealing the projectors, I searched for a while and eventually came across roof flashing seals. I picked up the right size, cut them up accordingly, and it seals well.
  17. I consider myself pretty fortunate. There's a lot of reasons why but most applicable to this thread, she never complains about the time or money I put into my cars.
  18. Thanks. The one pic with the ballast mounted is a stock E39. I had to mount the ballasts elsewhere. The headlights are sealed with a 50/50 clear urethane and mineral spirits mix applied with a foam brush. Click the link in the last post for more info and results. This method seems to hold up great.
  19. Thanks^^ The weather has been crappy and the HTOB finally bled down enough for it to have trouble getting into gear. This hasn’t given much incentive to take the car out. And I've got a couple other things going on I'm trying to sort out before I rip the trans back out.. So, I decided to restore both headlight lenses and remount the projectors and highs. The clear on the outside was pealing and the mounts for the projectors and high beams were broke.. It's been something I've been putting off for a while.. I used a headlight restoration without tools method on the lenses. Before: Took them down to 400 grit: After 500, 600, 800, 1000, 1200 dry and 1500 and 2000 wet. Top is pre 50/50 urethane and mineral spirits and bottom after. Stock, the E39 headlights are mounted and adjusted from the rear of the headlight assembly. Both the projector and high beam lens are mounted together on one metal bracket and adjusted simultaneously. The assembly didn't fit so I had to figure out a way to mount the projector and high to the rear of the headlight lens. There were hollow shafts sticking out of the back of the lens around each of the two light holes. Four on the projector side and 3 on the high side. Originally, I epoxied threaded shafts into these holes and mounted the stock metal bracket on these. Over time the threaded shafts got loose and oxidized.. There were some clearancing issues since resolved that also contributed.. The assembly was never sealed either. The back was opened to the elements and dirt often made it's way in there. Stock: This time around I used slightly larger threaded shafts, tapped the holes and installed them with epoxy. They're also secured with a nut at the base. I separated the high and projector and made individual mounting brackets for each. The projectors are adjustable against 8lb springs and all hardware is stainless. I never use the high beams so I didn't make those adjustable. The highs are at least sealed against the lens except for the rear top hole. The projector shroud still needs to be sealed against the back of the lens.
  20. I emailed Ryan at Sinister after my last post and I got a detailed response 9 hours later. (can't say enough about that guy) Paraphrasing he said: The 97-99 3800 pcms calculate the speed differently from the 94-95s. In my pcm there’s a VSS calculation for the pcm and a separate instrument panel calculation which is manipulated by a divisor. The PPM value I can change does calibrate the speed for the internal pcm calculations but none of the options for the IP divisor will generate the needed 4k ppm output needed. The stock trans has a 30 tooth reluctor with 24k ppm. The F40 has a 72 tooth reluctor with 60k ppm. The stock ppm is divided by 6 to get a 4k output but there's nothing to divide the F40 ppm by to get 4k. Ryan suggested a Dakota Digital SGI-5. And since I know the internal ppm is correct, I decided to just manipulate the signal going to the cluster. While waiting for the SGI-5 I fried the power cable from the alt to the fuse box.. at the fuse box. The wire cover melted and the copper turned black.. My alternator also had a humming noise coming from it.. So, I made a new alt to fuse box wire, cleaned up the the fuse box contacts and cleaned up all my grounds. All while re-dielectric greasing everything. A strange problem I also had with the previous alt was I couldn't get it to charge without adding a 99+ H-body +12v ref sense wire. (common pre-99 3800 crowd mod) I installed a new alt without the sense wire and got it to charge fine. So that's good news. The SGI-5 came in so I got that installed. I took the Bonnie grocery shopping today.. lol.. but speedometer wasn't working.. Luckily it comes with diagnostic blinking lights to narrow down the problem. Wrong output type. I had it hooked up as 4k square wave out but it needed to be 4k AC. Simple fix. When verifying via GPS, the speedo seems spot on up to 50. I`ll verify further when I take it back on the highway. I routed the wiring into the glove box through a hole the PO had for a kill switch.
  21. That sucks! Hopefully everyone is safe.
  22. Kinda bad news.. The trans has to come back out. The hydraulic throw out bearing is leaking.. The HTOB spacer SPEC includes with the kit might not be thick enough to keep it from over extending. Background info - The G6 has a thicker dual mass flywheel. This means the HTOB had less distance to travel stock to hit the pressure plate. The spacer should have solved that problem but it looks like it didn't. Not really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. Especially since I can drive to my buddy's shop and work on a lift there. For now though, I'm going to drive it, dial in the tune, and work on a few misc. things. I was able to get over to my buddy's shop last week to get on a lift and the alignment rack. On the lift I installed real 5mm wheel spacers behind the rotors to space them correctly, did an oil change, clearanced a p/s line from the header, tied up the aft O2s, and bled the p/s a bit more. On the alignment rack I added a little more camber than I had before up front and got the toe in check. I'm about -1.6* camber all around. When they're not slammed with jobs they let me have free reign over their alignment rack. So I can go back and tweak whenever. Yesterday I got the dual widebands hooked back up (1 front bank, 1 both banks) and today I installed and unlocked a factory CD player with a new display bulb from corvette radios. An aux input is on the to-do list.. I like the radio to match so it's staying for a while. I've been trying to get the speedometer dialed in but haven't had much luck. The PPM function in my software doesn't change the cluster output. I played with the instrument panel divisor setting to get it lower at least but after I adjust past a certain point, the speed gets worse. I'm probably going to hit up Ryan at Sinister Performance for guidance on that. The car also wanted to stall out a lot when coming to a stop. I played with the IAC follower and commanded airflow per gear but ultimately fixed the problem by adjusting the idle set screw. Here's the car going through the first few gears (cluster speed is 1.7 times real speed): http://youtu.be/zPfwJ1ZJyLQ
  23. My W-body AGXs, 400lb springs up front, and a heavier car work pretty well.
  24. I've been busy the past few weeks.. I finished boxing in the unibody work with 1/4" steel and added another rail in the wheel well area. The bottom of the vertical sheet metal that I left was curved inward and closest to the trans when mocking things up. I opted to cut that out and add that wheel well rail right above it. This gave plenty of clearance when installing the trans. I underbodied in the void where the trans sits and I primed and rattle canned the top. I'll revisit the top with some more smoothing and real paint later. Clearancing the oil Jegs universal oil adapter and stock filter housing for the axle. For the custom length clutch line, I called up Rogue Engineering in NJ. They sell a DOT approved SS braided line for BMWs that have the same quick connect fitting on one end. The G6 has this fitting on both sides.. I was thinking I may have to run 2 of their lines with a double male adapter connecting the 2. I asked them if they can make a custom length line and they said 'We can do anything you want'. I LOVE hearing that.. 2 days later I had a custom line in my hand for $85 plus shipping. The only thing I was a little weary about was the size of the O-rings vs. larger stock G6, so I just swapped those over. Spec clutch kit for a S2 3800 and F40: The Hydraulic Throw Out Bearing spacer in the kit came on another HTOB that isn't the same as the G6. So, I just swapped the spacer on the one that came on my trans. The point of the spacer is to keep the HTOB from over extending when pressing into the pressure plate. The stock dual mass G6 setup has a higher stack height. G6 on left Clutch installed: Bracket for the relocated oil housing and re worked -10AN oil cooler routing: Bracket holds oil housing on the left. G6 brake pedal: More or less together: The electrical side of things was made easier by Ryan at Sinister Performance and Micky Moose on Fiero.nl: http://www.gmtuners.com/fiero/transbypass.htm http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20130314-2-116755.html And when I figured out that the Malibu hubs are 5-6mm shallower than 00+ H body: ^^ that kinda sucked and required a 5mm spacer behind the brake rotor to space it correctly in the caliper bracket. I drove it around the block last night and back and fourth down my street.. damn that felt good. My front alignment is way off and my tune needs some work but it runs and drives good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IBlsPoaJbw
  25. Literally right as I was about to start the unibody work, I got a phone call saying the powdercoated parts were ready.. lol. I picked those up yesterday and got a big chunk of the unibody work in. Both rails are fully welded in. Most of the work was in the prep.. and all the copper coloring is the weld through primer. I put this on before and as much as I can after to coat the exposed metal. Next step is boxing it all in with sheet metal. ^^ I didn't get a good pic of it but where the rail goes through the top of the unibody in the back, I had holes drilled so I could weld through the rail onto the unibody between the rail and the strut tower. I also cut a slit in the rail so I could weld through it inside the unibody by the strut tower.
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