It was a gorgeous day today in Southern New Hampshire — sunny and 70 degrees. It was an awful day to be sitting in the office, but it was definitely a day to work on the car when I got home.
I wanted to get the starter wired up, and maybe the coolant filled, in order to start the engine tomorrow. As it turned out, I tried to start it tonight, but failed.
I started off just opening up the garage door and rolling the car out of the garage. The garage had gotten quite messy in the last few weeks, and it was nice to wheel it out so I could at least give the garage a good sweep.
It was nice seeing the car sitting out on the driveway. It definitely had a “car” look about it — something my neighbor noticed and commented on.
After I’d swept up the garage a bit, I tightened up the heater lines and clamps. I’d been waiting to do that for a while, but didn’t want to forget when I filled the engine and radiator with coolant.
Then I wired up the starter. There were two wires run to it — a 4 gauge wire from the hot side of the starter solenoid to the power lead on the starter, and a 10 gauge wire from the output side of the solenoid to the trigger on the starter. I basically have two solenoids in the car as a result, but it made wiring easier. If I ever pull the engine, I’ll probably remove the solenoid under the firewall and replace it with a power distribution block, but its damn near impossible to get to anymore with everything in the engine bay. I couldn’t even reach the power wires on it — Jen had to connect up the power lead to the starter for me as my hands didn’t fit.
I also had to attach the two wires together in the dash that would normally be attached to a clutch safety switch or a neutral safety switch. Normally the car would be wired so it couldn’t start in gear. I don’t have a clutch switch and the midshifter on the transmission disabled the neutral switch, so I just tied the wires together.
The starter worked on the first try — frankly an exciting moment. Once the engine was turning over, I realized I really was very close to being able to start it, coolant or not.
In theory I had two things to do:
- Hook up oxygen sensor
- Wire the red and green wires in the TFI harness to the coil
I did that, I had a video camera going just in case it fired and … no dice.
I spent a bit of time trying to figure out why, but didn’t make any progress.
After poking around online for an hour this evening, I think I’ve figured out what may be going on.
The TFI harness connects between the ECU and the TFI distributor. The red wire goes to the TFI distributor, but when I pulled out the wires at the other end of the harness (which goes to the ECU), there was no red wire. My thinking now is that the red wire is not power TO the coil, but rather power FROM the coil — basically a 12v source to power the TFI module on the distributor.
If that’s the case, all I need to do is run a switched 12V wire to the coil and it should fire up. That’s the plan for the morning.
If the engine fires right away, the rest of the plan for tomorrow is, in order:
- Fill/burp coolant
- Rig side pipe mounts
- Mount dashboard using Velcro to the dash support hoop.
- Mount steering wheel
- Drive car to the end of the driveway
- Mount blower and heater/vent air intake hose
At that point it’ll be time to get the body on and finish the light wiring… hopefully I’ll be able to get the body on on Sunday if I get lucky.
I have a few parts hopefully coming next week — a metal panel that goes under the dash, which will help support the dash and a trim piece to go around the steering column, and a rivnut tool so I can get the transmission cover mounted.
I’m definitely making progress.