Getting There...a little Faster!

It hasn't been often that I felt I had made much progress, but the past two days I have. Still working on wiring, but I'm down to about a dozen wires to route so I can soon begin terminating everything inside the console.

I also have the dash wiring nearly complete so if I can find time in the next week or so, I should be at the point where I can check for shorts, grounds and continuity, and then install the dash.

I figured out how to wire the seat belt module and will be able to install the fuse panel as soon as those dozen or so wires are in place. Then the progress should be a little more obvious.

I got to reading about trunk mounted batteries and the experts suggested high amperage protection as close to the battery as possible, so I ordered a 50 amp circuit breaker  and it's on the way.  One unpleasant surprise was a nearly $5 tariff on the breaker. That's the first time I've seen that on the invoice and I'm curious to see the country of origin. It might be just another fool-the-buyer fee like inflated shipping charges.

I ordered some parts recently that fit in a 3X5 envelope and weighed a couple of ounces but they charged almost $10 for postage. I know they need to charge for handling, but I wish they would just be honest about what they are charging for.

More Than Just a Poet

Just a few weeks ago I dared predict that when my wife left to visit family over the holidays that I’d have loads of time and energy to commit to my project. Since that time, I’ve been flooded with unexpected demands on my time. Plumbing problems, heating problems, insurance problems, pool problems, and unexpected honey-do expectations, to say nothing about rain storms, cold, and high winds.

As I sit here sapped of energy but needing to post something, I decided to research the accuracy of a quote by poet Robert Burns that I vaguely recalled from my high school Literature class.

                 “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”

It described my situation and seemed the appropriate way to begin my post. Like so many things I attempt lately, I become too easily distracted, and while reading the best 150 Burns quotes, I was amazed how little our human frailties have changed since the 1790’s!

In my case he had an even better quote for my Plymouth project, though it better describes highway construction today:

                      “The best laid plans take 40 years to complete.”

Or another reality for those of us brazen enough to make predictions:

                       “There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.”

Then there is one for the followers of my blog who faithfully log on expecting more progress on my part:

                      “Suspense is worse than disappointment.”

Yet another describes my less-than-precise method of engineering and fabrication…the Burns Hog-Weighing Method:

             “(1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse"             

               (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.

             (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced

               (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.”

If that doesn’t work, just remember this:

“When matters are desperate, we must put on a desperate face.”

While I wasted time reading Burns, I could have routed and terminated a few console wires, but then I decided I might have more energy to work on the car if I eat lunch first. Maybe I’ll get a little more done in the remaining days of 2018…or maybe not. If not, Burns had something to say about year's end too, and in a couple of days we’ll be reminded:

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

                         And never brought to mind?

   Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

                        And auld lang syne!”

                              Chorus: 

                             For auld lang syne, my dear,

                             For auld lang syne.

                             We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,

                              For auld lang syne.”

As for you, dear readers, I have only one comment about what you claim is my procrastination:

                “Critics! Those cutthroat bandits standing in the path of fame!”

Console Wiring

The console is fastened in place again, and now I’m installing the last fuse and ground terminal strips. To isolate a new fused circuit for the LED lights, I removed one of the larger fuse blocks and replaced it with a smaller 2-fuse block with 1-amp fuses per the instrument manufacturer’s instructions. Two of the other circuits are original ’56 and are breaker protected to 15 amps, while additional added circuits require 5 and 10 amp fuses.

I routed nearly all the wires to and through the console, so the next step is terminating inside the console, but the seat control module wiring could be another headache. The seats used in my Valiant were from a 1999 Sebring and those in the ’56 are from a 2001. I still have the wiring info for my Valiant, but the new module has more and different colored wires. I hope it will be as simple as cross-checking functions to terminals. The important ones are those that control the seat belt locks from the inertia switch. I don’t need the time-delay relays and door activated switches the Sebring used, and the power seats are easy to identify. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

I’ll have to locate a schematic for the 2001 Sebring convertible, but the Google and Microsoft search engines gives priority to Ford, GM and Toyota, so it’s a tedious search. If anyone has a 2001 wiring manual handy, I’d love to have a scanned copy of the seat wiring pages, or a link to a source online.

It's the Dog, Ray, the DOG!

You are almost right Ray about slacking, but it’s not me, it’s the dog that’s holding up progress! I waste my time trying to teach her some smarts, and that eats into my car building time. All she does is follow me like a shadow, stopping occasionally to scratch an ear or lick her butt. She won’t get out of my way when I’m working and always sticks her nose into whatever I have in front of me, or she hops around on her back legs hoping to look cute enough to talk me into giving her something tasty to chew on. She is far too annoying to look cute!

Gracie took it upon herself to claim the hierarchal position held by Bonnie, my Shar Pei that died this past July. She doesn’t realize that her dumb looks with the underbite, too long nose, bulging eyes, and bad breath can never replace the wrinkled face, graceful style and lady-like dog manners of Bonnie. 

My wife’s Maltese, Cricket, is sweet, photogenic and smart and she favors my wife. Unfortunately, Gracie looks and acts like my side of the family.  I think she picked me because she’s more my style too…untrainable and ugly! She got her name by being so clumsy that she’d fall over just walking along.

She turns three-years-old this month, so I guess its been long enough that I’m stuck with her. Now that she thinks she's my dog, she wants to ride in the car all the time, but I’m embarrassed to take her anywhere with me. People think I should have a big working dog sitting in the seat beside me, and then the break into laughter when they see her sitting in my lap like a damn princess!

Ah well, I’m getting to old to worry about trying to look cool anymore, so I guess I’ll have to put up with the little white monster for a while.

Oh yeah…my car progress. Still working on wiring, but mostly Christmas shopping and fighting with insurance companies.

Update 12-1-18

I took my wife to the airport today, so with her gone for a month I should be able to spend more time on the car, but it's a mixed blessing as I sort of like having her around.

With the weather so nice the past few days, I actually accomplished a few car things, but no pictures to show yet.

Most obvious is the right side fender bolted in place, and roughly adjusted. I misplaced the original body spacers, so had to order more. I imagine I'll find the misplaced parts right after I install the left fender, but I'll wait a while to do that as it's much easier to work in the engine compartment with it off.

Not so obvious is the wiring. As I mentioned several times, it has been a hair-pulling,  confusing mess trying to electrically merge three different vehicles and at the same time upgrade things like lights, charging, and ignition circuits.

I'm finally at the point of routing wires to the console bus and to the back of the car. The more I'm able to install, terminate and tie in bundles, the less time I waste on research.

White Christmas - I Wish I was Back in the Army

With the serious observation of Veterans Day behind, and Christmas not far ahead, I'll post a  scene from my favorite Christmas movie. It sort of reminds me of myself in the mid-late sixties.

I left active duty in May of 1963, before any serious fighting began in Southeast Asia. When the shooting began, I tried to reenlist, but the Air Force recruiters were swamped with draft-avoiding applicants who had no desire to serve in the infantry. With all those eager-beavers hoping to get into Air Force and Navy technical jobs, the AF wasn't taking prior service vets unless they were already qualified in the combat career fields. To top it off,  they weren't even letting those guys retain the rank they held previously. I had been on a tactical  missile combat crew, but my missile was being phased out, so I couldn't even get my old job back.

Since I was married with two kids, there was no way I could afford losing a stripe in any situation. Military pay really sucked in those days, and promotions were very slow. I even considered joining the Army, but would have had to start all over by going through basic training again as a private E-2! Despite being on the AF recruiter's list in two states, it was 1972 before I was able to reenlist as an Active Reservist, but I retained my old rank. It all worked out well in the long run, and I spent another nineteen years having a job I loved.

Getting things  around here ready for winter has brought car restoration to a screeching  halt. When I do get a few minutes of my own, I work on wiring hook-up charts, but have hardly picked up a tool recently.

Winter has already arrived with a blast. From hot and rainy a few days ago, to heavy-coat weather the last week. Tonight we are expecting our first snow flakes to arrive, but nothing serious...with the exception of a cold north wind! My remaining tomato plants survived the first freeze when I covered them last week, but I doubt they will make it when the temps hit the low twenties tonight.

It looks like it will be early December before I can get back to the Plymouth, as my wife will be traveling to Las Vegas to spend the holidays with her son and his family. One dog and I will take care of things around here while she's gone, and the dog won't have a list of things she wants done every day! Besides, she only weighs ten pounds, so I'm still her boss.

How High's the Water Mama?

Not five feet high yet, but my entire yard is a few inches deep and it's still raining. The ditches are running like trout streams!

This is the wettest autumn in the Texas record books. With 2-1/2 months to go this year, we are already 11 inches above the average annual rainfall!

Worse than the rain is the wintery temperatures. I've never had to turn on the heat before November, but it's now been on for two weeks. When this latest cold front moved in two weeks ago, it was 16 F in the northwest panhandle, and 98 F in South Texas!

Car-wise, I'm still working on wiring. Seems like every time I install a few wires, I think of a better way to route them, so rework is the order of the day. If I could find better schematics online, it would go faster, but the search engines are so biased, whenever I look for Mopar diagrams the vast majority that come up are Chevy and Ford.

Final Answer!

If you’ve followed earlier posts about my steering wheel quandary, it looks as if I finally made a decision about what I want.

I started lacing the leather steering wheel cover in place a couple days ago, and despite many interruptions and a few frustrations, it is finally done.

The reason for a different steering wheel was partly because the Hollywood style rim was crumbling junk, which meant an expensive repair. The optional horn ring was surprisingly nice, but still needed re-plating, and since it’s pot metal, that too would cost a lot. Also, the splines on the stock Plymouth shaft were not the same as the truck shaft, meaning one of the parts would have to be reworked. More expense.

This is the Hollywood style horn ring:

 

Since I wasn’t especially fond of the chest-crushing point on the Hollywood horn ring, I decided to focus the wheel choice on a later, stock Mopar wheel for a base to build on, and do my best to customize it to look a little more like a possible fifties style.

I decided the stock wheel I removed from my ’73 truck was the best choice. It was the same depth as the one in the Plymouth, and it was the same 17” diameter. The other wheels I had available were smaller and without power steering I needed a larger wheel.This is the way it looked in my truck:

The seventies-style plastic-look didn’t seem right for a ’56 interior that boasted lots of brightwork, so the wheel I designed had to better fit in. The main styling feature I wanted to keep was a stock ’55-’56 center cap from the standard equipment wheel. As mentioned in a previous post, I did that using a road wheel aftermarket cap that I cut to fit. Since I also wanted a large expanse of chrome, I made sheet metal pieces to fit between the spokes, and after seeing them plated, I’m pleased to see them look so nice.

This is what I ended up with, and I think it fits in quite well with the modified Fury interior:

If I had used an aftermarket steering column and wheel, or restored the stock parts, the bill would have likely been well over $3,000. Using all Chrysler parts from my collection and mostly my own labor, the bill came to less than $500, including plating and leather cover!

Steering Wheel Status

The chrome shop delivered my horn-bar parts at 0900 this morning, and they did the usual beautiful job of plating. I can't say enough good things about the way they treat their customers.

 I epoxied the mounting hardware in place on the back of the chromed parts, so they will be dry by tomorrow morning and I can fit check everything.

When the mail arrived, I was surprised to find the leather wheel cover in the mail box, especially after the Monday holiday, so it took only two working days from California to my door! I now have all the parts I need to complete the steering wheel, so I got anxious and started lacing the cover in place. It's a slow process, and brutal on the fingers that I use to pull the lace tight, so I'm not sure when I will be done. I'll hold off taking pictures of the wheel until it's complete.

Wiring continues to be frustrating. I'm more than a little bit unsure about the column-mounted ignition switch in the '73-'76 truck column I'm using. I just noticed that the pigtail wire that carries power to the windshield wiper motor is AWG 14 on the hard-wired ignition switch, but the '56 body wiring diagram shows a 10 gauge for that circuit. Sounds like melted wires waiting to happen. The stock truck wiring was not well designed, and melted wires inside the column and fried switches were far too common, so I might have to reroute or add some new circuits and pick up the wiper power from a different source.

The wiring issues are quickly becoming my least favorite part of the project!

Shock and Awe!

More than once I've decided against a part or a modification because of price, but the price I was quoted by Dallas Steering Wheel to install a leather wrap on my steering wheel about put me into cardiac arrest! Their website ads show several European Super Cars, and I suppose I should have expected that those were the target customers for their products. Whatever, their prices are way out of my league.

The shock: They wanted $500 plus tax and shipping for two-tone leather and 1/8" padding. That's $475 more than what it cost for me to wrap the one on my truck. So, I decided to also do this one myself using a Wheel Skins single-color wrap over the 1/8" padding I had left over from when I installed the generic leather cover on my '73 D100. The high quality, custom made leather cover I'll use this time will be around $60 plus shipping. Not quite as pretty as the two-tone would have been, but for ten percent of the cost, it will do just fine!

I got started installing the padding yesterday, and the cover should be here in about a week.

The awe: I took the homemade horn bar parts to the plating shop in Gainesville, Texas yesterday. They quoted about $150 to plate the two parts, and a three-week wait, so I'll be getting back to wire routing for a while. Then, this morning they called and said they had squeezed them in between bigger jobs, and that I can pick them up this afternoon!

I'll go after them sometime tomorrow, and maybe I can have some pictures to post if I can get them mounted on the wheel.

The guy I dealt with at the chrome shop was interesting to visit with. He's eighty-one years old and works as a consultant two days a week after a lifelong career in the plating business. Four years older than me, and still working, while I've been retired for twenty-one years!

What made him interesting was his hobby as a top-fuel and funny car owner-driver for many years from the late fifties until the mid-eighties. It's interesting to hear the stories from the heyday of drag racing. He said he left when it was no longer a sport between friends.