Time for another update. When we left off it was the end of October and we were nearly ready to start the car for the first time. The first time we hooked the battery up after all of the wiring was a very deflating experience for me. There were so many Gremlins! First, the horn wouldn't stop blowing. That just turned out to be that the horn contacts were put together incorrectly under the horn button. Not a bad fix. Neither window would go up or down. That turned out to be the missing ground in the wiring diagram that some of you might have read about in the "Fast Power Windows" thread. Steve used the same diagram I used (I provided it to him), and he relived my frustration because I had forgotten about the problem and the solution until he already had it figured out. Fixing the windows wasn't so bad but took some time. Next the power door locks/keyless entry. I could get them to work on the key fob or work on the switch on the door but not both at the same time. I had them working on the key fob and then if you hit switch on the door it would blow the fuse. That took awhile to figure out and ended up being an error in the wiring diagram that came with the keyless entry system. Initially cooling fan 1 would run when commanded by the scanner, but cooling fan 2 wouldn't run. That turned out to be an issue in the tune. Enough already. You get the idea. There were a lot of issues to work through. By December though we had most of the issues worked out and went ahead and filled the cooling system, filled and bled the brakes and primed the LS with oil. It cranked right up but showed no oil pressure. Another wiring Gremlin. An easy one. The wire for the sender was on the wrong terminal on the sender. We got it cranked back up and it ran well. Our tuner (Blackbear Performance) had done a good job getting us a base tune set up. Here is a pic of the alive engine compartment. Not much different than what I posted above but the hood light is shining, there is washer fluid in the windshield washer bottle and though not visible, there is coolant in the coolant overflow bottle....
We did initially have some trouble with the idle recovering when returning to idle. After we worked through that and were feeling comfortable with all of the fluid levels and that the cooling fans would keep the engine cool, Sean worked on bolting in the unrestored, decrepit seats so we could take this beast for a ride!
In this next pic you can see our temporary shifter handle and you can see that we even had the stereo working by this point...
Here it is. An actual running, driving car. It had been almost 8-1/2 years since the car moved under its own power. It had quite a ways to go but you guys all can relate to how great it was to drive it around the neighborhood. The drivetrain was spectacular out of the box....
I think this picture is from later that night. I think this is the actual maiden voyage....
We were having fun and getting more comfortable with the car. Speeds started to increase. The tires on the old wheels were pretty scary and probably shouldn't have been driven on at all. We needed a set of tires at the least. My brother decided he really like the 17" version of the original equipment wheel. They came in midway through January......
Sean didn't waste much time in getting some tires mounted on them. We went with some Bridgestone Potenza's (I think). We largely selected them based on size. We were shooting for as close to the same overall size as the 245/60/15's that came off of the rear of the car.....
Here they are mounted up on the car.....
I think moving forward we may go a little narrower in the front. We have slight rub against the rear of the wheel well on a hard turn. I think they are perfect on the back. Here's the first trip to the gas station. I think it's a great picture....
More to come.......
We did initially have some trouble with the idle recovering when returning to idle. After we worked through that and were feeling comfortable with all of the fluid levels and that the cooling fans would keep the engine cool, Sean worked on bolting in the unrestored, decrepit seats so we could take this beast for a ride!
In this next pic you can see our temporary shifter handle and you can see that we even had the stereo working by this point...
Here it is. An actual running, driving car. It had been almost 8-1/2 years since the car moved under its own power. It had quite a ways to go but you guys all can relate to how great it was to drive it around the neighborhood. The drivetrain was spectacular out of the box....
I think this picture is from later that night. I think this is the actual maiden voyage....
We were having fun and getting more comfortable with the car. Speeds started to increase. The tires on the old wheels were pretty scary and probably shouldn't have been driven on at all. We needed a set of tires at the least. My brother decided he really like the 17" version of the original equipment wheel. They came in midway through January......
Sean didn't waste much time in getting some tires mounted on them. We went with some Bridgestone Potenza's (I think). We largely selected them based on size. We were shooting for as close to the same overall size as the 245/60/15's that came off of the rear of the car.....
Here they are mounted up on the car.....
I think moving forward we may go a little narrower in the front. We have slight rub against the rear of the wheel well on a hard turn. I think they are perfect on the back. Here's the first trip to the gas station. I think it's a great picture....
More to come.......
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