A new wiring harness - nothing but a dream?

As my old wiring harness looks like crap I decided to buy a new one.

The only problem is that the guys I'm buying it from don't have any in stock, the earliest they can have one done is in 4-5 weeks.

On top of that they might not even ship to Sweden and if they do it's via UPS or FedEx which will cost me roughly a ton of money.

Time to hit the forums and ask for advice yet again. :)

Update: I spoke to American Autowire instead and they only needed one week to build it and then another week to ship it. The best part of all is that they ship with the US Postal Services which means that shipping and insurance only added up to about $30!

So - a new engine harness within 2 weeks for around $180 (1280 Kr). Better than expected. :)

The engine is out and is being cleaned

I got the engine on a stand yesterday and spent most of the day taking it apart so much that I can paint it - cleaning it in the process.

All in all the innards of the engine looks really nice and clean and there's no metal filings or shavings to be found in the oil pickup filter.

The only thing that looks really bad is the gears for the MSD distributor billet, not a pretty sight at all. Here's how the cam end looks.

A handy tip: if you need to turn the crank shaft by hand, the shaft from the oil pump gear fits like a glove. :)

The cam itself looks quite alright to me - too bad about the worn out gear to the distributor.

I'll be going back to the garage this tuesday and keep on cleaning the engine and the engine bay.

Oh yeah - the old headers weren't broken, just very rusty and beat up, so I won't have to repair them. Another thing to strike from my list. :)

An update to my 'To-Do' list

I've updated the "Things to do this winter" list, striking out the things I'm going to wait with (or don't need to do at all) and adding a couple of other tasks that has cropped up during the journey.

It's hard to estimate the progress - especially for things like refurbishing the engine room - but I've tried to come up with a fair number.

Removing the engine, part 2

This past weekend I got around to getting the engine out. It wasn't all that hard, it just took some more or less tedious work. :)

The hardest part was removing some of the bolts that connected the transmission to the engine as they weren't exactly easy to reach. I broke off a spark plug and the connection from the water temperature giver but other than that all of the bolts and nuts came off easily enough.

There's a couple of parts - like the lines to the transmission from the radiator - that I need to replace. The engine mounts seems to be in need of replacement as well.

It would also seem as if my AC compressor is mounted a bit backwards, especially compared to this picture.

Only a few parts are in bigger need of a restoration than others but it'll still take quite a bit of time and money to get the engine and the engine compartment in the shape I want it.

Still, that's the fun part. :)

My credit card hurts

I just got off the phone with TA Performance, ordering some parts. The ones I needed are some oil mods (almost all of them) but I really wanted new headers as well (the super competition doesn't fit my car so the "regular" competition would have to do).

When I spoke to them yesterday they explained that shipping via UPS would cost me $677 (4840 Kr)! As always, the guys at V8Buick.com came to the rescue and hooked me up with a guy from Sweden that imports cars and parts on a regular basis. He agreed to help me out with a shipping cost of about $105 (cirka 750 Kr). A lot more sane than $677.

All in all this purchase will set me back $556 (3975 Kr) + shipping, customs and VAT - a grand total of $940 (6710 Kr).

The only comfort is that right now my Visa is only charged the $556, the additional $384 is coming later (a week in the case of the oil mods, 3 months in the case of the headers). I still need a new wiring harness for the engine though...

I got a lot done during the weekend - I just haven't had time to update. I will try to rectify that asap.

Removing the engine, part 1

Sunday I decided to start preparing for getting the engine out as I want to get started on the oil mods as soon as possible in case I run into problems.

The Buick factory manual has a checklist for this and the ever informative V8Buick.com had a number of pointers so it shouldn't be impossible to get this done properly. The guys I share garage space with has also done this numerous times before.

I really don't have a lot to write about here as it was very straight forward and if you need tips and tricks on this I warmly recommend the V8Buick.com thread.

My Picasa Web images for "engine removal".

Putting the dash back together

This Saturday I had planned to prepare for the engine removal but I realised that it would be better to get the dash back together first. Unfortunately working on the car felt like a chore the entire day.

I guess part of the reason for that feeling was that I still had some of my cold still in me. The fact that I was overconfident when I took the dash apart and had a really hard time recollecting where all the parts would go didn't make things better either.

I got the instrument cluster together except for some of the light bulbs in the instruments. The previous owners probably didn't care too much about them as I know I haven't misplaced any of them.

Another thing I couldn't reconnect due to my lackluster marking of wires is the switch to the rear window defroster. The helpful members on the V8Buick.com forum gave me some pointers that I'll try out this coming weekend.

At the end of the day I barely got the instrument cluster back in but decided to leave it at that as I needed to get working on the engine - I can work on the dash while waiting for the engine/engine room paint to dry.

The biggest headache after getting it back in was the fact that the generator light wouldn't go out even after I started the engine which means that either the generator is busted (and it worked before I stopped driving last year) or that the instrument cluster is borked.

I'll post that question to the board as well.

A timetable and a budget

After some thinking and counting I think I've come up with a plan. I won't touch the interior anymore, just put together what I've taken apart and if things needs to be repaired (like the dash, steering column, instrument cluster, etc, etc) I won't do it - I just don't have the time.

The engine is main focus right now and I will start preparing for getting it out of the car this coming Saturday. After the engine is done I'll fix the wobbly steering and then the leaky front windshield.

I "missed" two Saturdays due to extremely bad weather and then an equally bad cold so I'll spend both this coming Saturday and Sunday in the garage. On Sunday I'll get the dash and instrument cluster back into the car.

Pretty soon I'm going to have to get me another car due to me getting a new job. This means that I'll be able to go to the garage a lot more often than before. Which is nice.

Now - since I'm ordering parts from TA Performance I'll need to wait for those to arrive and since I just now fired off an e-mail to them asking how long it'll take for those parts to arrive I really can't plan too far ahead.

Nevertheless - the dash is going in this weekend and the engine is coming out the next one after that. I'll need some time to repaint and refurbish both it and the engine room so it really doesn't matter if I'll have to wait for the parts 3-4 weeks. I'm hoping to get the engine back in mid-April by the latest.

The "must have" items from TA are the oiling system mods; TA1502 (adjustable oil pressure regulator) and TA1510 (oil pump booster plate) so I can get the oil pressure up to proper levels.

If shipping doesn't kill me I'll also order a pair of TA2012CH (competition series headers) but that's not as crucial as the oil mods.

The oil mods are roughly $45, the headers $445 and I have no idea how much shipping is. The engine and engine room paint is another $100 I would guess.

Fixing the wobbly steering column won't cost me all too much I'm hoping but I just realised that the instructions I was about to follow is for a tilt steering column only - which I don't have. Oh well, I'll take look at it while the engine's out - should be enough wiggle room then I suppose.

Replacing the window is roughly $110 - or at least that's what I've been told. I might just do this before I get the engine out, all depending on how long shipping from TA takes as I need to drive the car to the shop that does this.

So, that's the plan - at least the bigger picture. I might be able to fiddle with the interior, trunk, paint, etc as well but I'm not counting on it. I'd rather get the engine well done than rushing it in order to get everything done before the summer.

I have to have something to do this winter as well...

Home sick

Yesterday I caught a really bad cold and can hardly think so I'm going to have to stay home today. Previous Saturday I was home due to the very crappy weather so I'm running out of time.

I'll try and sit down today and see if I can't estimate how much time I really need to "finish" the car before early May. I can always skip certain items on my to-do list but I need to get the engine out so I can fix the low oil pressure.

Shouldn't be impossible though, as long as I get to the garage that is.