My '76 restoration (long post)

[Fastphil]

In response to the question about the amplifier getting hot: I'm no expert, but I think you really have to be blasting the music for long periods of time to get the amp hot, and even then it won't get hot enough to melt your carpet. Bring on the Metallica!

 

[denpo]

I have to try sewing leather one day, maybe some two tone door panel covers.... The pattern for my VW seems very simple (just flat)....

definitely. I'm using pretty thick leather here, but for panel you'd probably need much thinner leather, sewing it wouldn't be much harder than vynil. Even easier.

When I said the shifter gets hot I meant the sun heats it up.....

That's what I understood. Just like the way aluminum oven trays cool down when took out of the oven compared to steel ones (muuuuch faster), I was thinking my knob could not store that much heat before cooling down by itself.
Maybe I'm using moot logic here, we'll see.

Hope a rubber boot is used underneath the leather, that keeps the hot air outta the console/compartment....

See the pink material? That's the usual silicon cookie sheet. It's trapped between the tranny and the shifter and then wrap the whole hole.
So the tranny is outside, but the shifter is actually inside the car. Save me a boot, still seal everything from the outside.

 

[mrvette]

I have to try sewing leather one day, maybe some two tone door panel covers.... The pattern for my VW seems very simple (just flat)....

definitely. I'm using pretty thick leather here, but for panel you'd probably need much thinner leather, sewing it wouldn't be much harder than vynil. Even easier.

When I said the shifter gets hot I meant the sun heats it up.....

That's what I understood. Just like the way aluminum oven trays cool down when took out of the oven compared to steel ones (muuuuch faster), I was thinking my knob could not store that much heat before cooling down by itself.
Maybe I'm using moot logic here, we'll see.

Hope a rubber boot is used underneath the leather, that keeps the hot air outta the console/compartment....

See the pink material? That's the usual silicon cookie sheet. It's trapped between the tranny and the shifter and then wrap the whole hole.
So the tranny is outside, but the shifter is actually inside the car. Save me a boot, still seal everything from the outside.

PINK??? must be aftermarket, or made in fairy land.....no, I think of a material like a old innertube, sealed to the floorboard/hump and then really snug on the shifter arm, then the leather on top, tied to the console/bezel is just a decorative thing....but on stock STICK shift sharks the rubber seal was used......

I can't remember tearing out a auto shark console and what was the primary seal....

the leather is meant to be decorative, NOT a pressure/heat seal at any rate....

:crutches:

 

[denpo]

PINK??? must be aftermarket, or made in fairy land.....no, I think of a material like a old innertube, sealed to the floorboard/hump and then really snug on the shifter arm, then the leather on top, tied to the console/bezel is just a decorative thing....but on stock STICK shift sharks the rubber seal was used......

I can't remember tearing out a auto shark console and what was the primary seal....

the leather is meant to be decorative, NOT a pressure/heat seal at any rate....

:crutches:

Don't worry Gene, leather is of course purely decorative.

 

[denpo]

I'm stuck on a serious eletrical nonsense, the kind of bug that force you to put back down everything *once again*.
So In between my head scratching/hair pulling sessions, I'm finding little details that needed attention.

Door switches : I had three pairs of switches in pityfull shape. I tored them all apart and managed to rebuilt two good one. It's all about removing the plastic piece at the back without breaking it more than it is already.
Not shown on pic : I added some epoxy glue to the crack on the single connector switch.



Believe it or not, the nut and the yellow metal tube would not make electrical contact. I could polish the tube, but couldn't access the inner of the tube.
I ended putting a bead of solder.




Now I could hear the infamous sound of the key buzzer (probably haven't run for decades...). I'm wondering if anyone ever looked for replacement, a more gentle ding sound.



Another thing that was bugging me is my replacement led light bulbs.
They light great, but the way the base is made is really *ahem*.


See how vaguely the tab are formed.


The tabs are to short to begin with, and at the first constraint they collapse in. They was not holding in the socket as well as the old one. With all the vibrations.... last thing I wanna do it go hunting a lightbulb that felt in my speedo.

So I decided to make the one out of the best of both.

I Gutted out the old bulbs, made sure not to touch the black ceramic base.


I dismantled the LED bulb.


They are easy to pry open, it's help by just a dab of something like hot glue.


To be frank I didn't know the base of lightbulb was made of some kind of solder.



With a solder pump I removed the old bulb lamp tip until I got a hole. At that point the filament inside has fallen.



Then reinserted the old base one the LED head. They are much tighter than before.



I soldered the tips, et voila! (ok, still need to cut the filament and file the tup...)



Now, it you excuse me, 'got hairs to pull.

 

[mrvette]

Nutz I tell you , just nutz.....:crutches:

U need a hobby or something to keep your head from banging on the wall......:flash:

 

[denpo]

Nutz I tell you , just nutz.....:crutches:

U need a hobby or something to keep your head from banging on the wall......:flash:

A hobby? You mean like restoring a Corvette? No thanks :tth:

 

[MYBAD79]

Great job!!!! but.......that is just far far beyond my patience......

:crutches: :crutches:

 

[denpo]

Great job!!!! but.......that is just far far beyond my patience......

:crutches: :crutches:

Thanks Karsten
Let's say I know I'll have no patience to tear it down again once it will be done.

 

[denpo]

Tonight I made a great step forward. I had my high-side led dimmer prototype working (finally!)

As you may or may not know, LED can't be dimmed with a simple variation of voltage, LED have to be dimmed with a PWM (pulse width modulation), meaning you need to make it flash very fast, so fast it's perceived and continuous light. As you lengthen the gap between each flash, the LEDs look dimmer.
So you need a special device to generate this kind of 'chopped' voltage source.

Problem is, in the electronic world the logical way to cut a circuit, is to do it low side, meaning you hook your led on the positive side of the voltage source, and it's on the way back to the ground that you put your electronic high speed switch.
The obvious problem with the Vette (like also all cars I guess), is that you have no control of the ground. You send the voltage on the plus side, and that's it.
That why you need a high side dimmer, one that cut the circuit between the + source and the led.
And such dimmer are nowhere to be found, it's always easier to wire the LED to be switched on the low side.

I'm getting better at electronic and I finally managed to hack a regular low side dimmer to function as an high side one.




On the top right you can see hacked part of the circuit






Mind you, this is just a prototype.

Now I can put a module like this at the source of all interior light (the grey wires) and dim them all, without any rewiring.

But that's only the first step....
Now I want to reuse the original variable resistor at the head of the headlight switch to control the dimming level.
It's another story, the resistor varies from 0 to 5 Ohms. That's very low.
An engineer friend gave the direction : feed the "varistor" with a constant current and see how the voltage drop after passing through it.
I will also need and op-amp to amplify the signal to a level that can be sensed by a microcontroller.

I already cut the link on the switch between connector 3 and 4.


Pin 2 and 3 will connect to a seperate sensing circuit, while what was supposed to connect to pin 2 (the interior light bulb circuit) will be reconnected directly to pin 4, giving the led an unaltered voltage source.

The other good news it that now that I found out my infamous bug and solved the dimming problem, I can reclose everything. I'll just make two wires go from the headlight switch to the central control, I'll put my sensing/dimming device there.

 

[greg75vette]

I don't even know what to say except I admire and fear what you're doing here.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

I don't even know what to say except I admire and fear what you're doing here.

there's a reason they're known as those crazy canucks

 

[denpo]

I don't even know what to say except I admire and fear what you're doing here.

Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment if you please :rofl:

 

[mrvette]

I don't even know what to say except I admire and fear what you're doing here.

Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment if you please :rofl:

Just put in a lightbulb in place of the fuse, when it don't work, the light bulb lights, not the fuse.....:harhar:

 

[denpo]

Here is the my led dimming wiring:



Notice the dark green wire is now directly connected to the pair of brown wire.
It used to be at the place of the black wire.
It's just that now it doesn't go through the resistor.

Of the 4 wires of my own connector :
A pair (red/black) goes to headlight variable resistor, now disconnected from the rest of the switch's circuit.
Of the second pair (yellow/black), yellow goes pick up the grey wire as it leaves the fuse box, as the black is supposed to send it back to the grey circuit.

For the sake of testing I made a dummy device that just closes the circuit. Probably this weekend I will plug in my prototype dimmer, and eventually will install a custom device that will read the resistor to dim accordingly.

Almost forget :
I took me a while to realize I was missing the switch ground strap. Used the tab instead. Wire goes to one of the gauge back plate screw.



I closed the whole driver dash back in. And now EVERYTHING works.
Flasher, emergency flasher, headlight, hi indicator, brake indicator, key warning buzzer, courtesy lights, switch courtesy bypass, backlight.
Variable resistor probed through my connector report the correct range (0-5ohm).
I'm all good. Finally.

 

[denpo]

This gonna be a pretty Xmassy post today.
Santa knows I've been a good boy.
He knows I've spent days polishing my SS trims















I did 600/800/1000/1200 (all but 600 are wet sanding), polish on hard wheel with black compound then polish on smooth wheel with green compound.
Both polishing have been done in two passes, one hard then one smooth.

Then test-installed the whole setup :


By the way if someone has a close pic of the screws that goes on top of the T trim, that would be cool.

So since I've done my homework, Santa made sure I receive all the cool stuff I ordered.

First is something I've been searching for a while.



Glass fuse to Blade fuse adapter.
I ordered a pack of 8 and only received 7, I'm sure they will sort this out.
How many time I broke the glass fuse while trying to remove it.


Next gift is a pair of DRL/Flasher combo.






I'm kind of torn. If I was listening to the crazy in my, I'd cut the bumper and put them in, same position as picture, just higher.
That would be cool, but those unit are not designed to work at such a steep angle. They are bevel shaped, just not enough.
With those mounted flush to the bumper, the light would be spread outward.
How bad would it be? well, I think I need to make some real life tests to find out.


Last gift, is a pair of exhaust tips.










They're called LT-1 tip, and I'm pretty sure it's a copy of some of muscle car era.
Never have the ebay warping syndrome?
When object have the tendency to grow or shrink out of proportions between the moment you order them and the moment you receive them.
Well, those exhausts are the exception that proves the theory.
The size is just perfect.
I don't have much backup to get the big picture, but I feel it will look cool.
I will probably screen mesh them.

I've also resumed bodywork, small repair/modification that I'll document later. I don't want to get into big stuff before I've sealed my interior.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

stainless, nice

I used to build kitchen equipment for restaurants out of stainless steel, and I spent the better part of a week designing and building funnels that looked just like those exhaust tips (for a pickle factory, for those who are curious)

thanks for bringing back some well-repressed memories :cussing:

alors Joyeux Noel

 

[denpo]

stainless, nice

I used to build kitchen equipment for restaurants out of stainless steel, and I spent the better part of a week designing and building funnels that looked just like those exhaust tips (for a pickle factory, for those who are curious)

thanks for bringing back some well-repressed memories :cussing:

alors Joyeux Noel

Thanks you Aaron. Merry Christmass to you and every one on the forum.

 

[denpo]

Happy New Year everyone!


Xmass holidays are ending and I'm can confirm the bodywork virus is back.
I didn't do as much as I could, mostly cleaning and mudding the door, remember I stopped at the front clip last spring.
Turn out what was just a detail because a major job.
Here is the thing, I has my driver side back door switch area severely damaged.
I suspect someone tried to slam the door without the striker pin installed.
Since I ditched the stock alarm system and the new one don't rely on those switch, I decided remove it as the complete surrounding needed repair.
And since I do that on the driver side, I have to do it also on the passenger side. Witch I took pic of.



Area just after cutting off the switch and grinding a contact area.





Masking






A small band of wet fiberglass backed with the usual resin+fiberglass powder mix. I've waited until it was well into curing.





I then dabbed the back side of the hole with some mix, then applied some fiber back with mix. I pushed the whole thing as far as I could.





Then sanded the whole thing off, down to the level in first picture. I just wanted a clean uniform backing for my actual glassing.





Masking again



Fiberglass, 3 layers, in one pass.



Sanding again, halfway through



Rough sanding done



I now got to fine sand and mud the area.

I'm really close to call a wrap on the repairs and the preparation of the body.
Now I got to seriously start thinking how deep in want to go in the custom bodywork thing.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

nice work....

I have the flares and the body panels for mine, but I'll admit that I'm finding it hard to get started because fiberglass work is so itchy