Quick question I have the radiator out of a 2000 camaro and was going to adapt it into my 67 and like what you have done but I was wondering if you know if the hood will close with the radiator cap sticking up like that yet. And if it does do you still have the measurements in where you cut those holes. Thanks in advance

 

We will be finding out about the hood real soon. It is something we are concerned about. The slots are easy enough to measure for, just place the radiator where you wnat it and use a good scribe to mark off the sides and the clip centerline, Then we used a dremel cuttoff to hog them out. The lower driver side clip is the hardest, as there is a bit of the support on the other side to clear out of the way. Then we cut a piece of angel iron and used some old shock bushing we had lying around to keep it all from sliding back off. I imagine there are several ways to go about mounting the radiator, this is what we are trying first. If it works, it is the cleanest. I would reccomend mounting it about a half inch lower than we did, this may make the difference with the hood. It looks like it will be close. The lower rad hose looks like ti will line up nicely, but the upper hose is a no go. We will keep looking for that one.

 

Another evening of wiring....
Got the relay board all built up, and mounted on the fender. Ignore the plastic project box, it is temporary. We will have something nicer machined later. Got the control module for the cable-X mounted, the new washer pump and jar, and most of the front harness done. Could not find the type of junction block I want, so have a temporary block up until I do find one. Don't want that to hold things up. Have a few more connections to make in the front harness, and then it is time to get the fan control harness done. There are a few things left to do under the dash, and she is looking at how to mount a modern DIN style CD player into the car. Progress is being made. Finally got the new Magnecor wires in. They fit great around the headers, but are a royal bitch to get on. They make the only wires I have found with a 45 degree boot. You can get 7, 8, and 8.5mm wires. The 8.5mm are red only, part number 85259. Less than $55. Overall, the wiring is going pretty well, just tedious... Almost forgot, the new GM caps arrived today too. Not what we expected, when did GM start using these caps??? The P/S cap is really funny. Rad cap is fairly normal, and oil cap is unusual. They all seal nice though...

Relay board all built up.


Relay mounting location.


Washer jar, pump, Cable-X control and relay box.


Front harness almost done!


Driver side Magnecor


Pass side Magnecor

 

Just more wiring last night, and I imagine more today as well. Rebuilding the headlights and getting the new limit switches mounted and wired. Have decided that weatherpacks are a great invention. After building what feels like a million of them, they really are the easiest automotive grade connector I have worked with over the years. I really feel they are worth every penny. I am going to have to get a metri-pack kit sooner or later to compare with the weatherpacks. It is getting a bit crowded around the booster now, still working on making it look as neat as possible. SHould get the Dakota Digital box (tach adapter) mounted today as well. Gotta run to the DMV...

 

Nice job!

 

More wiring done today. Got the rear body harness rebuilt, and almsot ahve everything in the engine bay wired. Happy to report that the headlight doors are functional on the car for the first time in its life (car was not originally an RS), our wiring setup works. We started the wiring for the fan module, and have a bit of under dash work to do. Pulled the heater core, and the replacement we bought isn't even close to correct. Pretty upset over that.

Does anyone know if we can just solder the nipple back on using a plumbers rig???

Not bothering with pics, nothing looks much different, just a lot more weatherpacks than yesterday. Love those connectors. Moved the power distribution block, and still not happy with it. It seems way to fragile to me. I will keep looking for a better solution. Really thinking about modifying a bonding strip from an electrical panel to provide an isolated bus. We started a list of everything we have to do yet, and it is soooo long, it made me drink another beer. We still hope to fire it off next weekend, so a lot of busy days ahead....

 

what plug wires are you running?

 

If you read above, you will see that we wound up with the Magnecor 85259 8.5mm wires. They are not fun to install, the boots are really tight, but they clear the headers. They are fairly inexpensive as well, we found them for $55 at Ligenfelter. Had them 2 days later. You can use several of the Magnecor wires, the red ones are 8.5mm, the blue and black are thinner, 8mm and 7mm. We liked this solution a lot better than a sock. When it is all done next summer, it will be her show-off car. There are several things in the engine compartment right now that are temporary until we either find a better solution, or when the motor gets detailed while the car is being painted. I do suggest that when you are doing this swap, drill a few holes with grommets near the fuse block while you have everything out of the way, you will need them, and adding them after everything is back in isn't very fun.

 

Okay, we are almost done wiring. There is not much wiring left in the front or rear of the car, and we are starting to finish up the dash wiring. What a mess. Looks like her approach for mounting the modern stereo will work nicely. She ground out the factory plate to fit the sleeve, and then cut styrene to fit inside the bezel and hide the huge **** holes that were left in it. Looks good. We decided to try soldering the ehater core, and it holds 40psi of air, so 16psi of coolant shouldn't be a problem. Got that all back in. Finally found the bus bar I wanted at a boat store. That makes me feel better. The headlight relays are working, and the headlight doors have been fully tested now. They work great. Getting closer...

Passenger headlight door works.

Driver side works too.

Good, solid bus bar.

Built a whole new rear body harness for a whole lot less than buying a new one.

It is really crowded arounf the booster and fuse block area.

Still a lot to do under the dash yet...

Radio bezel build up.

Repaired the heater core.

It is getting a little more crowded in here than it used to be.

 

Where did you get all your wiring supplies. Terminals,seals, connector housings and such? Also the crimping tool to install the terminals and seals on the wires. Thanks

 

I bought the weatherpacks as a 608pc kit on e-bay from a vendor named mjmnational. It cost $145, but has a lot of connectors in it. It came with the crimper and extraction tool. They take a minute or so to build, and I really like them. All the ralays I used I bought from the stockroom at work, they are 40A 87a (double throw) style hella's. Misc. wire and terminal ends came from various auto parts stores as I needed them or ran out. We bought two convuluted tubing kits from Summit and it comes with a ton of tube. We bought the distribution block that is acting as the common point on the old horn relay at a local marine shop, which is also where the circuit breakers came from.

edit:
He currently has one of the 608pc sets listed. They come and go so keep looking...
Item 170117180846

 

Thanks on the connectors info. I'm looking for metri-pack terminals though to finish up mine. Thats a good price on that many terminals and connectors though.

 

There are several vendors offering Metri-Pack kits, I believe Summit and Jegs offer them as well. Note that Metri-packs tend to cost a bit more, and there are a lot of sizes that only have a mate for one end available as they are designed as sensor plugs. Good luck, I am sure they are avery bit as easy to build as the weatherpacks.

 

Well, not bothering with pics tonight, but a milstone has been reached. We unplugged the fuses to the computer, and hooked up the battery tonight. With all the under dash wiring finally finished, we couldn't help it. First discovery, the dome light is dead. Bulb must have blown a while ago and we never noticed, car isn't used at night. Console clock doesn't work, that is pretty typical. Have something messed up in the rear lighting harness, have to figure that out. Made an error in building up the relay system for the headlight doors. Now that the headlights are on realys, a point that was used to sense a voltage drop no longer senses a drop. Need to add one more realy to the system to compensate for that. They may have upset us with the hokey ****, but the DSE wiper motor works great. New stereo works, did discover that the rear package tray is not the one drilled for speaker holes. Interior and courtesy lighting works, and the headlights themselves are pretty bright, and that is without an alternator running. Dimmer works good. No smoke, no sparks, and a few minor bugs to work out (seems like the flasher for the turn signals might be bad), but once we get the normal stuff working again, there isn't much to do before we can apply power to the computer. Once that checks out, we are going to try and fire her up. We figure once all the electrical issues are worked out, then we will handle all the leaks, drips, and any lines that blow apart. We decided to run the heater hoses really long and wrap them around the inner wheelhouse. We hope that idea works out, makes for a neater engine bay. Have been adding ground straps everywhere for good measure. Obviously got the new battery cables built, and even remembered to add the fusible link. Power distribution block works so far. Didn't test the horn or the washer fluid pump. We still have not found a switch we like for the washer pump, and didn't want to add fluids just yet. It was an exciting night, even though we didn't get everything right on the first try. A few nights of putzing, and I am confident we can get the wiring problems sorted out and move onto the next step. We are really happy with how the catch can turned out, pictures soon on that one. Hope the radiator cap clears the hood....

 

Can you post the new diagram for the headlight doors with the updates? I will most likely use that for mine as they are electric too. I hope the motors are good.

 

I would be happy to email it to you as either a tif or a jpg, but it becomes unreadable when posted, had this problem witht he fluid drawings as well.

If the motors are not good, replacing them is $190, and the driver side will need a bit of modding as the replacement style motor hits the tension spring of the headlight. We bent the bracket back to align better with the new plate, and then re-drilled all the holes. Seems to work. It will make more sense once you are looking at it....

 

Here are the pics from last night, and the comments from a few minutes of troubleshooting, there are still no sparks yet, so pretty happy about that! The rear body harness problems that turned out to be a bad bulb that had the filiment shorting both paths together. Still need to add a relay to the headlight door circuit, and that should be it. We still need to drill and tap for the oil pressure siphon tube, and get the rear of the car finished (adding the RS backup lights, finish fuel pump connection, adjust traction bars). Once all that is done, it is time to fill fluids, do some fuel pressure testing, fix any leaks and drips that show up (expect a few), bleed the power steering, and fire her up. Really happy with how the hardlines for the catch can turned out. Hope like hell the fender fits with the heater hoses looped like this. We are slowly getting the interior hooked back up, and hope to install the console soon. THings are moving along, stay tuned...

Catch can location. The door clear it barely when closed.

Heater hose routing mentioned last night...

New battery cables.

Just a few more wires than it had 40 years ago!

This junction acts like the splice and horn relay from the original harness design...

Interior with 6000rpm redline tach. Almost ready to install console!!!!

 

That wiring looks like a lot of work! Good job though

 

You're a lot more patient than I am! The first time I fired mine, I didn't even have the cooling system or power steering hooked up (didn't have a belt on them either).

 

This car is her baby. No shortcuts allowed. If it takes another two weeks to start it, then she is willing to work through it. On the upside, once we do start it, there shouldn't be much left to do before we can drive it. With all the electrical issues we found in this car (40 years of people hacking into things), it is better to take it one step at a time. This is the first time the headlight doors ever worked (was not originally an RS), and the car hasn't had backup lights since it was converted from an automatic to a manual sometime in the past. The stereo setup was hokey as can be, and definately hailed form the 80's. The flexprint had cuts in it to be repaired, and the console wiring needed to be done. The rear body harness was incomplete, and we have found and repaired a million little splices throughout the car. Did discover tonight that the dome light is not burned out, but the wiring needs looked at, it works when wiggled. Added the extra relay to the headlight door setup, and imediately started tripping the breaker. Spent well over an hour figuring out the feedback path that kept the lights on, and realized I couldn't power that relay from the point I was using as it fed 4.6VDC back to the headlight relays through two other relay coils. I will be modifying the drawing to reflect this change and will get a new copy out to you, BADSZ28. At least we know that the circuit breaker works. Really freaky when it goes off, you can't miss noticing that. We got the new oil siphon tube run tonight, and a bit more tidying under the dash. Starting to look at what we still need to get the console hooked up, looks like we need a few clips, screws, and to drill two very inconveniently located holes. The temp gauge shows low temp, and the gas gauge shows no gas, and the oil pressure gauge shows no pressure, so they appear to either be working right or they are broken, no easy way to tell which yet. Clock does not work, but the clock in the stereo works, so that is fine. We are hoping that we are pretty much done with wiring now, but still have a few things to check out yet. Got the new oil filter on, but still haven't put in any fluids yet. Don't know if I will have to drop the trans to finish the console, so don't want to waste any fluid yet. Still really happy with the way the catch can turned out, getting better at bending 3/8 steel line. Not super happy with the install on the stereo, the modern stereos need a vertical surface, and the dash on the Camaro is really sloped, not super bad, but we will definately have to address a new mounting method when we do the interior work. I am certain we can design a better bezel for that. Maybe recess it back 1/2inch to a flat surface. Anyway, that we will deal with later. Would anyone mind doing something odd for us? Could someone pull the fuses to their computer, and measure the resistance from the switched power to ground (on the computer side of fuse holder), and the resistance on the constant hot side to the computer? I am a bit concerned that the computer is reading 0.7 ohms to ground (and is not a bad wire, if I pull the blue connector it is no longer infinate). It could just be a switching power supply at the input causing this, or something could have happened to our computer. I don't want to apply power until I am a bit more confident in it though. Overall things are moving along. I will be very happy to be done working under the dash of this thing though. Not a people friendly place to work. It is nice to finally have all the tailights working like they are supposed to, and started looking at the backup light installation. Not going to be fun, but it needs to be done.