1956 Chevy 210 Handyman Wagon

Hanging the NS and B/U lamp relays under the dash. These are right behind the instrument cluster and easy to access with the cluster removed.
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This is the 12v switched power lead for the back up lamps... As I found it. I cut it short right above the break and hard wired it into the relay. Did the same for the purple NS Switch wires and the green lead for the B/U lamps.
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I wired the relays thru these two micro switches that attach to the shifter. I wired them as negative ground to switch them on. The switches are wired to a common ground on the shifter and have two wires that run up the relays.
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All wired and tested. They work great and the car starts right up every time now...
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/

Whoever owned the car before you was a fool.

Astro, I just installed some new Classic Instrument gauges. The oil and temp sending units had a small disc of insulated "fiber board" for lack of a better term.

I tossed it as it seemed to be to large and butt ugly imo.. and wondered why you 'd insulate this connection?

Great work! I will be rewiring my 72 soon and i'm not looking forward to buying all the supplies again. :LOL:

Thanks Guys,
And Ryan, if you have to buy everything, do yourself a favor and get an AAW kit. EVERYTHING is included and they are much easier to install with the marked wire and instruction sheet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NTFDAY

Whoever owned the car before you was a fool.

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Ohhh, you don't realize how EXACTLY correct you are!!! Wrapping up the work this weekend I get everything done, the car starts and runs, and all of the lights work. EXCEPT when I test the blinkers. They are backwards. Right indicator (in the dash) blinks when the left turn signal is on and vice-versa for the Left indicator. Did I mention I also replaced both LED's in the dash because one was burnt out. I couldn't find a matching one so I just replaced them both. I wired them correctly, left to left and right to right... Now they are blinking wrong... I check the cluster to dash harness connector and sure enough, the idiot had the wires crossed between connectors. I swapped the leads in the cluster connector and now they are correct... My god what an imbecile!

I finished adjusting the Neutral Safety Switch on the shifter tonight. The car is all set for a drive as soon as it dries out around here.
The blinkers work!
The back up lights work!
The neutral safety switch works!
The tail lamps work!
The headlights work!
The alternator likes being a three wire much better then a one wire.
And the chassis, engine and body grounds are all much happier...
Now, before I re-install the shifter cover I am building a set of cup holders for it...
Hopefully I'll have need for them in the near future!

In 1964 I went home, Dayton, Ohio, on leave from Camp Pendleton to pick up a sbc powered 36 Ford 5 window coupe. A couple of weeks later I'm sitting the barracks when a buddy runs in to tell me that the car's on fire. The clown that owned the car before me had put 39 tail lights under the trunk and must have wired them with every small piece of wire he could find. He twisted all the connections and taped it up and some of the tape fell off and the wires shorted and caused the fire. The rest of the wiring wasn't in much better shape so I rewired the car which was a lot of fun as that was before kits of any kind. It never caught on fire again.

Just to keep the timeline current on this thread.
We had the wagon out this past Saturday. Maiden voyage with the new wiring. Did a small local car show and had a good day. The car ran well, didn't leave us stranded and got a top 25 at the show!
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The new wiring seems to have done the job. The car starts every time, the volt meter stays steady at 14 volts, even with the air on, and she runs down the road at about 170.
She does wander a bit going down the road so I think I will have the steering box checked out and get her aligned. Probably too much toe out so that needs to be addressed before I do too many trips with her.
Mark

After getting the wiring harness sorted out (rebuilt with bigger and better stuff!) the car starts and runs now and didn't leave us stranded when we went to a car show yesterday.
One thing it did need though was a set of cup holders. I built these out of some ABS sheet and PVC pipe. They are attached to the shifter console.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/
Developed a pattern using a cut up manila folder. Only one template is needed as I can just flip it over to make the left hand part.
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Making the brackets out of 1/8th inch thick ABS sheet. This has a texture on the other side.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/
I cut the plastic out on my vertical bandsaw.
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Using the heat gun on my soldering station I bent the plastic to match the angles on the shifter cover.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/
The heat gun runs at about 480 degrees when maxed out so it only took a few seconds to get the ABS hot enough to make nice bends.
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Both pieces bent up and fit to the "cup holders".
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/

The cup holders needed notches to clear the cup handles if necessary and they also needed something to keep the cups from falling thru.
I drilled the holes for the notches with a 7/8th's holesaw in my drill press and finished the notch with a hack saw.
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To keep the cups from falling thru I used some 1/8th diameter aluminum rod. Drilled three holes and heat pressed the rod into the other side by heating it up with the gun and just pushing it in. I super glued the loose ends after trimming them to length.
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All cleaned up. I sanded the seam smooth and rounded over the edges of the handle notch. These are glued into their respective brackets now and I am masking for paint. I used a general adhesive I picked up at the Home Depot. It is for PVC and ABS so it worked well with both mediums for this job.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/
All painted and hung up to dry. This is still wet. I used a satin black paint to kinda match the shine on the original console.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/

I bent up some ABS brackets and glued everything up. You can see one here. I used the same glue to attach the cup holders to the shifter console.
http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a4...D550/ry%3D400/
Bar clamps and spring clamps held everything in place while the glue set up. It only takes 10 minutes for this stuff to work so it went pretty quick.
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All ready to install in the car.
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In the car. They work very well! Used it Saturday to hold my travel mug full of hot coffee. Didn't spill a drop!
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I have about ten bucks invested in these including the price of the glue...
Mark

Those cup holders came out pretty sweet! Good Job...

Mark, what I like is your simple, straightforward approach on projects like this. I would have never considered PVC pipe for this, and if I did I wouldn't have thought to use the cement that they sell for joints as a surface attachment. Thanks for taking time to post.

Very nice work on the console/cup holder mod. That turned out very nice!

Hey guys, thanks for the compliments! Haven't been posting much because I haven't been on the boards. Counting today the wagon has been out to a friends repair shop for three weeks. We changed out the steering box initially, did the oil, trans, rear end fluid change stuff and decided to adjust the rockers to get rid of a lifter tick on the passenger side... Nope, not gonna do it.. Cam had a flat lobe... VERY flat! Needless to say that opened up a can of worms that we are just beginning to get closed.
The same day we found out about the bad cam I had ordered a fuel injection set up from Performance Fuel Injection. So, along with the the new cam, lifters, timing chain, intake, water pump, harmonic balancer, belts, hoses, radiator and A/C condenser brackets, I installed new supply and return lines, O2 Sensor, fuel pump and pre-filter, wiring, ECM, distributor, coil and TBI unit.... Whew...
We got the car fired up Saturday evening. Still have a few tweaks to make in the ECM to correct a rich exhaust and low idle but it is running again and I hope to head over to Kalamazoo Friday afternoon for the NSRA Nats. AFTER a front end alignment sometime this week.
Mark

Nice work!!

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You've been busy! Just curious, did you see a need to do anything special to flush the ground down cam lobe residue out of the engine, or did you find that it was mostly settled out in the pan with the really fine stuff caught by the filter?

Hey Roger,
Didn't know the cam was flat until after the oil had already been changed and the filter tossed. We changed the "brand new" oil after the cam swap and I will change it again after 500 miles or so. The 350 has an aftermarket 7 qt pan so hopefully there will be no consequences down the road. The oil pressure is pretty good at 40psi so I don't think there is any damage because of the cam going bad.

That is one fine looking wagon!!! Good thing you found that wire problem before it went up in smoke.
Those old Chev wagons always reminded of the old junior stock wagon of the 60-70's from the NHRA .

Sorry to hear about the cam issue, but it sounds like it's fixed up and good to go now! Have fun at the NSRA Nats!

I am too the point with this car that frustration is taking over. It runs, I drove it a couple of miles last evening but now the oil pressure gauge is dropping to zero at an idle. It is an electric gauge so tonight I am going to plug in a mechanical one to get a real reading.
I can't believe the pressure is really going to zero because the lifters are not making any noise when it drops that far. If pressure was down the lifters would be clacking and there is non of that. We'll see tonight I guess.
If the pressure is that bad I will have to cancel going to Kalamazoo this weekend. :(

Good luck, I hope it's just a bad gauge or sender!

Thanks Ryan!
Oil pressure is fine! The mechanical gauge worked much better then the electrical one! 50lbs of pressure at cold start and 25lbs at a hot idle. Running at 2500 rpm the pressure is between 65-70 so there are no worries on that end any more. The idle is real low, probably around 500 or 550 RPMs so the ECM will have to be re-mapped to bump it up. That won't happen today so I am going to leave the car home this weekend. Anyway, it looks like it will be up and running after the idle is adjusted so hopefully that can happen next week.
I will be in Kalamazoo, the hotel room is paid for and non-refundable at this late stage in the game. I'll leave the wagon home though.