Electrical Fun

Did a little more carb cleaning today, but not a lot. Still not done with the aft carb. I did remove the transmission cover, though. Looks like it is an original cover (pressed cardboard) that had a fiberglass coating placed on it. Also has a heat blanket underneath. Not sure, though. Forgot to take pics, but I will and get them posted.

Look, a transmission...only smaller!

Pulled the clutch slave cylinder out. As with most of my hydraulics, this one is pretty seized. Lots of white powder out of it, which I imagine is crystallized brake fluid? Silly me, failed to take a picture of it. So, now it's pretty cleaned up on the outside, but who knows on the inside.

Anyway, I'm soaking it with some WD-40 over night to see if that will soak through. If not, then I'll try actual brake fluid. If not...uh, a new one, I guess. I did order rebuild kits for all cylinders, but I may end up returning the clutch ones and getting a new master and slave. The brake master plunger moves freely, though I cannot get it out, but I also haven't tried real hard yet...I'll wait for the kit. I hope the front calipers are not too bad (they don't look horrible, but haven't been taken apart yet, either).

The initial find

But, the point of the post was what I figured out today. Seems as though we almost had a fire in this girl at some point in her life. The main brown ignition wire that runs from the ignition switch to the control box (and then to the starter solenoid) seems to have gotten rather hot and melted inside the harness. You can see the damage to the harness on the right.  The PO had put a jumper wire in...now I know why.

I cut the harness back to the firewall and all the other wires around it look fine and there is no exposed copper. I'm not sure if it would be worth it to keep going with the harness...I open up a huge can of worms to bring the harness into the passenger compartment from the front of the car just to replace a 3 foot piece of wire. I have a new wire standing by for installation, though I'm having problems finding a 3/8" wide female spade connector. Maybe I can reuse the one already on the car without breaking it?

Harness mostly cut back to firewall.

If you notice above, the brown wire that is all the way to the left and hanging off the red "platform" a bit...it doesn't have a connector. That is the solenoid end of the wire that comes from the control box. I cut the harness back enough to get this wire out of there for replacement.

Anyway, that's it's for now. More cleaning and such tomorrow. Maybe I'll get the Rustoleum down for all the nasty-ness you see.