20Nov

Let there be Light! Well… Reverse Lights, that is.

20 Nov 2023 Eric Hansen

Got back at it this morning after a quick trip to Harbor Freight for a new body saw so I can trim the wheel well openings to install the cut-out ‘wackers (3rd one in just 13 years – 2 in various states of failure from cutting apart the Mach 1).

First things first – tightened up the valve cover bolts as they were barely finger-tight. I know it said to ‘not over-tighten’ them, but dang – there was a lot of ‘tightening’ left to do. Hopefully, that’s the end of of the oil leak.

So here’s where we were from yesterday – pulled the main harness loose and started in on cleaning everything up.

I had to relocate a few things on the driver side to tidy things up a bit (I know it doesn’t look like it, but this is an ‘in-progress’ pic). Still need to find the steering column bolt and get the rest of the main harness over here. The cool hard line for the vapor vent to the Edelbrock Hi-Flow fuel pump was captured between the column shifter hardware – that’s fixed now.

SUCCESS!! After running the ’78’ wire over to the starter solenoid, I learned that it needed connectivity to the ‘S’ terminal, not the main ‘Batt’ post I’d suspected (that turned everything on once the battery was connected). I also discovered the 1156 in the passenger side had given up, but I’d ordered some 1156 LEDs to replace them – SCORE! (I still need to modify the YJ hatch to work with the CJ tailgate, but that’s for another day)

Wow – my phone’s camera does well with night pics – not even using the ‘Night Vision’ setting. I checked the air cleaner stinger thinking I needed to whack about an inch off, but it JUST clears the hood by a half inch or so, so it gets a reprieve. Everything’s re-ran, and the only thing not terminated and connected under the hood now is the A/C compressor circuit. That’s about the best I can do with the mess around the bulkhead connector – there’s a lot going on there with the key-powered relay, its fuse block, and the Edelbrock ECU.
I still have some of the bigger Painless sheathing left, so I’ll be putting those on the strut rods to clean up that look and clip all the zip-ties. Then I guess I’ll make some noise with the body saw when I install the ‘wackers. But first, pop on the new wiper blades, fill the wiper reservoir and test to see if the pump still works, run it through a coin-op car wash, and observe things while I’m driving. If I don’t hear any tire buzzing on the stock flares, I’ll take it to the inspection station to get blessed (otherwise, I’ll install the ‘wackers before we get an inspection).

Getting closer!