baby steps... two forward, one back!

[mike96]

well i was finally able to spend a little time with the car today... both the kids were out with some friends and the wife was at work, so... this past week up until today wasn't very eventful. i was able to get a few things done prior to till today but everything i did earlier this week kind of left me in a spot where i had to spend a little time to think about my next step. after painting the car (or at least the third of it that i did)i ended up letting the car sit for about a week before i really started screwing with it.

so this week was spent working on getting some of the little details in place so that i can work around other problems. for example i am in a position where i can put the interior 100% back in the car right now, however... i am planing on doing a color change to the interior. currently it is gray but will be changing it to solid black unless i can come up with some tan parts to do a full black and tan interior on it. so i could put the interior in but right now i don't have the free project money to afford the $40 - $50 in vinyl die that i would need to change over the interior to black. another thing i have been contemplating is the sound deadening. i was able to pick up a roll (yes only one) of the fake dynamat from lowes... this got me a little over half way done with the firewall, done enough that i could put the AC, heater, and blower motor back in and not effect me finishing the sound deadening...

there are a couple of other things that have me thinking about what to do next. biggest thing right now is getting a few dollars to fund the project. but the one that is going to be the most fun is the starter alignment plate.... you know the one i am talking about, thin sheet of steel that goes in between the engine and transmission..... yea turns out i thought that i had read somewhere that the only difference between the FWD and AWD cars were the flywheel and the starter. turns out that from what i can see from the starters look 100% identical, the flywheels are definitely different, and so is that plate... so yes you guessed it, i have a FWD starter plate on an AWD car... the only thing that is keeping me from doing this is the fact that the engine and transmission are still out of the car.

well anyway i think for now i am going to put the interior back in the car except for the dash board. this will give me an opportunity to decide what i am going to do with the dash and not have to pull it back out, and look to see if i am missing anything from the inside. the carpet is easy enough to pull out to get underneath for sound deadening, it isn't a major concern. i may leave a couple of other things out for the time being but for the most part it will go back together.

on to the progress pics. something to note that i have done (call me crazy) but i added a few things to the front wiring harness and did an upgrade to the wiring while i was there. i added in two larger wires from the factory fuse box to the inside of the car as well as two extra smaller fused wires. my fuse box had four unused fuse spots in the box that i took advantage of. two of the bigger fuses like the ones for the ABS and such (50 - 60 amp) and two of the regular smaller fuses. while i was in there i also ran a few extra wires for gages or whatever to the front one that somehow ended up in the wheel well. two that terminate by the oil filter and two that end up by the fuse box. and the last thing i did was replaced the two little tiny alternator wires with a nice big fat 2AWG wire... . i will try to remember to get a couple of extra pictures of this tomorrow...

after a roll of the fake dynamat...there is a double layer on a majority of the firewall and will be a double layer over the entire thing when i am done with it.

my back seat storage.

after the Hvac stuff and wiring harness have been most of the way put in.

back seats and what not...

engine compartment before and after some of the "little things" go into place...

and finally my colossal blunder.....

 

[4g63monstr]

I made the same mistake once, I had two motors, one from an AWD and one from a FWD, the FWD plate was in better shape and I didnt know the difference, so I put it on, put everything in the car, went to put the starter on, and wham! It happens, be glad you caught it when you did I guess. Did you get a new firewall sound deadening piece for inside the engine compartment?? This car looks fantastic! Doing it the right way the first time!

 

[mike96]

thanks, i am trying, although technically it is more like the 5th time on three cars... actually the one that is in the engine compartment just got a little cleaning done and was good...