Above 1200 Sq/FT Cody's 33'x62' Garage

[madison069]

Nothing on the garage front, except cleaning up the garage and a landscaper brought over his mowers for me to service. I’m still waiting on oil, filters, and little bits for the two. Probably another two more hours of work left on them.


Got all the mowers together for a group picture since I was cleaning the garage.


I did all a taller mount for the fish finder on the front of the boat. It was hard to see the screen while seating in the front seat without bending down. So I put a little pedestal stand under it. Will see how it works out on the lake/river.



The new mount


Other then that, it’s just been a cleaning and organizing session in the garage.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Condolences on the loss of the pup, Cody!

 

[madison069]

nothing much in the garage yet, as I’ve been helping others and waiting on parts. But, I had to show off the new ratchet.

It’s so little!!







I bought it just for doing the spark plugs on the Subaru since there’s low clearance between the engine and the frame.

This is the Amazon ad for it,


I might have to use it more than just the spark plug to see if I like it.

 

[madison069]

Let’s start out with something pretty, and no it’s not me.

This flower was a flower my mom bought for Charlotte to give to my wife for mother days before she passed. It’s been growing for 2 years almost and has out grown its third pot. So, I repotted it again.


Not sure what kind of plant it is, but I’d like to see if I could get it to grow more fuller in this new pot. Any idea on the kind of plant it is?

This weekend was my daughter’s 9th birthday, so we hosted a party at the house for her. She wanted a piñata for her party and so we got one. Problem was we didn’t have a tree that would have worked for the job. So I used a hook I already had in the garage ceiling! Just put a pulley up there and ran a rope around it.

Didn’t take but 35 mins for the 9 kids to bust it open, and my daughter was the first to get it starting to bust.


Here’s the aftermath,


I’ll be finding candy around the garage for awhile….

After the party, sleepover, cleaning of the house and a nap…..

I got some time to work on the camaro.

Took the time to swap the vent end from the 4 to 6 vent opening. They sent me a tube of abs glue but apparently after closer inspection I found the end piece was just held on by two screws with foam to seal the joint.

See the holes?


So put the 6 vent opening on and put the two screws back on to hold it in place.


Started back on installing the case on the car and once I got the case in the car and hoses connected I stopped to apply vacuum. Got vacuum down to 29” and it’s been holding for an hour.


We will see if it continues to hold tomorrow before I run the pump some more to get moisture out of the system.
Then I’ll finish mounting the case back under the dash and on the firewall.

 

[madison069]

While pulling vacuum I took the time to clean the garage some more.

Here is a small stash of candy I’ve already picked up in the garage.


I’ll keep piling it up as I find more candy.

Then I modified the little wooden cart to hold mowers and make it easier to work on them off the truck.


After this I decided to call it a night.

 

[madison069]

It’s been 24 hrs Vintage air system is still holding vacuum.


So I got the evaporator case back on the firewall and now getting the wiring and the ducting back on is going to be fun…..


I left the gauges hooked up to monitor the vacuum as I continue working around the case. If it moves I’ll be double checking my steps.

 

[madison069]

So, while I build up the steam to get back on the wiring I should work on items that needs to go back in the car so I can wire them up.

So, here we are on the electric fans. Back in the days I cut the shroud to make clearance for the radiator hoses and petcock. Well, I didn’t close them up to reduce how much air is bypassing the radiator. Once I had the fiberglass kit I started working on closing those gaps. The gaps.




I used some hardware cloth to make a frame for the fiber glass to be laid on and held up til the resin cured.


Then I covered everything with wax paper that I didn’t want resin to get on and got busy.


Then I got the other two holes covered.


I’ll let it cure and then I’ll sand the fiberglass down before coating them in filler.

I also did some more cleaning and organizing, but that’s boring stuff. Kinda like watching fiberglass cure.

 

[madison069]

FInally got the Subaru Forester for it's 60,000 mile maintenace.

First up was replace the PCV and the hose. Good thing I had a new hose as the old one was really hard.


It's a little blurry at the bottom, but the silver hex on the new hose is the PCV. Subaru is notorious for leaking at the gaskets due to a plugged PCV, so I wanted to change it early as a precaution. Only the passenger side valve cover gasket shows some seepage of oil so I consider that a good thing.


Then I replaced the Cabin filter as it was time to change it.




Then it was the oil change time. This is the old vs new crush washer for the oil pan plug.



Then I tackled the front differential fluid. Here are the plugs, the biggest one is a T70 plug. It's the only plug that used the T70 bit that I bought for $20.


I attached a fuel hose to a small funnel and inserted the hose in the fill hole of the front differential and was able to fill it up from the engine bay.



There are two plugs on the bottom of the front differential, one is the drain plug and the other is a fill checker plug. So basically you pour fluid in the differential until it starts to stream out of the fill checker plug. I was able to get that steam as seen here,



Then I tackled the read differential and this thing is small, like my hand is bigger then the differential cover.

there was a little bit of fine metal on the drain plug magnet but nothing to worry about.


Here they are cleaned and ready for new gasket.



Those gaskets for each plugs was roughly $7 a piece online. I had to get 7 total, they better not leak!!!

Here is the rear differential getting filled up, only took .8qt. This mightyvac transfer pump is pretty handy for this situation.


Not finished yet so lets start another post for more pics.

 

[madison069]

Now here's the part that always makes me worry. Drain and fill the transmission. This is a CVT so they are picky if the fluid isn't changed often. Subaru even has 100,000 miles warranty on the transmission regardless of who owns it. So, as I said, picky. Yet they don't require fluid change as they consider them non-serviceable. Yet in other countries they list the fluid need to be changed every 60,000 miles and in some manuals it says every 30,000 miles. So who knows, but I rather go ahead and change it.

Here is it draining, and you can see the fill plug was removed.

Here is the drain plug and fill plug getting a new expensive gasket.


The fluid was dark, but nothing that seems alarming.

After cleaning up the mightyvac transfer pump I started pumping the Subaru CVT fluid in the unit until it drizzled out of the fill plug.



Then I loosely installed the fill plug and started the car. As per the manual the transmission needs to get up to 95-113*F temperature so I got this scan gauge installed to check the transmission temp, it's the TFT reading that reads 100 in the photo.



shifted the gear lever through the gears to circulate the oil some then got back under the car and filled it up til the fluid drizzled out of the fill plug. After I completed this task I put the used oil back in the empty bottles to see how much oil that drained out and I figured out that I actually put 3/4qt more then what drained out. This has been common as per the subaru facebook page and several service techs. So, it was a good thing I did the maintenance since the CVT was low.


Once I got the car back on the ground I took it for a ride and it seems like it's doing good. We will see as I put some miles on it if I did something wrong.




Now to take a shower and relax.

 

[madison069]

Now that I had a nap, I see I missed the point on the whole 100,000 miles warranty deal on the CVT.

So, Subaru’s CVT has questionable reliability as per the public. To ease the mind of new buyers the company decided to put a 100,000 miles warranty on a lot of older model CVT. My forester has the extended warranty on the CVT, but I plan to keep it longer than 100,000 miles. So instead of waiting for it to pop in 40,000 miles I decided to change the fluid. Short of doing a full flush, I did a drain and refill which changes roughly 4-5qts. Just enough to introduce new additives to the mix. Due to the warranty and Subaru long history of running this CVT and their failure investigation process, they pretty much have the knowledge of what works and what don’t work when it comes to the CVT. Only thing I disagree with is the non-serviceable idea. Seems folks who do regular drain and fill will get 200,000 miles out of their CVT with no issues. Plus the fact they list an actual mileage when the fluid should be drained and fill in other countries for the same year and model of CVT. Then there is the dealerships service offering of doing a drain and fill for $300, if it’s truly a non-serviceable CVT then they wouldn’t even off such a service and the tech wouldn’t have the info available in the manual to do such a task. So, I spent the money for the Subaru CVT brand of fluid so I don’t void the warranty and as I said, they know what works and don’t so might as well stick with the factory fluid.

So, doing this service myself I saved $150 and I have 3 extra quarts of the fluid for the next time.

 

[madison069]

Today was light, just finish up the Subaru such as mount the scan gauge to be able to monitor the water and trans temp. Not wild with how the screen slopes but the Velcro don’t really hold it in place well.


Then I cleaned up the electric fan for the camaro. Test fitted it on the radiator and I still have good clearance.


But I did blow through the fiberglass with the sander. Tried repairing it with more fiberglass but I think I should have used duraglass instead. I’ll mess with it tomorrow once the new glass sets.


Then I cleaned and painted the horns for the camaro.


Then I took my youngest to the movies to watch a classic, Labyrinth with David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly!

Now it’s time to relax and get adjusted to the time change….

 

[madison069]

Spent some time on the camaro. I put some duraglass on the fiberglass and then some filler to smooth it out.



Then some SEM paint to blend it all in place.
I think it came out ok.



I mounted the horns in their place. I will probably get a blockout panel for this area to clean up under the hood some. But that’s a project after I get it on the road.


Adjusted the nose and got it aligned with the hood.


Then I serviced the wiper motor with a clean up and grease. Then taped it off to paint it. I’ll pick up some hardware tomorrow and hopefully get it mounted on the firewall tomorrow.


Some progress was made. Hopefully I will be doing the wiring this weekend.

 

[madison069]

Some more progress tonight.

Got the rubber flap installed on the electric fan.

Back in the car, but I’ll have to remove the radiator cover to run the wire under the cover/mount.

Loosely installed the transmission cooler in its place. I need to build some brackets cause this is a different place than it was originally.


Got the wiper motor installed. Ignore the rat nest of wires.


Then I got the heater hose routed to the water pump port, but was 1ft short for the other hose to complete the loop. I’ll have to get some more tomorrow and then I can finish the heater part of the deal.



I’d like to get that passenger side inner fender back on cause I suspect I’ll be mounting some relay/fuses to the fender. Still working out the details so it might not go there. So much to do, yet so close to driving it.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

The last 10-15% takes the longest in my experience!

 

[madison069]

The last 10-15% takes the longest in my experience!

My wife asked me how much do I have left, I said roughly 20% maybe. Of course, in her head she thought that meant we will be riding in it next week. I had to explain to her it's the little details that eats up the time clock. But I am hoping to be able to drive it in May.

Only concern is if my rear glass will ever comes in. It seems everyone offers the glass, but nobody has it in stock. So, they have to ask manufacture to ship the glass and they all say May is the estimated timeline. This one company said they had it at the distribution center and so I ordered it from them and canceled the order with Summit. But now it's been delayed twice, and I've called to ask them to lay their hands on that glass, but they kept giving me the run around. I suspect I will have to wait longer for the rear glass or gamble with a used glass if I want to get it done sooner.

That brings up another issue, I need the front glass installed to get the wiper arms in order as it's possible that I will have interference with the hood hitting the wiper arms. But, I didn't want to install the front glass until I got the rear glass so the glass guy only has to come to the house once. Darn if I do, and Darn if I don't.

 

[madison069]

some time spent on the camaro today. Just seems to be lacking energy and desire at the moment.

Either way, I got the last heater hose installed and button up the hose assembly. Need to clean them up some with some fancy clamp but later.




Then I got the passenger side inner fender loosely installed.


Spent a lot of time fabricating these brackets for the transmission cooler. Still in the fabricating stage but I got it roughly made. I’ll take it all back out and do some more work on them and I’ll take better pics of the braces.


But I’m calling it a night. So good night folks!

 

[madison069]

So I was able to finish up the transmission cooler mounting brackets. As you can see I built the brackets to straddle the cross bar behind the bumper. I welded the nuts to the rear bracket strap to reduce the complication of installation.

The bracket,


The cross brace,


Since this is the driver side I had to make long transmission cooler lines. In hind sight I ordered a AN6 transmission line kit but what i had originally was AN4 transmission lines. DOH,,,

So i had to order new fittings to go to the new AN6 size. The fittings came in, but I won't be able to install them til tonight possible.

Then I worked on the wiring and I was able to get the wiring figured out along the driver side fender and so I put protective wire loom on them, then I placed them between the inner and outer fender to hid the wiring. I used strong magnet holders that uses zip ties to attach to the loom. I didn't get a picture but I'll show what it looks like when I do the passenger side.


Then I got brain fogged and ran out of wire loom so I stopped on the camaro and tinker with 3 mowers. I was able to get them all running and ready to sell. I've sold 6 mowers so far this year. I currently have 2 listed with one being sold today. Another mower is waiting for parts and it will be sold this week. Either way, I can't complain as it supports the hobby.



Then I organized the wrenches drawers. I really would like to upgrade to a larger tool chest but budget determines that's not possible right now.

So here is the metric wrenches,


Then the SAE drawers,



The denim rollups has Wright tools sets in them. So Metric roll is from 6mm to 24mm with no skips, and SAE roll is 1/4" to 1 1/4" i think. Nice tools, but I don't have the room to set them in a nice wrench holder right now so I just pull them put and roll them on the table when I'm using them.

 

[madison069]

Finally got the transmission line made and installed. Now I need to clamp them down and ensure they won’t rub on anything.

Transmission end,

Clearance around the header,

And at the transmission cooler.


I had to make a loop for one connection due to the interference from the bracket by the connection. I ended up using 16’ of the 20’ line they sent me.

 

[madison069]

Ok ok, replaced the turn signal lense on the front. They were bugging me and now comparing to the new lenses they were faded bad.

The buggered up lense compare to new one.



The semi ok one,


Big difference, but it came at a cost of $113 for just two lense.

 

[madison069]

Here are the little magnets, strong little things. I’m sure three of them under the fenders will hold the wiring harness securely.




I tucked the wires on the passenger side under the fender tonight. Along with took the time to reinstall the inner fender and battery tray properly.


I was able to get the driver side lights all wired properly. Tucked the wires under the edge to hide it when looking from the front. I’ll place a few magnet mount in place.



I ran the wires under the radiator cover and secured them properly under the radiator support. Then I also got the horns wired up before I reinstalled the radiator cover/holder.

Now I need to finish up the passenger side. There are several things going to this corner such as the lights, ac wiring, and the electric fan.

I

I called it a night as I rather be fresh minded as I tackle this corner. I know the car needs a good cleaning. Something I plan to do once I get it close to finish to drive.

 

[madison069]

Had a little time before tonight’s activity and I wa able to get the lights wired up. I now need to figure out the electric fan wiring and ac wiring. Need to figure out a solution to power several things at the battery instead of attaching all the wires to the battery terminal.


Of course I realized I forgot to run a wire for the electric fan temp sensor on the intake. DOH. Need to decide if I should pull the harness out along the front and driver side fender to run a sensor wire for the fan relays or just run a wire on the frame and up behind the engine?

Either way, tonight was the youngest’s basketball championship game and her team won the championship! They dominated the season and went undefeated the whole season!

 

[madison069]

At lunch time I took the time to run a thermostat sensor wire for the electric fan. I just ran a single wire in its own wire loom and zip tied it to the main wiring harness that passes through the radiator area and between the fenders.



I also put the battery in its place to see where I have some room for the relays and so on. Yea there’s not much room in here. I see some post covers in my future.


And I put some hose holders on the ac and heater hoses. It looks better, but not 100% happy with them. I’ll tinker with it some more later. But I did check the vacuum on the ac and it’s still holding so that’s a big plus!


Nothing happening tonight as I had to move my in laws furnitures after work and I’m just tired and sore after work and moving.

 

[madison069]

Folks the eagle has landed, it might of cost $300 for shipping but I finally got a rear glass for the camaro.

I didn’t think the wooden crate was needed seeing how the front windshield was shipped without one. But it made it safe to the shipping dock I had to go pick it up from.

Got the turn signal bulbs in place, and installed lense.



I got a couple of small chips in the paint around the rear glass so it currently stirring the paint slowly before I attempt the job of filling in the chips. Also got some fine detail brushes coming in for the job.


I got progress made on the wiring, I routed the engine wires in a loom and also got the wiper motor wiring terminated. A bit of a pain as the delay wiring harness had to be lengthened and then pass through a hole under the wiper motor. So I had to remove the wiper motor to get to the hole and install the grommet.

The hole,


The terminated plugs on wiper motor.


Next I’ll work on the distributor wires and also route the ac compressor plug, electric choke, alternator wire, and electric fan temp sensor.

Maybe I’ll get it done this week.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Cody, that's awesome that the rear glass came in! One less thing to worry about.

 

[zmotorsports]

Now that I had a nap, I see I missed the point on the whole 100,000 miles warranty deal on the CVT.

So, Subaru’s CVT has questionable reliability as per the public. To ease the mind of new buyers the company decided to put a 100,000 miles warranty on a lot of older model CVT. My forester has the extended warranty on the CVT, but I plan to keep it longer than 100,000 miles. So instead of waiting for it to pop in 40,000 miles I decided to change the fluid. Short of doing a full flush, I did a drain and refill which changes roughly 4-5qts. Just enough to introduce new additives to the mix. Due to the warranty and Subaru long history of running this CVT and their failure investigation process, they pretty much have the knowledge of what works and what don’t work when it comes to the CVT. Only thing I disagree with is the non-serviceable idea. Seems folks who do regular drain and fill will get 200,000 miles out of their CVT with no issues. Plus the fact they list an actual mileage when the fluid should be drained and fill in other countries for the same year and model of CVT. Then there is the dealerships service offering of doing a drain and fill for $300, if it’s truly a non-serviceable CVT then they wouldn’t even off such a service and the tech wouldn’t have the info available in the manual to do such a task. So, I spent the money for the Subaru CVT brand of fluid so I don’t void the warranty and as I said, they know what works and don’t so might as well stick with the factory fluid.

So, doing this service myself I saved $150 and I have 3 extra quarts of the fluid for the next time.

This was my exact same thoughts when my DIL had her Crosstrek pertaining to fluids. Other countries list out the service intervals on the CVT's for these cars, but in the U.S. they don't stipulate or even recommend changing fluids and cover their tracks by giving the blanket statement of "lifetime fluids" in the CVT. I don't buy it and therefore changed it regularly to keep fresh fluid and additives in the system.

The car was a decent car for her the first 80k+ miles of its life, but if I'm being honest, I'm glad they sold it and moved on. I'm personally not a fan of CVT's in anything other than a snowmobile.

 

[madison069]

Cody, that's awesome that the rear glass came in! One less thing to worry about.

You and me both! Now I just need to get a knowledgeable guy who can install these old car glasses. Gonna reach out and see if a buddy of mine knows a guy. He said he had a glass guy who does his glass at his shop. We will see if this glass guy can make a visit!

 

[madison069]

This was my exact same thoughts when my DIL had her Crosstrek pertaining to fluids. Other countries list out the service intervals on the CVT's for these cars, but in the U.S. they don't stipulate or even recommend changing fluids and cover their tracks by giving the blanket statement of "lifetime fluids" in the CVT. I don't buy it and therefore changed it regularly to keep fresh fluid and additives in the system.

The car was a decent car for her the first 80k+ miles of its life, but if I'm being honest, I'm glad they sold it and moved on. I'm personally not a fan of CVT's in anything other than a snowmobile.

I'll be changing the fluid every 30,000 miles just to do as you say, keep fresh additives in it.

I'm torn about the CVT myself, it's an awesome setup in the ice's snow cover roads around here. Smooth action and provides good gas mileage being it's AWD. But, I do love my gears though. I like the feel of the shift in the non-cvt cars but we will see. So far I've got 200 miles on the fresh fluid changes so I suspect I did it right and can now go to the next stage of replacing spark plugs and rotate the tires to inspect all 4 corners of the car.

 

[madison069]

Had to replace a crush washer on the middle daughter’s car. Apparently a copper washer will not work for the car and it’s a special crush copper washer. So, I tried out the trick of using a shop vac to put a vacuum on the engine chamber to hold the oil back while I pull the oil drain plug. I’m impress and it worked so well that I didn’t have a single drop of oil on the floor when I got done! I taped a piece of pvc on the end of the hose for a better seal on the oil fill port and had the middle daughter hold the hose in position. You can see the pvc on the hose.



I’m still collecting candy around the shop from the birthday party. Wife suspects I’m eating them but jokes on her, I’m collecting them in this pile to see just how much candy the kids missed. This doesn’t include the damage candy as they went in the trash.


On the camaro I got the wires to the distributor terminated, and got a plan for the 6ga wire that goes from the alternator to the mega fuse and then to the starter. Problem is I need a crimper for the 6ga wire. So I am waiting on the new crimper to come in the mail. Was supposed to come in on Thursday but now it’s saying Saturday.

When I’m done with wiring, I’m going to need a new 3 tier toolbox setup for just all of the wiring tools, terminals, wires, tape and etc that’s related to wiring chores!

 

[OutlawDrifter]

When I’m done with wiring, I’m going to need a new 3 tier toolbox setup for just all of the wiring tools, terminals, wires, tape and etc that’s related to wiring chores!

That's a good thing, I love when I have a custom harness or wiring repair to be made, cause I know I have all the stuff in my box to do it!

That vacuum trick is pretty cool, my buddy recently had to do that on his pickup.

 

[Bob Heine]

Problem is I need a crimper for the 6ga wire. So I am waiting on the new crimper to come in the mail.

Cody, in my official role as enabler I want to make sure you are aware of tools that could make your life easier. In addition to the manual crimpers, I purchased a hydraulic unit to crimp larger wires. In addition to crimping electrical connectors, I use it to make neat cable eyes. I've made several tensioning cables for the five gates around our yard. When wet from rain the gates tend to tip the mounting posts, mis-aligning the gate latch. I could use the u-bolt clamps but those are bulky. The hydraulic crimper lets me make neat cable eyes real easy.

Amazon.com

 

[madison069]

Cody, in my official role as enabler I want to make sure you are aware of tools that could make your life easier. In addition to the manual crimpers, I purchased a hydraulic unit to crimp larger wires. In addition to crimping electrical connectors, I use it to make neat cable eyes. I've made several tensioning cables for the five gates around our yard. When wet from rain the gates tend to tip the mounting posts, mis-aligning the gate latch. I could use the u-bolt clamps but those are bulky. The hydraulic crimper lets me make neat cable eyes real easy.

Amazon.com

I cancelled my original order and now have a hydraulic version coming in. What I originally ordered looked like bolt cutters with dies on the end. I can see where the hydraulic version would be better in a tight area such as engine bay.

 

[madison069]

Today was a mix day.

I picked up two mowers from trash.


Got the handle on one squared away with bits I’ve scavenged off junk mowers. Then I got them to fire up on starting fluid so they are good cores. Then I pressure washed them to be a little cleaner during disassembly.


The cub cadet is a electric start unit so I’ll see if I can get that working also.

I also picked up a torch set from trash. Haven’t dug into it yet but I might be replacing the hose first. Need to do a closer inspection on the setup.


Only thing I done was touch up some chips around the rear glass area to prepare it for the new glass. I’m waiting for some 2000, 3000, and 5000 grit paper to sand down the touch up paint so it blends better with the surrounding paint and then I’ll polish the touch up spots. I should have remove that rear glass before paint but I learned my lesson now.

 

[madison069]

Since I’m waiting of stuff for the camaro, I tinkered with the mowers. The green one needs a spring for the governor system, of course they don’t make them anymore and I’m unsure of which spring it is since there’s no photo of it in the part list. I’ll try a few I have in my collection first.

Then the yellow cub cadet runs good, but I think there’s an issue with the self propelled transmission. Motor runs good after cleaning the carb. I’m going to hold off on the transmission repair due to the time involved in disassembly and repairing.

Torch kit had one junk hose wrapped around it, and another hose with the torch and regulator attached. The regulator is for bigger bottles so I had no way to attach to the little bottles. The oxygen bottle has gas in it while the acetylene bottle is empty. I’m unsure if they are rental or owner bottles. The carry caddy was busted on the bottom so I ended up throwing the bad hose, and carry caddy. The rest is on the shelf for a later time.

 

[Bob Heine]

Cody, I broke down and bought the Lincoln version of that portable Oxy-Acetylene torch kit two and a half years ago. Still haven't had the tanks filled. So far, the Mapp torch I have has gotten things hot enough. I just swapped the second tank that came with the Bernzomatic kit. Pretty sure I bought the kit last century.

 

[madison069]

Cody, I broke down and bought the Lincoln version of that portable Oxy-Acetylene torch kit two and a half years ago. Still haven't had the tanks filled. So far, the Mapp torch I have has gotten things hot enough. I just swapped the second tank that came with the Bernzomatic kit. Pretty sure I bought the kit last century.

I’m thinking I’ll be throwing the whole lot away. Just isn’t worth using due to the age and uncertainty. I might take the little bottles to my gas place when I need to fill one of my bottles. Maybe they will take it, or else can tell me what I can do with them other then wind chime material.

 

[madison069]

Was able to finish up the wiring under the hood. Only thing left is to secure some wires once the proper clips comes in the mail.

This is the megafuse that was included in the wiring kit. I placed it behind the inner fender on the firewall to keep it out of sight.



in the future when I pull the motor out, I plan to smooth the fireall out and clean this all up. But for now, it's just going to have to be as I don't want to do the work yet. Plus, it's possible I'll be changing the motor in the future to either a roller lifter block or a LS. We will see. But i did plug the holes with sealant that was going into the cab to keep the water out of the cab. Not the greatest work, but it works.



Then I made a plate to hold the electric fan relays in the passenger side corner under the fender by the battery. I think it came out nice, but just busy in the this corner due to AC, lights, and electric fan wiring all over the place.



Then I replaced a boot on the steering shaft as the old one was cracked in 2.





I also sold the pop-up camper. It was time to let it go. Was going to need more work then I care to put into it Plus I am wanting a hard side instead of dealing with a pop-up if I get back into a trailer.



I am still going through the engine bay tieing up loose ends. Once i get it done I'll go back under the dash area and finish the wiring. I have to install the dakota gauge cluster wiring system and finish up some little bits of wiring before I hopefully install the dash for the last time for awhile.

 

[madison069]

So a little update.

Crimped some connectors for battery cables with the new hydraulic crimper that Bob recommended. Very easy to use, alittle awkward at first but I got use it after afew connecctions.


Took the youngest to a BB gun safety course. She wants to shoot the big bullets now and I told her lets start with the .22lr first. She's in the pink hoodie.



Electrical test before I button the dash back up. The work with the hurst neutral and reverse light switch is working flawlessly.


This radiator hose was on my oldest's daughter's car and it had the telltale signs of leakage with the red/pink crust around the plastic ******. I went to pick at the crust and the ****** just popped off. Luckily the part store had a hose in stock and I had it replaced within 20 mins.



Then i finally got the back and front glass installed in the camaro. Unfortunately, the original front glass I had was shattered in a corner and I never saw it til we pulled it out for installation day. So, I was out of the money for that glass since it was delivered back in December 2023. The glass company that I found that would actually work on older cars and install my glass that i didn't buy from them, did have a front glass for my car in stock. So they got them both installed.



Now I need to button up the dash installation and recover the front seats. Then it's a bunch of little things I need to take care of before it's maiden voyage.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Good to see you posting Cody and glad to see your daughter take to shooting!

Camaro is looking good, definitely a bummer about the front glass, however.

 

[bj383ss]

Camaro looks great Cody. Something about when the new glass goes in gets you excited. The Garage is looking great too. Looks like you did a bunch of cleaning and organizing.

Bret

 

[madison069]

Good to see you posting Cody and glad to see your daughter take to shooting!

Camaro is looking good, definitely a bummer about the front glass, however.

It is good that she's interested in shooting, I need to get her out to shoot a .22lr for some practice. Maybe this weekend I can take her to a buddy's place and do some shooting in the pasture.

It was a bummer with the glass. The installer was pulling the glass out and said " oh no," All I could do was just say, " do you have one in stock?" Luckily the front was easier to get.