Next on my agenda was to pull the dash to clean up all connections, properly align the windshield, install a new choke cable, replace the broken/cracked windshield washer hoses, and clean up the guages. So, removal of the dash is really not difficult on paper, but once you try and stick a big hand up there behind it- the problems become obvious. It's attached to the car with 6 ( I think ) nuts across the top and two on each side of the bottom. I started by removing the glove box and two main guages to get at the upper nuts. After that- it's just trying to figure out what needs to come out of the dash to get to the upper nuts. Next out was the center air vents. Finally, I could barely get to each nut and completely removed the dash.
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| various vent and heat hoses behing glove box |
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| glove box and dash vents out of the way |
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| getting at the upper nut above the oil pressure guage |
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| almost there...... |
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| It's out! |
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| back of dash |
This is the point in this job that it chaged direction dramatically. So, I started to notice a recuring melted strip spiraling around the main wire harness, so I decided to pull off some of the blue wrap- and this is what I found. Two of the brown wires (always hot on this car) had melted into the surrounding wires for at least 36" of the harness. The more blue tape I peeled off, the worse it became. Obviously, I came to the realization pretty quickly that I would be needing a NEW complete main wiring harness for this old girl.
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| uh-oh- this looks troubling |
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| you can see here some of the other wires a melted brown wire took with it. |
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| I'm suprised the car actually ran/drove with this mess |
So, while I waited about 8 weeks for the harness to be made and shipped over from the UK, I started in on some of the other projects that might as well get accomplished while the dash is out. I removed the wiper motor so I could disassemble it and replace the old grease inside it. I also removed the wiper drives for all three wipers and cleaned/lubed them up as well. Replacing the windshield washer hoses are simple with the dash out, so those were replaced as well.
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| wiper motor with broken ground wire |
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| wiper motor and mount is out |
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| old grease inside motor |
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| these are the metal vents that are behind the dash. The thin ones are the pieces on top af the dash that the defrost air comes out of. |
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| clear tubing is the new washer tubing- the old stuff was crumbled and cracked |
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behind the dash with new washer tubing. I obviously labled the wires as I pulled them off.
You can also see the brass looking thin tube which is the feed for the mechanical oil pressure guage. Below that is the end of the speedometer cable that has the silver sleeve on the end. |
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| (3) wiper drives |
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| wiper drive close-up |
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| three wipers. One of the wiper drive chrome covers is laying next to where the drive was. |
So, I also needed a new washer fluid container since the original was a weird gray vinyl bag that was cracked and torn. I remembered that i had removed a coolant overflow tank from a car a sold a few years ago. I dug it out and figured I could just use that instead of buying a new bag. All I had to do was make up a bracket for it so you can just pull it out instead of actually boltong it to the car. No real reason for that- it just seemed cooler and I had some time to kill. I bent up and riveted together some scrap aluminium and it seems to work just fine. The original hose connection actually fits perfectly in the top of the old cooland tank.
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| it's a little ugly, but that is some yankee thrift right there..... |
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instaled- looks like it's always been there..... I guess.
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I was also able to get an original plastic fan from the gentleman who sold me the rear leaf spring- so I went ahead and cleaned it up and installed it. No big trouble except I had to move the radiator forward a little bit to get to the bolts that hold it on to the end of the waterpump.
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| old and new- the metal one was aftermarket. I assumed it was installed with the air conditioning to provide more air movement |
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| cleans up pretty well |
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| installed! Now that is starting to look like a proper MBG powerplant. |
That is good enough for this post. Next up- I install the new wiring harness.
Here in the new harness in the first pic and how I felt with this daunting task in front of me (fyi, the install itself took approximately 20 hours...) in the second photo:
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| new harness- I had already started to tag some of the wires to help me later |
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| Help!!! |
