March 30, 2003 - Horns, Cornering Light, Sail Panel

It's been a while since my last update. I've been away on business twice for a week each time and otherwise I've just been a little lazy about getting out there. I am running low on projects to do without spending copious money or having a parts car available. I managed to line up two parts cars, a 76 NYB and a 76 Newport. They are not ready to bring home yet so I'll have to wait another 2 or 3 weeks. I am hoping that one of those cars has a decent enough floor to use in the NYB. There are also a few other trinkets that I am hoping to find on the parts cars.

Today, I continued working on the electrical. The first thing I did was to remove the HUGE ancient horns that someone had mounted behind the grille. The stock horns were still there but they didn't work. I tested the horns themselves and they simply don't work so I am hoping that is the only problem as those are cheap and easy to replace. I got the big old horns out and also removed the OEM horns because I'll have to replace those anyway. That'll be a nice outing next weekend to the salvage yard to pick up replacements.

I decided to leave the grille halves out for a while in case I need to do more repairs in there.

Next, I turned to the right front turn signal and cornering light. I thought the fender mounted turn signal indicator was not functional but I guess I fixed that a while ago because it worked fine. That was nice to see. The running light that is mounted inside the cornering light was just burned out so I replaced the bulb and added a little dialectric grease to combat moisture. I then invesigated why the cornering light wasn't working and it wasn't hard at all to see why. The entire light socket was gone! There were just two wires hanging where there should be a socket. I rooted around in my parts stash and came up with a socket that came off a parts car, probably my 77 NYB (the white one). I had to solder some wires to it as they had been cut or broken off rather short. I got that all soldered into the car's wiring and the light works just fine now. :)

The light in the left sail panel wasn't working so I decided to take the panel off to fix it up a little while replacing the bulb. I took off the metal trim around the head liner perimeter, it will have to be cleaned up and painted due to some rust pitting. I got the sail panel off and had to really work at getting that old bulb out due to it being rusted into the socket. I'll probably take the right panel off too even though the bulb still works. The package shelf cover is in bad shape, warped and cracked. I hope I can get/make a replacement. I also removed the third brake light from the package shelf. Someone drilled three nice big holes in the thing to mount that stupid light in there. Then they had the genious idea to put a dual filament bulb in it and it melted the housing. They even had to file off one of the pins on the bulb base to get it in there! Those pins are staggered so you CAN'T put them in a single fillament socket! Try as you might, you can't slow down some people. I can't believe the stuff I am finding on that car!

At least now I have some stuff to paint and some cheap horns to install. I can now avoid spending money on carpet and the like for a while longer. I'll have to pony up the cash for that sooner or later though.