My 1974 Money Pit: Mods & Updates

[74_Coach]

Today, I decided to replace the rear clearance lights with sealed LED lights. Since I will be re-painting this beast in a few years, i needed a way to unplug the clearance lights instead of painting around them or cutting the wires then using a butt connector later.

As you may already know, the OEM lights have the ground wire riveted to the base of the light assembly and the 12v hot wire connected to a socket for the bulb. Both wires must be cut in order to hook up to the sealed LED lights.

I have some old Ford bullet wires that seal nicely once connected so I purchased more bullet pigtails to use for both the front and rear clearance lights.

These still require butt connectors but everything is 16 gauge wire and these can be shoved inside the 1/2” clearance hole for each light. It drives me nuts that most automotive electrical uses red for + and black for - but then someone decided they would use black for + and white for - Consequently, I added red heat shrink on the + lead coming out of the LED lights to remind me which lead is 12 volt. I also used the protected rubber sleeve on the + lead and the unprotected bullet for the - lead coming from the GMC wiring.

 

[74_Coach]

It’s been awhile since I installed the new dinette. The GMC was at the shop for over 1.5 years doing a minor overhaul: new timing chain/gears, remove oil pan and install a new rear main seal (460 ford seal), new oil pump, pull tranny and replace all seals and test it plus install Manny gear/chain, install new water pump, swap out 3.07 final drive with rebuilt 3.21 final drive.

Anyway, I was waiting to rebuild the jackknife sofa with new materials. I just got it back yesterday so here it is. No more pokey buttons.


Next up was to reinstall the new dinette and figure out how much wood to cutoff on the bottom cushions that is forcing them to stick out in the isle and hanging up full retraction of the jackknife sofa. Once I trim the seat base wood, I will have my upholsterer trim the seat foam and re-sew the seat material.

 

[74_Coach]

Today’s project involves prepping my replacement steering wheel which is an 1990 Oldsmobile 88 steering wheel, backing plastic and horn pad.

This particular wheel was leather wrapped from the factory but it didn’t include the horn pad. I did find a good horn pad on eBay (see below). However, it’s the wrong color but the seller of the steering wheel just happened to list the color as Oldsmobile Dark Sienna. As paint projects often go, it took 8 cans of expensive spray paint to finally get an exact color match. Paint My Ride out of North Carolina had exactly what I needed and I will be using a base coat urethane on top of SEM Adhesion Promoter (don’t leave home without it).



The biggest headache is disassembling the horn pad without snapping off the plastic nibs that holds the backing plate to the flexible plastic cover. I bought a second horn pad as a test so in case I break a nib no big deal. That test horn pad was originally burgundy and is now painted to match the wheel (see image below). Yes, the Oldsmobile insignia is upside down and I did break both nibs but now I have a process to avoid that issue entirely and I will post that process soon.

 

[74_Coach]

On this horn pad, there are 4 plastic nibs with speed nuts holding it against the plastic base.

Here are a few of the tools I used to pry the speed nut off of the plastic nibs.

I purchased the longer tools off of Griots Garage and they have come in quite handy. The speed nuts need to be slowly pried upward to come off. I used the smaller jewelers screwdriver to start the process then slowly work around the nut to pop it off. When prying up on the speed nuts, push up from the backside on the horn pad to relieve the stress on the speed nut,

These horn pads are 40+ years old so you may end up breaking a nib.

 

[74_Coach]

I have successfully removed the chrome trim with the plastic nibs without breakage. Now I can clean the entire horn pad to prepare for paint.

 

[74_Coach]

Here is the completed wheel.

 

[tmsnyder]

beautiful work!