1973 Custom Cruiser

Now you've crowned her too!

So when's the roadtrip? She's all rarin' to strut her stuff, now.

 

I'd love to go to an early season "dustoff" show, and there are some around. But what you don't see in these photos is what still needs to be done. I've mentioned before the disassembled rear interior area, which I think the former owner did as part of a general restoration of the that part of the interior. Also, both front inner fenders were removed for the repaint, and those have yet to be reinstalled. It's one of the near-term jobs. Longer term, the driver's side front seat bottom needs to be reupholstered, and the car needs a new carpet.

Also needed is to fix the taillights, which keep blowing the fuse (even though the turn signals, brake lights, and four-way flashers all work fine). So there's a few things still needed, but I wouldn't hesitate to take it somewhere just for the fun of it as it can be shown as a work in progress, and it's the sort of thing you just don't see any sort of car show or cruise-in.

 

looks awesome, the tail lights are on a diff circuit than the head, brake and flashers TAIL fuse is for all lights that come on with the headlights EXCEPT the headlights (tail, instrument, parking, lic plate, side markers)

 

I noticed this. Will be another wiring troubleshooting process like the tailgate motor.

 

Just noticed you could do the same 2-door hardtop conversion to the Olds that Wix did to his Buick......4-door hardtop as well.......

 

Jaunty, your Olds looks great! You sure live in a pretty area! Very nice!:2_thumbs_up_-_anima

David

 

I could, but my interest with this car is to keep it as original as possible. About the only change I'll probably make is to replace the stock AM radio with an AM-FM, but a period-correct AM/FM.

 

This is around the corner and down the road a bit, maybe 1/4 mile from my house. I thought it was a good setting for some photos.

 

more mysteries

Finally had a chance to tackle some of the electrical problems on the '73 Custom Cruiser.

I've mentioned before the non-working tailgate and the taillights that keep blowing fuses. There are actually more electrical problems than this, including non-working instrument panel lights, non-working parking lights, radio didn't work, and the driver's side lower courtesy light didn't come on when a door was opened which changing the bulb didn't fix.

I decided to try to tackle these in a more thorough, more systematic way, beginning with the radio. Along the way, I found some surprises.

With the radio, the former owner had installed back in the mid-70s one of those devices that would allow you to hear CB radio audio through the car's radio speakers. You connected the antenna lead to this thing, and then another lead went to the radio's antenna. Whenever a CB message was received, the radio would be interrupted, and you would hear the CB instead. I think it worked even if the radio was off because the device was wired directly to one of the speakers.

Anyway, to get this thing off and get at its wiring, I had to remove the lower dashboard on the right side, which, after removing about 10 screws and the glove box light, came off pretty easily. I disconnected the CB device, re-spliced the right side speaker wire, reattached the antenna lead, turned the radio on, and, lo and behold, sound. But only from the right-side speaker.

The car has an AM-only radio, but it does have two front speakers, one on each side facing upward under the dash. It figures that it would be the left one that wasn't working. There's so much room around the right side speaker that you could hold a convention under there, so getting at it was easy. To get at the left side, though, you have to remove the left side upper dash, and it has all sorts of stuff attached on that side including the wiper switch, headlight switch, and climate control system. But I could loosen it and pull it out enough to get at the speaker, which still required me to be able to bend my arm in ways I didn't think possible.

Well, when that left side speaker came out, I was shocked at its appearance. I removed both speakers because I went ahead and replaced them both, anyway, so pictured below are the left one (on the left) and the right one, with a portion of the wiring that had been attached to the left speaker.




While the right side speaker looks practically new, the left one looks as thought it has been through two wars and lost them both. The wiring right at the point of attachment, which is what's there in the middle, was melted a little bit. The speaker itself looks like it has either been wet, or burned, or both. Anyone want to comment on what would make a speaker, or anything for that matter, look like this?

As I said, I put in two new speakers (found a nice pair of drop-in replacements from a local auto sound shop for $45), so now I have booming AM sound.


Moving on to the left side courtesy light, since I had the right lower dash removed, removing the left lower dash was a snap, and I found another surprise. There are two wires going to the light, and they pass through a single connector. What I found though, was that the connector was partially melted, and one of the wires had been bypassed. Below is a photo of that connector. I had actually pulled it apart and then it back together for the photo, so it was actually more tightly fused than is shown.



The orange wire is supposed to pass through the connector like the white one, and those are the vestiges of the old orange wire sticking out of each end.

Even though the connection was intact, in spite of being melted, the courtesy light still did not work, and the problem turned out to be a bad ground. The white wire is supposed to be the ground, and it doesn't ground to anything. It goes from the lamp socket through the burned connector and into the wiring harness under the dash, so I quickly lose the ability to trace it. I can just bypass it and ground the socket another way, but I would be happier if I could find the other end of this white wire to see where it should be grounded, because if it's not grounded, there might be other ground wires coming to the same attaching point that aren't well grounded or grounded at all, either. I haven't looked closely at the wiring diagrams in the service manual to see if I can trace it. That's a job for the very near future.


But all this burned stuff got me to thinking more about what this car has gone through. I know that it has been in more that one accident in its life, including one back in the 1980s severe enough to require the replacement of the windshield and two doors. The repair doesn't say which doors, but perhaps it was the left side, and the accident caused a fire which was sprayed with water.

Some other evidence supports some of this. When I removed the left side lower and upper dash, I found a lot of aftermarket connectors in the wiring. The job looked professional and all, but it certainly didn't look like a factory installation. It's as though electrical components like switches and so forth were cut out of the system and new ones spliced in.

Another piece of evidence for this is the appearance of the left side upper dash relative to the right side. I had noticed from the very beginning that the sheen on the wood-grain veneer on the left side was faded and more gray-brown looking than on the right side, and I had attributed this to nothing more than the car's age.

But after seeing the other evidence of accident damage, I'm wondering now if what I'm looking at in the case of the left-side dash isn't a part from a junkyard car that was obtained to replace the one that had been damaged in the accident.

Below are photos of the left and right side dashes. The headlight switch has been removed because I'm getting a new one (another story related below).





There's a bit of glare from the flash in the second photo, but I think you can see what I mean when looking at the differences in the brightness and clarity of the finish between the two sides. The left side one is so faded it has lost the wood-grain look and is almost just gray in color.



As far as the headlight switch, I had never been happy with the operation of it. It didn't have the satisfying click when you pulled it out half-way for the parking lights (which don't work, anyway), and, as I said, the dashboard lights do not work at all. Since the taillights and parking lights are also controlled by the headlight switch, I thought that maybe it was the cause of several of my problems. So I thought I'd get a new one. They're not much money at about $10 to $20 depending on where you go or which website you're looking at.

After taking the old one out, I immediately saw that the rheostat coil was broken at one end. So, even if the dash lights worked, they couldn't be dimmed. Either on at full brightness or off all the way.

Autozone had one on the shelf that was supposed to be a direct replacement, but it didn't work when I hooked it up, even though the pin configuration is identical. Pulling it out did not turn the headlights on. I've since discovered that there are apparently several versions of headlight switches for this era, and I need to track down the correct one.

I returned the switch to Autozone and ordered one from the Bumper to Bumper store down the street. That comes in Monday. If it doesn't work, I've got some other ideas and leads, including buying an AC-Delco brand unit. Rock Auto has it for $21.79 (a bit more money), while Autoparts Giant has it for $33.63 and Advance Auto Parts has it for $27.99. All this variation for the exact same unit.


So how's that for a day and a half of fun and excitement? All with the NCAAs on TV in the background. How 'bout that Northern Iowa!

 

tailgate wiring

I've come to a stopping point in my tracking down of why the tailgate motor doesn't get power. David Wixom's photos over in the newbie forum are very helpful, but I wondered if you had any of the carpeting and/or seats out when you took those photos?

I can trace my wires from the motor forward until they disappear under the carpeting behind the second seat. Then I don't see them again at all, and I'm not sure where they should come out and be visible again. According to David's photos, it ought to be along the left side of the car in front of the front door. But I don't see anything there.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to remove the seats and carpeting, and I was going to do that, anyway, as I want to replace the carpeting as well has have the front seat upholstery repaired. But, for now, further troubleshooting of the tailgate motor problem will have to wait until the seats and carpeting are removed.





When I got this car, there were a number of seemingly minor items that had not been dealt with. The driver's door doesn't close easily. The hood wasn't aligned. The tailgate didn't move. The aluminum trim piece under the left rear door window was not on the car. Two of the five metal strips that form the base of the roof rack were sticking up in the rear. These have all turned out to be not so easy to fix after all, and I'm guessing that's why they were left undone. If they had been easy fixes, they would have been done five years ago.

The hood has been a bear to align. No matter how much I lower the hinges, I still can't get the front end of the hood to go down far enough. I'm wondering if the latch can be lowered so the hood goes down farther before engaging. Maybe I have to RAISE the hinges, or at least the rear of the hinges relative to the front of them, to get the hood to angle down more. But I don't think so as the hood seems to be restricted from going down any further in the front by the latch.

The driver's door just can't seem to be adjusted to both close without slamming it AND be properly aligned. I have to adjust the striker outward to allow the door to close and engage without slamming it, but then it sticks out a bit on the trailing edge. If I move the striker inward, the door lines up better with the body when it's closed, but then it has to be slammed uncomfortably hard to get it to latch properly. It does have new weatherstrip, and I've read that new weatherstripping can make a door difficult to close until it wears in, but the other three doors also have new weatherstripping, and they require firmness to close, but nothing like the driver's door.

This car was fairly significantly disassembled when it was repainted, and I think the hood and door problems are just reminders of how critical alignment of body panels is and how difficult it can be to get things to align properly. Even the body shop, apparently, couldn't quite get everything to align before returning the car after painting it.

The two roof rack strips won't stay down because the screw hole threads have been stripped. I need to put something down in there to tighten things up. (Anyone have any ideas?) I can't just use a thicker screw because then it wouldn't fit through the hole in the metal strip. I could drill the hole wider, but that seems to me a more drastic solution that maybe could be avoided.

The trim piece under the door window just won't stay attached to the clips. It keeps popping off. I have not yet made a thorough effort to fix the problem.

But, hey, this is all part of the fun. I pick up the new headlight switch tomorrow, and I have my fingers crossed that it will work, but something tells me it won't.

 

You're safer if you replace the roofrack inserts. Helicoils are an option, but the smaller diameter screws might not handle the stress on the roofrack with a load.

Must have nice weather to get all that investigated, repaired and assembled!

 

Hey Jaunty, yes, I have every single bit of my interior removed for those pics.
You should find the wires running along the LH side beneath the carpet and underlayment, in a channel, encased in a black plastic protective sheath.

I think Jeffrey might be onto something with his suggestion that your neutral safety switch might be the cause of your tailgate problems.
Give this a try...turn your ignition on, but DON'T start your engine. Try the tailgate switch on the dash, as you move the gearshift selector through the PRNDL. It just might operate somewhere in the range.

Worth a try.

David

 

Interesting theory on the left side dash / trim / electrical problems, jaunty. I think you may be on the right track.

Think about it - Car gets hit on left front door, causing a gap between door and pillar. Resulting electrucal short circuit causes fire deparrment to spray water or foam into interior. Car gets to body shop and by this time, outward evidence of 'wet' interior / dash are gone. Shop does lame attempt to solve electrical problems, and so do owners. Yup - could happen.

As to hood problem - Is hood hitting bump stops when it's lowered?
Also - you could have improper shimming of fenders - especially after accident. Could also explain why you can't get door to align elther. I wonder if left front hinge pillar was damaged in the crash.......tale some cross measurements - front upper corner to lower rear corner; and front lower corner to upper rear corner. Compare to other side. Look for evidence of repairs on the pilar itself. Take kick panel trim off both sides and look at inner structure.

 

Good thought, although I doubt I would ever have any kind of load, anyway. These pieces aren't load-bearing, anyway. They're two of the five center strips that are attached directly to the roof, and the load sits on them to protect the roof itself.

Yes, it was. About 65 degrees and sunny Friday, 70 and sunny yesterday, and 75 and sunny today. Rain for the next couple of days, but we're pretty much 50s and 60s for daytime highs for as far as the eye can see. It's probably safe to put my snowblower away.

 

Yes, it is. Thanks. I'll give it a try.