CIA Impala Rebuild Project

12/28/17 I was really hoping to have the car running by the end of the Christmas holiday break.  Really cold weather, family time and the non motivational feelings to do work slowed things down.  I found I was missing some parts and others needed attention so I just worked for an hour when the time presented itself. Dan had a custom harness made for his headlights.  It includes a function to turn on his fog lights located in his front bumper when either his headlights or high beams are active.  The harness is actually quite nice and includes relays and circuit breakers.  It mounts in the inner fender near the battery.  The wires get routed through the stock holes and get zip tied to the factory one. Luckily I had sealed mating connectors for his blue DRL's.  I installed them using wire I supplied and tapped them into the marker lights.  It looks factory now and we won't have to worry about the elements causing grief.  While I was in there I noticed some of the old split

12/16/17 The car has had the same gas in the tank since 2002.  It needed to be cleaned and filled with fresh gas so the tank was going to need to be dropped.  Dan figured it had few gallons in it so to make the job easier, it needed to be drained first. I disconnected the fuel line at the fuel filter and placed to open end into a container.  Using the fuel pump bypass connector in the engine compartment, I drained the tank.  This allowed me to remove  ~4 gallons out of the fuel tank making it easier to drop.  The gas was heavily varnished and not engine worthy. I removed the sending unit and with the help of my son, we turned the tank upside down in order to get every last drop out of the tank.  I replaced the fuel pump strainer and readied it for re-installation.    

12/9/17 There was a bunch of parts in the trunk that I needed in order to continue working on the car.  As trivial as it seems, the trunk ended up being a fairly long project.  The first thing to do was remove everything including the carpet itself.  I vacuumed the carpet followed by a good scrubbing with both soap and water.  It was then hung to dry before I could reinstalled it. While waiting, I scrubbed the trunk channel and trunk lid.  Nasty was an understatement!  I am not sure what it was but it appeared to be a combination of Bondo dust, leaves and some sticky goo.  I also fixed the wiring that attached to the underside of the trunk.  I believe there are replacement lenses in a box somewhere that I will have to address in the future. With the trunk clean and dry, I decided to put all of the stereo equipment boxes in there for safe keeping.  Below is a picture of the finished "task of the weekend".   

11/26/17 So far my goal of trying to complete 1 project each week is actually working.  This last weekend I wasn't too motivated given it was a long holiday weekend but I still managed to make some progress.  As I explained earlier, the engine harness was replaced but it was not the correct one.  Dan purchased a used harness that was from a 1995 Impala so it should drop right in.  No issues there but I still wanted to inspect it, clean it up and get it ready to install. That is when I ran into some issues.  The first thing I noticed is multiple wires coming out the back of the fuse box were damaged.  It looked as if it had been dragged along the concrete.  Some of them had been wrapped in electrical tape and others had exposed wires (strike 1). The second thing I found was a couple damaged connectors.  Unfortunately one of them was the large bulk connector that mates with the harness inside the cabin (strike 2).  The last problem I found was when I removed the cover off the fu

11/19/17 The engine harness had to come out.  The original one that came in the car had issues so a replacement was swapped in.  Unfortnuately it was for a Caprice or 9C1 so the connections were not all the same.  This caused all sorts of issues but apparently also causes problems when it isn't installed too!!  I will talk more about that later :-( A harness is not that difficult to remove.  You just have to know how each connector comes off, where to look and what to watch out for.  Thankfully I'd done it a couple times so this wasn't really a problem.  With the harness removed and everything plugged so water stays out of where it does not belong we started to clean things up. Here are a couple pictures of the engine bay with everything removed that we could easily get to and each hose or hole plugged to keep water out. Several years ago I installed a faucet on the front of my house for both hot and cold water.  Talk about a luxury!!!  It also comes in hand

11/12/17 With everything removed from the interior we can see what we have to work with.  When the car was broken into the ignition decided not to work properly.  This is project #1 but I have to replace the engine harness first.  Thus far everything looks fine but then again I've only scratched the surface of this project. Everything was removed from the interior.  Speakers in the dash required me to remove the dash pad.  It also helps a bunch when running wires or troubleshooting issues. The door panels were previously removed for painting the doors.  While I have access I will be replacing the window rollers and running any wires that need to be there. Here is the car after its had a bath.  You can see the process of removing the engine wiring harness has just begun. That is how we wrapped up the weekend!  It felt good to see what we accomplished over the weekend.

11/11/17 When starting a project like this, it is often best to sit back and just start with a clean slate.  A better part of yesterday was spent working on the car.  We removed everything inside the cabin and then took out the interior itself.  With the car empty, we vacuumed the floor and removed some of the wires that were in our way.  The car was then pushed into the driveway so it could get it's first bath in probably a decade or more.  There appears to be a lot of oil or other substance on the paint.  While Dan said to not worry about it, I bet it will get cleaned up eventually. Here are some pictures of the car before we started to do anything.. Rear of the car - as you can see the car is in need of a lot of TLC Engine bay - the harness has to get pulled and replaced with a new one.  Battery needs replacement and there are tons of little details that need to be resolved. Interior - new carpet and all trim pieces will get painted black.  This is where most of th

11/5/17 Yesterday I loaded Dan's 1995 Impala SS on my trailer and towed it home.  This is the beginning of a project that we've been discussing for 4 or more years.  I've always enjoyed working on automobiles and was looking for a project.  I know these cars inside and out because of a frame off restoration I did several years ago so I am not too concerned of what I've gotten myself into.  Upon initial investigation the scope is quite a bit larger than anticipated but I'm up for the challenge. Dan just wants me to put it back together and get it running.... but the task list is daunting!!  It includes dropping the transmission, replacing wiring harnesses, installing a stereo, replacing the interior and tons of other thing necessary to get a vehicle back on the road after having been in storage for over 15 years.  The trunk and cabin are literally full of parts and there are no instructions :-). The plan is to get my son involved so we can work on it togethe