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".