kishy's 1984 Town Car

[sly]

I use TinyCAD (it's free) to draw my electrical diagrams. My pencil skills generally suck.

[GM_Guy]

I'm a long time user of NOTcad ((c)Alex B)

Okay, I've got a cold, half asleep, and got some time on my hands and no desire to move more than the mouse, so here is my NOTcad rendition. Please excuse the cheap chinese relays.

Anybody have a factory wiring diagram of the headlight/magic box circuit they can attach? My googlefu isn't up to snuf tonight either.

Alex.

[kishy]

I'm a long time user of NOTcad ((c)Alex B)

Okay, I've got a cold, half asleep, and got some time on my hands and no desire to move more than the mouse, so here is my NOTcad rendition. Please excuse the cheap chinese relays.

Anybody have a factory wiring diagram of the headlight/magic box circuit they can attach? My googlefu isn't up to snuf tonight either.

Alex.

That is actually a pretty reasonable rendition of what's going on here.

Somewhere in a thread once upon a time, I think I posted the Mark VI diagram. Not really important though, it has 3 electrical connections: ground, constant hot, and "lights on". Then 3 vacuum connections, one input, two outputs, one for eyes open and one for eyes closed. Easy stuff.

Diodes were necessary because I chose to tap into the "lights on" wire after the MFS/high beam dimmer. If I tap into it before the MFS/high beam dimmer, there is only one wire, because it's simply "lights on" vs "lights off" rather than "high beams on" vs "low beams on" vs "lights off".

Should be no big deal aside from how sucky the access is in the dash. Give me the 90+ dash all day every day, the older dash is a nightmare for access to anything.

[gadget73]

The access would be exactly why I'd run a pair of diodes. I buy them by the hundred, so using 5 cents worth of parts to save me the aggravation of going under the dash is an easy choice.

[sly]

Anybody have a factory wiring diagram of the headlight/magic box circuit they can attach? My googlefu isn't up to snuf tonight either.

Alex.

I don't have the schematic of the eyelids control box, but I do have the auto-dim schematic for the hot mess that is the autodim/autolamp headlight switch.

[GM_Guy]

Your description of the auto lamp/switch stuff... I'm almost afraid to see what spaghetti they concocted for that.

[sly]

It's actually not that bad. The hot mess is the parts at the end of the wires.

[kishy]

Today is the 1-year anniversary (memorial?) of the death of my passenger front turn signal.

Was driving through Detroit, found "some old plant", decided to pose for a pic.
Later realized it's Fisher Body Plant 21, which did various GM coachbuilding until 1984.



Today, smacked the ol' girl up a bit. Lady in the Accord pulled out in front of me. I do have dashcam footage showing I am not at fault, so hopefully this goes in my direction.





Inclined to say I won that one. Grabbing a whole Mark VI header panel for mischievous purposes. Still won't have a turn signal though.

The car was POTM for January of last year, the crash happened on the 22nd. I therefore refer to it being POTM when it was "pre-op" prior to...uh...transitioning into a Mark VI. Ish.

[GM_Guy]

That turn signal put quite the hurting to the Accord.

[DerekTheGreat]

"The Honda absorbed the impact better. Safety first." Not my words, I can just hear the criticism/debate now...

[sxcpotatoes]

"The Honda absorbed the impact better. Safety first." Not my words, I can just hear the criticism/debate now...

Let's look at the repair bills. Town Car: $1500 in parts/paint/labor (counting the $230 turn signal lens), Honda: $3890+ and you need the back part of the wheel arch/quarter welded in behind the gas cap, new bumper cover, AND new tail light because the mounts have been sheared off.

[kishy]

This broke down to strictly "big mass" versus "smaller mass" as the Honda pretty much bounced off, using its crumple zone like a balloon in between the cars.

I felt pretty much nothing at the point of impact, and I don't recall the rate of deceleration changing when the impact happened...so I was slowing down, she was accelerating a little, impact bounced her off, and my car continued as if I had been doing the same things but not hit anything. Inertia.

Honestly? It was fun. Certainly didn't intend for, or try to make it happen, but it was kinda fun to play bumper cars with real cars for a moment. I'm not hoping for a repeat though.

[DerekTheGreat]

I was thinking of the 1958 Impala or whatever that crashed with 2008 Impala.

But, that crumple zone is right on the money with what I was talking about. Modern cars are designed that way, they more they crumple means the more energy they absorb and thus the less that's transferred to you. I'm sure she didn't feel anything either. Our old stuff has crumple zones too, It's been a minute since I've been down there but I'm certain there are crumple zones built into the frame, at least in the front. Nowadays they're really designing crumple zones into every area it seems.

Reminds me when I SMASHED my brother's Ranger into a 90's Corolla. It was a lot of fun haha. Ranger's bumper was bent all the way down and pushed in a bit. Corolla looked fine except for big smudge across the back of it's bumper. Can only imagine what the metal bumper behind the painted cover looked like though.. I hit the guy at about 15 mph while he was stopped. He had ABS, I didn't and couldn't swerve to miss him so out into the intersection he went.

[knucklehead0202]

I was thinking of the 1958 Impala or whatever that crashed with 2008 Impala.

But, that crumple zone is right on the money with what I was talking about. Modern cars are designed that way, they more they crumple means the more energy they absorb and thus the less that's transferred to you. I'm sure she didn't feel anything either. Our old stuff has crumple zones too, It's been a minute since I've been down there but I'm certain there are crumple zones built into the frame, at least in the front. Nowadays they're really designing crumple zones into every area it seems.

Reminds me when I SMASHED my brother's Ranger into a 90's Corolla. It was a lot of fun haha. Ranger's bumper was bent all the way down and pushed in a bit. Corolla looked fine except for big smudge across the back of it's bumper. Can only imagine what the metal bumper behind the painted cover looked like though.. I hit the guy at about 15 mph while he was stopped. He had ABS, I didn't and couldn't swerve to miss him so out into the intersection he went.

Yep, a cursory look at our front frame rails and you'll see the area that's meant to give. Part of the reason i chose not to fix my other car. Couldn't tell whether or not that had been compressed or not and didn't want to spend a bunch of money to find out.

[kishy]

Thinking out loud...

This car needs exhaust. The cats are rusted out, and the Y-pipe broke before the muffler, so currently it's just exiting at the holes in the cats and the end of the Y-pipe. Despite this, it really doesn't sound that loud. The cats seem to be having some muffling effect, and when you stomp on it, it actually sounds pretty good (throaty V8) for what it is (anemic V8).

Given that...I'm considering rebuilding the exhaust without mufflers. If any of the Detroit meet people want to chime in about whether you found my car particularly loud/annoying sounding, I'll take that feedback into consideration.

I have a new set of Magnaflow direct-fit cats, a new H-pipe (Walker aluminized) and a new set of the tailpipes for both sides (Walker aluminized). The plan currently is to replace everything downstream of the manifolds, leaving them in place, and putting pipe in place of the mufflers, attached with band clamps to enable easier changes later. The complication here is that the mufflers are offset/offset, so my pipe would need an S-bend of some sort. It's possible that maybe an off-the-shelf pre-formed pipe exists of the right dimensions to do this, but it will take some measuring. Flex tubing is also an option but I'm told it's "awful" and to be avoided whenever possible...not to mention that I need to put a hanger on it because the mufflers normally have hangers on them.

I have a set of '90 TC manifolds but I don't know if I can use them. CFI cars have the heat riser valve on the driver side manifold (sandwiched between manifold and cat downpipe), and I'm not sure if that would play nice between the '90 manifold and the 84 direct-fit cat (I think the cat downpipe is shorter to account for the valve being present). So, if I eliminate the heat riser valve (I have no specific attachment to it), my direct-fit cats won't direct-fit anymore. The question is whether or not the heat riser valve can mate to the '90 manifolds.

Honestly I kind of want to leave the manifolds alone anyway, since those are somewhat annoying to handle...

Another thought is that the new Magnaflow cats will surely be more free-flowing than what's on the car now, so maybe when using those cats, the exhaust will be too loud. No way to know until I do it though.