A new diet!

 

A wire diet, specifically.

The wiring harness just for the top of the engine is insane. I think it weighs about five pounds. And there's some stuff on it I am just not going to use anymore. Certainly the plugs related to the TGV (tumble generator valve) actuators and angle sensors, and possibly other things as well.

But to know what to take off and what to keep, I have to know what everything is, so I spent some quality time on it on the workbench.

First, I just unplugged everything I could, adding labels as I went. Ignition coils, fuel injectors, crank and cam position sensors, etc., etc.

But there were three plugs that had gotten unplugged earlier and not labeled. And with the engine accessories not installed at present, it's pretty hard to figure out what plug goes to what device.

The only way I know of to figure all this out is to go to the wiring diagrams, which is a nightmare in itself. 

I started by pulling back the loom around the wiring a little bit and looking at the colors of the insulation.

Here's an example. Now, these wires have been in a hot, dirty, oily engine bay for fifteen years, so they are not in the best of condition, but one of the wires is pretty clearly red, and the other is green with a stripe. At first, I thought this was a dirty green/white wire (GW in wiring diagram parlance), so I scoured the wiring diagram for any connector with two conductors, R and GW. No luck.

So I looked again and decided maybe it was a yellow stripe - GY. But I still could not find the right connector on the diagram. I then remembered that there's another color - light green, or Lg. So, a third pass, looking for Lg and R.

And this time I found it! It connects to the purge control solenoid. Now I can research that solenoid and figure out if I need to keep that, or if I can take those wires out.

Fortunately, the other two unidentified connectors were slightly easier (knock sensor and PCV diagnostic, respectively), but just searching those three out took a few hours, and completing the labeling took all day.

Harness! Engine! Shift linkage!

Got some good stuff done this past weekend. First of all, I spent some quality time with an angle grinder and a drill, making this bracket. It bolts to the frame of the car on the floor, under the seat, to act as a mounting point for the anti-submarine belt.

So what is an anti-submarine belt? It's the fifth belt in this harness - there ae two shoulder belts, two hip belts, and the anti-submarine belt. They all connect to the latch in the middle to secure the driver pretty securely to the seat and to the car. The anti-submarine belt in particular prevents "submarining" in event of a frontal collision - the driver can't slide out under the hip belts, feet first.

On to the engine! 

I picked this off its temporary resting place (a folding table) with the engine crane and dropped it into the engine bay again. It looks pretty good in there. It's not bolted down, just resting in place, but it feels good to have it in its home.

I wanted the engine in its bay so that I could start installing this slick bellcrank assembly to the back of the transmission. The two cables in black jackets at left will go to the shift lever (well, not those ones specifically - they are just placeholders for the shorter ones I will actually use), and this linkage translated the left/right and fore/aft movements of the shifter into actual gear changes.

But to get those cables routed so I can measure them for ordering the ones I really need, I have to route them up and over the engine and through the firewall, into the tunnel between the seats. And in order to get a good routing that clears everything else on the tunnel, I have to start dressing the engine.

There's a lot of stuff that goes on top to route around. Here, I have the starter and the clutch slave cylinder bolted up. After I took this pic, I also got the alternator about half faked up into place, but not quite done yet. I have some pieces on order to make that come together.

Then it's induction, I think. Oh, and a water pipe that connects the two halves of the block. And probably a bunch of other stuff, too.

Feels like good progress. Plenty more good stuff to come.