Need longer studs for your aluminum wheels?

On my FJ40, the lack of thread engagement on my lug nuts always made me a little nervous, so I searched for an improvement.  These aluminum wheels are very thick compared to the stock steel wheels.  I had a hard time finding M12 studs in the length I needed.  After a lot of research, here's what I ended up with:

Moroso 46220 1/2-20 (3 inches long)

And here's the after picture:

This gives me warm fuzzies...

First run!

I took it for its first drive in 2 years this week and then to our annual club picnic at Disney, OK. Its not really ready to wheel yet, but I did a little anyway.

Here's my to do list currently:

1. electric fan. It didn't overheat today, but it ran a little hot for my taste.

2. rear suspension. I haven't touched the rear suspension since I've had the cruiser. The lower shock mounts are way too high. I have stock length FJ40 shocks on there right now! I'll go with bilsteins like what I have on the front. I'm thinking I'll run the 255/70 valving in the rear also. Any opinions?

3. antiwrap bar. I haven't noticed spring wrap, but don't want to find out the hard way.

4. fix a leaky valve cover

5. finish the sliders (one is now bolted up)

6. build a rear bumper with tire carrier.

7. build inner fenders for tube fenders

8. mount the kiddo's car seat to the floor behind front seat. Is this legal or does it have to be mounted to a seat?

hillbilly fix

On our July Colorado vacation, we had a cracked fuel filter threaten
to ruin our day. I got the bright idea to replace it with a cut down
cheap pen body. Not a good idea because the gas ate through the pen
and turned it to mush.
A better idea was to get a lawn mower fuel filter at the local
hardware store (no motorcycle shop in town).

switches!

I finally decided to mount my switches!  I put the instrument cluster back in just to get an idea of what the dash will look like.  I need to have two knobs made... one for the heater which is second from the far right and one for the lights which is on the top row, left of the wiper knob.  I got my custom knobs/swtiches from this guy:  http://www.knoobs.com/  and I highly recommend him!  The wiper knob my original--all the others were made for me.

EZ Wiring Harness Install

I'm realizing that I should have installed both harnesses at the same time and not tried to get the engine running.  After studying the EZ wiring harness instructions I realized that I've already ran some of the same wires (to get the engine running).  I'm going to have to go through the harness and replace several wires that I added to the engine harness (starter, ignition hot, etc).  I want to use the wires in the EZ wiring harness because they are 1) labeled, 2) higher quality, and 3) sized and fused correctly.

This is absolutely the only place that I could mount the fuse box.  There really isn't a lot of room under the dash of a FJ40. 

I think I'm going to run the rear section of the harness through the same firewall hole as the front section, then down and along the frame rail.

Painless wiring harness for TBI

I bought this FJ40 with a running TBI 350.  It was running, but there were a few issues with the wiring:

1.  The wiring harness wasn't long enough for the computer to be mounted in a good location.  It was in the glove box, but it wouldn't fit with a glove box door and the wiring was stretched to get it in there.

2.  It was a stock wiring harness, so there were a lot of extra wires.  If I really knew what I was doing, I probably could have taken it apart and eliminated these.

3.  There were a lot of splices and dangling wires that I didn't have a clue about, which makes troubleshooting really hard when the vehicle wouldn't start.  "Oh, that wire?  Its always been unhooked--that can't be the problem"

4.  check engine light would come on due to not having a VSS wired in.  The particular type of computer that I had required a VSS buffer and I never could get it working right.  Another option was to have the VSS requirement pulled from the ECU via a custom chip.

So, I found what I thought was a deal on a Painless TBI harness (PN 60101).  I thought I was going to get $100 rebate and it would only be around $250.  Oops, the rebate was expired.  That will be $350.   Then when I read the instructions, I saw that it will only work with a truck computer, not my Caprice computer.  So, another $60 or so later and I was in possession of a computer from a 5 speed TBI truck.

I had already removed the body harness from the vehicle, so I went ahead and pulled the complete engine harness.  There were no more old wires left in this old cruiser to leave me stranded in the woods!  Not only will I feel better about wheelin' alone, but I know the wiring because I did it!

I followed the instructions, step by step.  It's all plug and play.  After I installed the harness, all I needed to do was run a wire from the ignition switch to the battery and another one to the starter.  Fire extinguisher handy, I turned the key to on, and heard the fuel pump buzzing.  I twisted it to start and heard the starter (my guesses on the starter wiring worked out!).  I looked at the injectors and saw fuel, but the engine wasn't starting.  So, I pulled a plug wire off, stuck a screwdriver in it and watched as it sparked to a brake line.  Fuel, spark and air.  What else is needed?  Well, I had forgotten that I installed a new tank last year.  I only had about a gallon of old gas in the tank!  Anyway, it was a great feeling to go from having all the wiring out to hearing this fuel injected beast run again.  And, it basically worked on the first try.

I mounted the ECU and a couple fuses under the glove box.  This view is from below the dash.  From the driver or passenger's seat, you won't be able to see it.  

I can't explain how nice it is to have a nice crimp tool, heat shrink tubing and a heat gun.  My heat gun is from Harbor Freight and it works great!  I normally stay away from cheap Chinese products, but I made an exception for this.  The crimp tool is from Tool Aid and very high quality.

Finally, here's a video of me starting it up (for the 2nd time):

I still have a lot of work to do routing the wires and putting them in looms, so I haven't ran the engine for more than a few seconds for fear of melting some wires.  Painless sent a small sample of their Powerbraid loom and I really liked it--but not the price ($175 for a kit!!!).  I ordered some of what I think is the same thing from McMaster-Carr to save a lot of money:

http://www.mcmaster.com/#1459t21/=e1rylh 

Downgrading CTS-V HID headlight assemblies to halogen, then upgrading them to aftermarket HID.

  If you've seen many 1st gen CTS's around, you'll notice one thing in common.  They almost all have horrible oxidation on the headlights.  Its so bad that it may not polish out.  So, after trying the polishing route, you start looking for replacement headlight assemblies.  For a regular CTS, they're usually cheap.  $250-300 for a pair of aftermarket halogen assemblies.   For a CTS-V with HID's?   Try $995.  Each.  That's not a misprint.   Looking around, you can get them for $770 or so.  Each.   

Yes, this was an expensive car when it was new and expensive cars have expensive parts.  But, now?  Its a performance bargain.   And no, I'm not spending $1500 to $2000 on headlights that may get more sun damage in a couple years.

So, what's the solution?  For me, it was downgrading to halogens, then upgrading back to aftermarket HID's (because I liked having them).  I couldn't find anyone that had done this and was even told that you couldn't do it.  I was prepared to have to study wiring diagrams and replace connectors, but it turned out to be fairly easy.  It cost me about $275 for the headlight assemblies and $200 for a nice aftermarket HID kit.  Still not cheap, but better than the alternative.

Here's what you need to know to do this mod:

Tools:

10 mm wrench and ratchet

flat screw driver

phillips screw driver

1-1/8" hole saw (may be different for your HID kit) and drill

2 short (6" or so) sections of plumber's strap (or similar) and 4 couple washers/screws (I used screws from drywall anchors)

hammer

dremel or similar

1.  Find a guide to installing CTS headlights.  The factory service manual has instructions, or you can use these like I did:

http://www.cadillacfaq.com/faq/answers/bumperremoval/index.html

Remove the fender liners, grill/bumper, and factory headlight assemblies per these instructions.

2.  You should notice that the factory HID system connectors are the same for your new halogen headlight assemblies.  This was a relief!  It just plugs in and if you are converting to halogens, then you're done.  

3.  Plug in the connectors and test your new headlight assemblies with the HID's installed.  Mine didn't work.  With a test light I figured out that I needed to flip the connector that goes into the HID ballast to get it to work.  Luckily, it will plug in backwards with some help.   Again, I had to reverse the plug into the ballast (blue wire and black wire).

4.  Find a place to mount the ballasts.  This took a long time for me and I actually mounted them twice before finding a suitable location.  You should skip straight to what I ended up doing.  The aftermarket halogen assemblies have a place to bolt in a factory ballast just like your originals.  This locations wouldn't fit my new ballasts, so I ended up grinding away the plastic until it would fit.  I used some plumbers strap and a couple screws into the factory ballast location to hold it in place.  I'm fairly confident that this is the only place you can mount the ballast, if they are like mine were.

5.  Drill a hole in the back of the headlight assembly to pass the wires through.  This will become obvious.   You will need a hole saw matched to the grommet provided in the HID kit.  Mine called for 21mm, which I found later was a misprint.  I ended up using a 1-1/8" (29mm) hole saw.

6.  Put it all back together using your instructions.

In all, this took me about 5 hours, but if I'd had some instructions like these it could have been 3 hours.

Note:  Mine had the headlight washers system.  I pulled the hoses from this system and plugged the remaining hose with a bolt and clamp.  I zip tied the remaining hose to the power steering cooler to keep it from causing trouble.

Update:  I ebay'd my OEM ballasts and bulbs for $199 in an hour to a guy who is going to re-sell them.  And my sun damaged assemblies for $115.  This can be a cheap modification!