T2K-CAR

[Gary Lewis]

I am just painting the areas that are pretty well inaccessible once the trim is installed. Most likely my friend who owns the big MAACO in Hampton VA. will be painting it.

Sounds like a good plan, Stan.

[85lebaront2]

Sounds like a good plan, Stan.

Got the paint in, the description name is "tusk white" so it is more of an off white. I am sure that in 33 years the car has been painted at least once if not more. I masked, primed and then put roughly 3 coats of the color and same of the clear coat.

After the final clear coat dried, I put the left side and rear trim back on, before I do the right side I need some more 3/16" short aluminum pop rivets for the outer window weatherstrip and support pad piece.

[Gary Lewis]

Got the paint in, the description name is "tusk white" so it is more of an off white. I am sure that in 33 years the car has been painted at least once if not more. I masked, primed and then put roughly 3 coats of the color and same of the clear coat.

After the final clear coat dried, I put the left side and rear trim back on, before I do the right side I need some more 3/16" short aluminum pop rivets for the outer window weatherstrip and support pad piece.

Looks good, Bill. Did you have to prime? You weren't going over the rust?

[85lebaront2]

Looks good, Bill. Did you have to prime? You weren't going over the rust?

I sanded the areas, washed it with lacquer thinner and primed it with a rust preventing primer, then the color and clear coat.

[Gary Lewis]

I sanded the areas, washed it with lacquer thinner and primed it with a rust preventing primer, then the color and clear coat.

That is very thorough. Well done.

[85lebaront2]

That is very thorough. Well done.

As Gary pointed out, I haven't really brought this up to date. Several reasons, first of which was wife's health, she ended up being hospitalized for emergency abdominal surgery in early December (her birthday to be exact) and was in there until 19 December 2019 then in a care facility 22 miles up the road in Parksley VA. from 19 December 2019 until 4 February 2020.

As a result her health from late summer until 3 Dec had me worried and concerned. Due to the owners of our local hospital being Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News VA, when we were informed she needed to go to a larger facility and I requested they send her to Sentara Leigh Memorial in Norfolk, I got "we have problems when we send people to Sentara". I'm sure, ever since Sentara Health Care bought Hampton General they have been in fierce competition in Hampton and Newport News. Upshot was they sent her to Riverside, a roughly 160 mile round trip + $20 round trip toll. She was returned to home on 4 February 2020 and still needed assistance in moving around etc.

She had the final hospital stay from 28 May 2020 till 2 June 2020 to restore her back to more normal conditions.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. Sometime late last year I went out to do some more interior work and found the battery completely dead. I connected the battery charger and shortly afterwards the power lock relays started chattering, followed by a small pop and smoke leaking out of the body computer. Unfortunately my jar of Lucas 530433 was not a suitable replacement. I spent, in between doctors and hospital visits, several months trying to either find a replacement or someone to rebuild it. A fellow Chrysler nut on Facebook in a Turbo Dodge parts group asked if a 1990 BCM would work in place of the 1995 one and he wanted to sell the inside wiring harnesses with it. After looking at the pictures he sent, I went ahead and bought the parts from him, He later found some of the underhood parts and asked if I wanted them too for the shipping cost, I told him yes.

Now is where it got interesting, the dash I am using is from a 1989 Lebaron 2 dr coupe, the wiring harnesses are form a 1990 Lebaron convertible so a lot of the convertible specific items, like 4 power windows with no separate rear controls, the power wiring for the hydraulic pump and it's relays and switch were all there. The big change between 1989 and 1990 was steering column and instrument panel. 1989 all the main inside harness is run across the dash with an inverted connection (female on the underhood and male on the dash) both have the connector inside rather than in the firewall. The 1990 all the inside wiring runs across the firewall in a plastic channel, then the connections to the rear of the car are back by the rear wheel wells. It is nicer, because once the wiring is installed it stays there, the dash and steering column essentially plug in as the wiring to the various modules (cluster, warning system, radio, HVAC and traveler along with the dash speakers) all has enough slacek to allow the dash to be rolled back and removed.

The issue is the changes to the Lebaron coupe and convertible and Dodge Daytona for 1990. Instrument cluster is in a pod similar to the early T-birds and 1955/56 Fords and the headlight, panel dimmer, fog lights, turn signals and wipers are one the sides of the pod with the steering column only having horn, turn signal cancel and hazard switches and the cruise control ones are relocated in the steering wheel they were also built with air bags. I had two choices, find a useable 1990 up dash and steering column or modify what I have to work with the newer system. I opted for the second choice.

Now, all the lighting functions on the 1990 are controlled by relays, whose coils are grounded by the switches. Good part, low current switches are all that is needed, bad part, the panel dimmer and a few other items are not at all compatible with the 1989 headlight switch. Wipers are the same issue, but that had already been addressed for the 1995 BCM. End result, I modified a Taurus headlight switch to fit in place of the pull knob style which now meant I needed a separate dimmer control, which is an interesting system, the dimmer is a dual variable resistor, one side increases from dim to bright, the other decreases, resistance goes from around 20 ohms to 10.2K ohms and the dimmer portion goes to a nice little electronic module that then controls the panel lights. The electronic dimming is the last 1/4 of travel followed by the courtesy lights on position. No problem right? Wrong, it is part of the headlight switch. I canabalised a Lebaron switch for the resistor and switch, then because it moves in a arc, had to come up with a method of operating it, another Taurus part to the rescue, a dimmer thumbwheel, gutted and modified to move the slider and it even ended up with the detent in correct location in it's travel.

Pictures to follow.

[85lebaront2]

As Gary pointed out, I haven't really brought this up to date. Several reasons, first of which was wife's health, she ended up being hospitalized for emergency abdominal surgery in early December (her birthday to be exact) and was in there until 19 December 2019 then in a care facility 22 miles up the road in Parksley VA. from 19 December 2019 until 4 February 2020.

As a result her health from late summer until 3 Dec had me worried and concerned. Due to the owners of our local hospital being Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News VA, when we were informed she needed to go to a larger facility and I requested they send her to Sentara Leigh Memorial in Norfolk, I got "we have problems when we send people to Sentara". I'm sure, ever since Sentara Health Care bought Hampton General they have been in fierce competition in Hampton and Newport News. Upshot was they sent her to Riverside, a roughly 160 mile round trip + $20 round trip toll. She was returned to home on 4 February 2020 and still needed assistance in moving around etc.

She had the final hospital stay from 28 May 2020 till 2 June 2020 to restore her back to more normal conditions.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. Sometime late last year I went out to do some more interior work and found the battery completely dead. I connected the battery charger and shortly afterwards the power lock relays started chattering, followed by a small pop and smoke leaking out of the body computer. Unfortunately my jar of Lucas 530433 was not a suitable replacement. I spent, in between doctors and hospital visits, several months trying to either find a replacement or someone to rebuild it. A fellow Chrysler nut on Facebook in a Turbo Dodge parts group asked if a 1990 BCM would work in place of the 1995 one and he wanted to sell the inside wiring harnesses with it. After looking at the pictures he sent, I went ahead and bought the parts from him, He later found some of the underhood parts and asked if I wanted them too for the shipping cost, I told him yes.

Now is where it got interesting, the dash I am using is from a 1989 Lebaron 2 dr coupe, the wiring harnesses are form a 1990 Lebaron convertible so a lot of the convertible specific items, like 4 power windows with no separate rear controls, the power wiring for the hydraulic pump and it's relays and switch were all there. The big change between 1989 and 1990 was steering column and instrument panel. 1989 all the main inside harness is run across the dash with an inverted connection (female on the underhood and male on the dash) both have the connector inside rather than in the firewall. The 1990 all the inside wiring runs across the firewall in a plastic channel, then the connections to the rear of the car are back by the rear wheel wells. It is nicer, because once the wiring is installed it stays there, the dash and steering column essentially plug in as the wiring to the various modules (cluster, warning system, radio, HVAC and traveler along with the dash speakers) all has enough slacek to allow the dash to be rolled back and removed.

The issue is the changes to the Lebaron coupe and convertible and Dodge Daytona for 1990. Instrument cluster is in a pod similar to the early T-birds and 1955/56 Fords and the headlight, panel dimmer, fog lights, turn signals and wipers are one the sides of the pod with the steering column only having horn, turn signal cancel and hazard switches and the cruise control ones are relocated in the steering wheel they were also built with air bags. I had two choices, find a useable 1990 up dash and steering column or modify what I have to work with the newer system. I opted for the second choice.

Now, all the lighting functions on the 1990 are controlled by relays, whose coils are grounded by the switches. Good part, low current switches are all that is needed, bad part, the panel dimmer and a few other items are not at all compatible with the 1989 headlight switch. Wipers are the same issue, but that had already been addressed for the 1995 BCM. End result, I modified a Taurus headlight switch to fit in place of the pull knob style which now meant I needed a separate dimmer control, which is an interesting system, the dimmer is a dual variable resistor, one side increases from dim to bright, the other decreases, resistance goes from around 20 ohms to 10.2K ohms and the dimmer portion goes to a nice little electronic module that then controls the panel lights. The electronic dimming is the last 1/4 of travel followed by the courtesy lights on position. No problem right? Wrong, it is part of the headlight switch. I canabalised a Lebaron switch for the resistor and switch, then because it moves in a arc, had to come up with a method of operating it, another Taurus part to the rescue, a dimmer thumbwheel, gutted and modified to move the slider and it even ended up with the detent in correct location in it's travel.

Pictures to follow.

Pictures to go with previous dissertation:

Dash harness as received draped over a 2.5L Turbo short block.

The 1986 fuse block has 16 fuses, this one 28 each headlamp side is individually fused

These are the relays that control all the lighting, door locks, horn and part of the audio system.

More to follow.

[Gary Lewis]

As Gary pointed out, I haven't really brought this up to date. Several reasons, first of which was wife's health, she ended up being hospitalized for emergency abdominal surgery in early December (her birthday to be exact) and was in there until 19 December 2019 then in a care facility 22 miles up the road in Parksley VA. from 19 December 2019 until 4 February 2020.

As a result her health from late summer until 3 Dec had me worried and concerned. Due to the owners of our local hospital being Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News VA, when we were informed she needed to go to a larger facility and I requested they send her to Sentara Leigh Memorial in Norfolk, I got "we have problems when we send people to Sentara". I'm sure, ever since Sentara Health Care bought Hampton General they have been in fierce competition in Hampton and Newport News. Upshot was they sent her to Riverside, a roughly 160 mile round trip + $20 round trip toll. She was returned to home on 4 February 2020 and still needed assistance in moving around etc.

She had the final hospital stay from 28 May 2020 till 2 June 2020 to restore her back to more normal conditions.

Back to our regularly scheduled program. Sometime late last year I went out to do some more interior work and found the battery completely dead. I connected the battery charger and shortly afterwards the power lock relays started chattering, followed by a small pop and smoke leaking out of the body computer. Unfortunately my jar of Lucas 530433 was not a suitable replacement. I spent, in between doctors and hospital visits, several months trying to either find a replacement or someone to rebuild it. A fellow Chrysler nut on Facebook in a Turbo Dodge parts group asked if a 1990 BCM would work in place of the 1995 one and he wanted to sell the inside wiring harnesses with it. After looking at the pictures he sent, I went ahead and bought the parts from him, He later found some of the underhood parts and asked if I wanted them too for the shipping cost, I told him yes.

Now is where it got interesting, the dash I am using is from a 1989 Lebaron 2 dr coupe, the wiring harnesses are form a 1990 Lebaron convertible so a lot of the convertible specific items, like 4 power windows with no separate rear controls, the power wiring for the hydraulic pump and it's relays and switch were all there. The big change between 1989 and 1990 was steering column and instrument panel. 1989 all the main inside harness is run across the dash with an inverted connection (female on the underhood and male on the dash) both have the connector inside rather than in the firewall. The 1990 all the inside wiring runs across the firewall in a plastic channel, then the connections to the rear of the car are back by the rear wheel wells. It is nicer, because once the wiring is installed it stays there, the dash and steering column essentially plug in as the wiring to the various modules (cluster, warning system, radio, HVAC and traveler along with the dash speakers) all has enough slacek to allow the dash to be rolled back and removed.

The issue is the changes to the Lebaron coupe and convertible and Dodge Daytona for 1990. Instrument cluster is in a pod similar to the early T-birds and 1955/56 Fords and the headlight, panel dimmer, fog lights, turn signals and wipers are one the sides of the pod with the steering column only having horn, turn signal cancel and hazard switches and the cruise control ones are relocated in the steering wheel they were also built with air bags. I had two choices, find a useable 1990 up dash and steering column or modify what I have to work with the newer system. I opted for the second choice.

Now, all the lighting functions on the 1990 are controlled by relays, whose coils are grounded by the switches. Good part, low current switches are all that is needed, bad part, the panel dimmer and a few other items are not at all compatible with the 1989 headlight switch. Wipers are the same issue, but that had already been addressed for the 1995 BCM. End result, I modified a Taurus headlight switch to fit in place of the pull knob style which now meant I needed a separate dimmer control, which is an interesting system, the dimmer is a dual variable resistor, one side increases from dim to bright, the other decreases, resistance goes from around 20 ohms to 10.2K ohms and the dimmer portion goes to a nice little electronic module that then controls the panel lights. The electronic dimming is the last 1/4 of travel followed by the courtesy lights on position. No problem right? Wrong, it is part of the headlight switch. I canabalised a Lebaron switch for the resistor and switch, then because it moves in a arc, had to come up with a method of operating it, another Taurus part to the rescue, a dimmer thumbwheel, gutted and modified to move the slider and it even ended up with the detent in correct location in it's travel.

Pictures to follow.

Bill - Sorry to see that your wife had so many problems. Glad she's home and hope she's healing.

As for the car, you appear to have resolved a number of problems. Well done!

What's left to do on that front?

[85lebaront2]

Pictures to go with previous dissertation:

Dash harness as received draped over a 2.5L Turbo short block.

The 1986 fuse block has 16 fuses, this one 28 each headlamp side is individually fused

These are the relays that control all the lighting, door locks, horn and part of the audio system.

More to follow.

Pictures continued:

1990 BCM installed and harness mocked in position.

Right end of harness channel, screws and metal is where it was broken. Harness above is the power windows, locks and mirrors portion that goes from door to door (original 1986 one went across the floor).

50 way connector plug, this is the female or engine side.

Harnesses pretty well set in place. Small hoses are side window demisters.

From the other side.

Rear of left side, top frame is just to check cylinder to connecter plug and wiring clearance through it's stroke.

Slight location issue with the connection to the console for the top controls.

[85lebaront2]

Pictures continued:

1990 BCM installed and harness mocked in position.

Right end of harness channel, screws and metal is where it was broken. Harness above is the power windows, locks and mirrors portion that goes from door to door (original 1986 one went across the floor).

50 way connector plug, this is the female or engine side.

Harnesses pretty well set in place. Small hoses are side window demisters.

From the other side.

Rear of left side, top frame is just to check cylinder to connecter plug and wiring clearance through it's stroke.

Slight location issue with the connection to the console for the top controls.

Here is the original 1990-95 Lebaron convertible headlight switch out of it's pod location.

Modified Taurus dimmer and courtesy light control. Screw was to replace the peened rivet head.

Full dim position.

Fully bright, no courtesy lights.

Full bright and courtesy lights on.

Wire colors are, yellow, courtesy light control, yellow/black. electronic dimming, orange/black, dimmer module control and black/orange ground (replaced by a larger single wire now).