[quote name='Brian' date='Feb 1 2006, 11:44 PM']you're certainly welcome for the notes on the exhaust.
i sincerely hope you and all the others feel the same way after you receive it and install it. my few dealings with pete were so positive that i'm really happy to help him and his business.
one suggestion, make sure you can get the car up off the ground enough to be able to move freely under the car. if you're tight under there, you'll put yourself in a very bad mood! oh, it also wouldn't hurt to get some wd 40 on all the old bolts for a while before you try to remove them. they really are self-welded on there after 15 years of use. oh, you'll need to purchase some gasket sealer, too. don't forget to buy it before you start tearing things apart. i still have half a tube left. if you'd like it, let me know. i'll throw it in the mail for you.
back to business...
i'm no serious mechanic by any means, but the routing of the cables is much more simple than you'd think it's mostly visible from up under the hood and pretty much drops straight down by the oil filler neck. certainly grab some cables from someone if you can, but i don't think you'll have a hard time putting the new ones in. once again, if you can get the car up off the ground and give yourself some headroom, it's really pretty straightforward. the hardest part is just getting the kinks/bends right for the starter. i ended up having to sort of wrap one cable over the torque tube and hang it down to the starter. (great time to do the gummy starter cleaning procedure on this forum. very straightforward.)
one other neat ice shark trick was to run the exciter wire to the alternator inside the sheathing for the main cable so it was all nice and neat. you could probably accomplish the same thing with some wire cables or elec tape. there was also one low gauge wire to the starter. i can't remember how he had that one going. i think it's still just on it's own.
one tip on the main ground to the engine block. it's very tight in there. make sure you cover the inspection hole in the top of the bell housing before you remove that nut. it'll probably fall when you remove it and that hole is right there. recipe for a real headache or heavy drinking followed by a large headache.
if it'd help at all, i'd be happy to get you ice's install instructions. i don't think he'd mind since you would have bought his product if you could have. they don't have any good pictures, but he was a good writer.
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Brian,
Thanks again. Yoy're apparently a lot younger than me. I gave up lying on my back several years ago to work on cars. Usually get one of my sons to do it now. What I am excited about is that, after all these years of lying under cars, I am finally going to install a lift in my 2 car garage! I spent the winter months modifying the garage (collar tie relocatons and revising the door tracks) and now running 120/240 power overhead to power the lift and a couple of electric wall heaters I've installed. With luck, the lift will be in by Spring time.
That's the long way of saying that I should have good undercar clearance when I tackle the exhaust system!
I'll take you up on Dan's install instructions for the harness, if you don't mind. Perhaps you could send me a zerox copy of the notes. My address is:
Ernie Rossi
1217 Cheshire Avenue
Naperville, Il. 60540
Or, if you can scan them, you could send them via email to earossi@yahoo.it.
I do have one suggestion for you. You mentioned WD-40 in your last note to work on the rusted hardware. There is something much better than WD-40. It's called Kroil. You will not find it in any retail stores, but you can purchase via email directly from the Kroil Company. I believe they are in Tennessee. You can Google them to get the specifics. I found out about the product from a friend whose hobby is frame off restorations of old solid axle Corvettes. Those old Vette's are reall rust buckets, and Kroil is amazing for freeing up hardware. My buddy says that if Kroil doesn't work, get your torch out and cut the hardware off!
Give it a try. As a bonus, the company makes a number of other automotive related chemicals which I have tried with success. Their products are commercial grade......I found, after purchasing Kroil, that we use it in our machine shop at the plant in which I work.
Take care.
Ernie
