Kiwibirdman

Thanks for the input guys. When we emerge from Jacinda's Socialist Hell I'll go for a drive and get the original sender out of the original tank. Not sure what state that will be in. The other option I thought about is to give Robinson instruments a call and see if they have a 0-30 ohm rheostat available. Using a new one would be a good idea. I know fuck all about Arduino, might be time to learn.

Just checked the gauge it is 0 ohms empty, 30 ohms full.

On my EJ Holden I am trying to get the Commodore fuel sender to drive the original fuel guage The commodore sender is 30 ohms full and 300 ohms empty, checked with a multi meter. The EJ gauge is 0 ohms full and 30 ohms empty. Any bright ideas on how to make it work? The first thought I had was to run a 33 ohm resistor in parallel with the sender and this will give me a gauge that shows about half when it it full and empty when empty.

I fitted up the front 3 point seat belts. I had checked with Cletus about the belts, the original top mounting is good to use and the lower mounts were put back in the original position on the floor. Here is the rechromed top bolt, complete with new gasket. I got a length of nitrol(I think) rubber from Para Rubber) and cut a gasket out. Belts in place. Front seat is right back. When I was scrounging seat belt bolts from Zebra I had grabbed a couple with a shoulder on them. They went into the top mount to replace the original bolts with separate spacers.

I went out on Monday and got most of the to buy list. The battery was put on order, it didn't turn up before lock down so that will hold things up. I remembered that I had used up all the heat shrink I had so got some more of that. Also got a new bottle of Maguires Ultra Rapid Detailer. It's pretty much the only thing to use on a Satin paint job, Time to stop watching You tube videos and get down into the garage and make a big dent in the list.

Still more progress, I bought the nuts to put the bonnet spear on that I had re-chromed months ago. The chrome cost about as much as I paid for the whole car, worth it though. Rear seat belts and seat in. The mounting points for the outside belts were about 3mm too low and the beads of the bolts would not go in without undoing the double plate, which meant jacking the car up and taking off the back wheels. Another 5 minute job that took about half an hour. I tried the back seat out and there is enough leg room for me to sit in the back with the front seat all the way back, for those who don't know me I'm 6 foot 5 tall. Even though these cars aren't that wide, they are reasonably long. Here is the list of stuff to buy, tomorrow And the list of stuff to finish the car, it is probably missing a whole heap of stuff. I started off with bleed the brakes, had a not very old bottle of brake fluid. I found all the fittings that never got past being hand tight and made a mess on the floor. The fittings are now tight and I'll get more fluid tomorrow. The joys of building a car over too many years and forgetting stuff that is only half done.

No excuse not to have the Holden finished.

Dumb question, why not trim the lower shock mount to fit the car?

With the wiring in the car pretty much done I put the front seat in. I need to check that the ECU missed the seat - Yes. Then there was the gauges that I had mounted under the edge of the dash board, I was worried that they would take out my left knee - again no problem, can see them as well, volt meter is not in line of site but that is not really important. I got into fitting seat belts until I ran out of bolts. When I was at Zebra wreckers a while ago I get a bunch of the factory low profile bolts which are going to the floor mounts. The ones under the back seat will use normal 7/16 UNF bolts. Here is my wife pretending to go for a cruise With the big steering wheel and 185 front tires the steering is not very heavy, should be fine when driving around. The column shift is fine, can only get Park, R, N, D, 3. I'm not worried about the extra gears. The neutral lock out switch on the torana column is fine, I adjusted it up a while ago.

Wiring is close to done. Lights and horn on the drivers side have relays Wiring round the engine bay. The red wire is for the wipers. This is the passenger side. Still some finishing off to do. The fuses that are hanging in the breeze will have a bracket off the hinge bolt. Relays for headlights and starter. The silver box is the ignition module. This is the ECU nuder the front seat. And the loom over the floor. I will do something to sort this out. Probably make a cover out of panel steel and screw to the floor

Wiring, still doing fucking wiring. Trying to think things through so that I don't end up either cutting stuff off short or not having space, the usual crap. I am running out of stuff to connect up so another night or 2 should see it done. Once the wiring in the cabin is done the seats can go in and the seat belts. I hope they are OK after sitting in a box under my sons bed for 2 or 3 years. My wife got keen the other day and booked us a trip to Vanuatu in July, followed by a trip to Sydney for my brothers birthday and then a trip to Hawaii in December to escape the family Christmas. This is all good and I have much better holidays than I would ever book myself but the Visa is maxed out until we get paid in the middle of the month. Once the Visa is bought back to under control I can buy the battery and order the Dakota Digital speedo interface box to make the original speedo work off the electronic transmission. I promise some photos.....soon

Thanks Guys. I will get the Dakota Digital one, Summit Racing have them for about US$300 plus freight.

Bloody hell, February is nearly dead! Amazing how life, kids, work and holidays get in the way, not to mention houses, caravans and other cars. I finally stopped procrastinating about the wiring. Another one of those jobs that I thought was going to be really shit and hasn't turned out to be so bad. I had spent a lot of time thinking about what had to be done to the original loom. @vk327had done a great job on the commodore wiring loom, which has been in the car for close to 2 years. There were several bits that need to be shortened up because of the different lay out I have. The worst one was the ignition module, I mounted it to the inner guard and had to take 40 cm out of the loom. It's about a dozen wires so I did them carefully one by one. Cut, strip, find the other end, cut, strip, solder then heat shrink. Took a while, I tried to stagger the joins as well. Once it was done and covered with protective sleeve it looks pretty good. I stripped all the redundant wiring out of the original loom, regulator for the generator and wiper motor being the main ones. The wiring for ignition power now stays inside the car and goes to the computer, the temperature warning light will come on when the electric fan starts, the starter is connected via the lock out switch on the column and the reversing lights will also work. I have by passed the original reversing light idea of using the rear indicators, overly complex in the indicator switch and work really badly. I'm going to mount some LED lights under the rear bumper. Also modified the wiper switch to run a pair of relays for the commodore wiper motor. After much head scratching, and some good input from @chris r I figured out how to get 2 speeds, self parking and hopefully no smoke. Battery tray for one of those tiny Odyssey batteries is made. I have a dead one that is the est for size. Battery tray is fully bolt in because if the LH exhaust has to come out the battery tray has to go first.I will order a new one next week (wife knows I need a battery, not how much these things cost). Finish the electrics, fit a new fuel pump to the tank, add some oil, water and trans fluid and this thing should run. Add some brake fluid and it might stop as well.

The 4L60E auto box that i have for the Holden has the pulse out put for the speedo and no mechanical drive. I would like to keep the original speedo in the car, what have other people used. There are converters that are available, speedbox for example, but they cost about $350 US. Is there a better option or do I just have to suck it up?

That is a good point. I might just pass on the breaker and use a 100A fuse for the main and then some extra fuses for the the new stuff.

I spent some time looking yesterday. Narva sell 50 Amp circuit breakers, I'm thinking one for the powertrain, one for the main car loom and one for the headlights/wipers as they are going to be on their own relays using the original switches to switch relays.

Sorting out the wring from the alternator to the the original fuse box in the Holden and the second loom that controls the power train. I thought it was probably a good idea to put some sort of fusible link in reasonably close to the alternator, I'm worried about wiring getting cooked should it get too close to something very hot or a sharp edge. Would using an inline 80 or 100 Amp link for a high power stereo be OK. Some of these come in holders that would be really easy to mount and keep things tidy or is there a better way?

Thanks, getting dangerously close to fire up. Keep getting side tracked on other stuff.

We followed the plan,shade, BBQ and ice cold drinks were bloody great after wandering around for hours. I met a guy from the early holden club that I spoken to on the phone and even got some headlight trim rings off. Made it worth the trip.

Great thanks

I am doing the wiring on my EJ Holden. The alternator on the VT commodore V8 has a ply with 2 wires going into it. It looks like one side has power the other goes into the wiring loom. Does anyone know if this is required for the alternator to provide charge or will it work as single wire?

If my car fails a WOF do I have to take it back to the original inspection place. Can I go to another place and get it reinspected within the 28 day repair period. Beware ranting ahead my wife's car ended up at the the dealers for a gearbox issue. While it was there they gave it a warrant check without asking me, and it failed on some stuff (light bulbs blown) that I would have found and fixed before it was taken to the usual spot. This pissed me off because it was booked into the local guy who is 10 mins walk away and typically rechecks take 5 mins plus paper work. The recheck, including driving to the dealer, waiting around and driving home killed the best part of 2 hours. I did spit the dummy about doing the WOF without asking so got it for free but would have much preferred to have paid the money and got 2 hours of my life back. I had it in my head that because it failed that I had to go back to where the check was done or wait until 28 days is up.

Good to see the others who turned up tonight.

I'm going on Saturday. Finally going to get my shit together and fill the tray of the Chev with a Chilly bin full of refreshing beverages and snags, BBQ, Sun Shade and folding chairs. When it gets hot and dusty a tailgate party can happen.

Being the first day of the new year I thought I better start as I mean to carry, or at least get this bloody car finished. I spent a bit of time fitting the best quality Ali express, chineseiumn gauges. I had a fitting made up to run the temp gauge into an existing threaded plug in the bottom of the radiator. There didn't appear to be an easy place to tap into the intake manifold and I need to leave the original sender for the computer to do it's thing. I will wire the factory temp warning light to come on when the fan gets switched on. This will do 2 things, the first is to keep an eye on the temp gauge once the fan is running and also to give me warning if the thermostat stay shut, fan will come on but the radiator will stay cold. The set I bought had a volt meter and oil pressure gauge as well. I thought it was worth seeing how accurate the volt meter is, my reasonable quality digital multi meter said the old battery I have lying around was 12.3 volts, fair enough. The Ali Express special said 13.5 volts. In reality the absolute number is not a big issue, I'm more interested in seeing that it's charging. I will be checking the other gauges against known good ones.