Imperial Journey

Just back from the last car show of the year at Kimball Farms. I wasn’t originally planning to attend, as I had gone to the one last week, but the weather was absolutely beautiful. OK, once more into the breach!

Except the Imperial wouldn’t start – low battery. Hmm, a problem with the battery or do I still have an electrical problem? Slap the charger on the battery and in a half hour it recovered enough to start. Well, I have a boost pack in the car, so I should be able to make it back home.

Throwing caution to the winds let’s get this car on the road! Hmmm, while driving along I see that the courtesy lights are going on and off… Wasn’t this problem solved? And after parking at the show the courtesy lights stayed on. Not good. Concerned about running the battery down I headed home earlier than planned, disconnected the battery, and slapped the charger on it.

Had a bit of excitement on the drive over: someone blew through a stop sign on a cross road right in front of me. The only possible response was to stomp on the brakes as hard as possible. The new brakes showed their worth, instantly locking all four wheels and stopping in a straight line. It is a good thing I missed the other car – it probably would have totaled his car and scratched the new chrome on my front bumper!

Now back to our planned posting: This was a good summer. The decision not to do any major projects over the summer and to instead actually drive the car (although not enough…) was a good one. The Imperial runs well, draws attention, starts conversations, and is fun to putter around in. In retrospect the only mistake was that I should have driven it even more!

And now Winter Is Coming. Looks like I have a good collection of projects to plan. Why don’t I mention them here so that we can all have a good laugh next spring?

Interior

First on the list is the front door cards. These still have the factory vinyl on them, so I need to take them out and recover them like I did with the rear door cards. I also need to apply the felt window filler strip to all four windows.

The existing outside door handles are chrome (like everything else on this car!) and are a bit rough. I found some new reproduction front door handles. It will be a bit of a nightmare to replace these without removing the entire window regulator mechanism, but we will see how it goes.

The good news is that all four of the power windows are working well – track adjustment and electrical upgrades to the windows have them going up and down with authority. The master switch – the one in the drivers door that controls all power windows – wasn’t working for the front passenger window. I got a new (used) master switch and it now works for all four windows. Except the front passenger window goes down when you press up and up when you press down. Looks like I reversed the wires for this particular switch and had no way to check them. Should be an easy job when the door card is off.

Since I’m never smart enough to leave things along I think I want to do a custom trunk – add panels like the door cards to completely finish the inside of the trunk. I’ve seen trunks done this way and they look great. I think I’ve got enough fabric left from the interior to do this, so the only real cost is time. Right? Well, there is the tiny detail of learning how to do custom carpet for the trunk floor…

I need to install speakers in the rear deck and add a finished cover. Currently it has a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet laying there. Doesn’t look bad, but could be finished better.

I’ve been thinking off and on about how to add a center console on the floor of the front seats. The car really needs cupholders and this is a good way to get them. And maybe put some front speakers in the console rather than cutting up the doors or front trim.

I also need to decide what to do with the radio. The choices are 1) Do nothing. 2) Upgrade the factory radio. 3) Add a new radio. Note that the factory radio is Imperial specific and you can’t find other radios with the needed bezel.

So far the approach has been to do nothing. In practice this means I haven’t even turned the radio on. There are companies that will upgrade the factory radio with new electronic guts. This gives you modern sound and features like bluetooth phone support and streaming playback with a complete stock factory appearance. Unfortunately the radio now in the car has been hacked up so badly that I would have to get a donor radio to upgrade.

Which leads us to a new radio. The question is where to mount it. As mentioned, the factory radio has a custom bezel that fits the curved dash. I’ve been thinking about ways to make a new bezel – this could be an excuse for getting a 3D printer. Other choices include putting the radio in the glove compartment or putting it in a center console on the floor. The glove compartment is easy to do and seems to be the most common approach, but is difficult for the driver to use. If I can come up with something that fits the center console is looking attractive.

Detailing

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I still haven’t detailed the car. All of the paint correction, including sanding, polishing, and waxing, left flecks of polish and wax all over the place. I need to spend the time with a toothbrush and towel to clean all traces of white from this black car!

After that I need to wash the car more regularly. It tends to pick up dust from various projects in the shop and from sitting outdoors.

The tires need to be cleaned and detailed; a judge dinged me for this at a show.

Electrical

Sigh. The courtesy light problem is back. It looks like it wasn’t the LED replacement bulbs after all. In the short term I need to locate the power feed for the courtesy lights and disconnect it. After that the only real solution is to build a complete custom electrical harness for the courtesy lights: All new wiring, new switches, and perhaps even new sockets (if I can find them). There is something subtle going on here and it is time for a complete rip and replace if I want to have courtesy lights.

It may also be time to add a master kill switch to disconnect the battery. An easy to access switch is better than disconnecting the battery cable each time. And this would also be a safety and security feature. Need to dig into this a bit more.

I need to clean up the wiring from the new LED lighting for the heater controls. The dimmer control was left hanging under the dash for testing – it needs a permanent home.

It would be nice to have a light in the trunk. I have the light – it was in a box in the trunk. Need to figure out how to install it.

Most of the high current electrical devices in the car have been put on relays. The last ones undone are the HVAC system – the three speed fan and the AC clutch. The original switches for the fan had burned out. The new switch is working, but adding relays would add a big chunk of protection. Challenges include figuring out wiring and finding a location for a relay box.

There are still six gallons of gas in the tank when the fuel gauge reads Empty. I should think about adding a MeterMatch while doing the rest of the electrical work.

Mechanical

The hood isn’t closing properly. I have a new hood hinge that needs to be painted and installed.

More cooling work is needed. Then engine only runs warm on hot days under load – like running down the Interstate at 70. Engine temperature is nominal during cooler weather – the temperature comes up to normal and then stays there. This indicates that the temperature gauge and thermostat are working correctly. I know that the thermostatic fan clutch isn’t working, so the next job is to replace it. I’m wondering if the water pump is working at full capacity; need to think about replacing that if the fan clutch doesn’t do the trick.

I really have to get after the transmission leak. This needs to be resolved before any significant trips. I know I need to replace the O-rings for the shift cables. This should have been done when the transmission was out of the car. I stripped one of the bolt holes on the transmission cover the last time I was working on it. I need to drop the transmission pan and helicoil that bolt.

Beyond this I don’t know what to do. May need to thoroughly clean and dry the transmission and see if I can determine exactly where the leak is.

There is still a bit of vibration when accelerating between 25-30mph. It is much less than it was – has gotten better as the new suspension settles in. The next step in try to fix this is to remove another leaf or two from the rear springs. Unfortunately the 4-bar linkage in the rear suspension makes this a bigger job than it should be.

Got the AC recharged (again) and good news – it worked! All of the heater controls are working – the actuators open and close the air doors and properly route the airflow for AC, heater, and defrost. The fan works on all three speeds. You can see the heater controls both during the day and at night. The environment of the Imperial is finally controlled!

Well, sort of… The AC was more cool than cold. Actually, it wasn’t cold enough to really make a difference. After discussing the symptoms with the mechanic, it looked like high and low pressures were OK, but the differential pressure between high and low was too low. This is often a symptom of a problem with the expansion valve.

OK, let’s try a different expansion valve! This time let’s track down a better expansion valve than the inexpensive one from Rock Auto.

After a couple of weeks of tracking I couldn’t find a better expansion valve. With no other real choice, order another one of these expansion valves and see if it was a problem with the current valve – perhaps a defect or some dirt.

New valve arrived, old refrigerant sucked out, new valve installed, and new refrigerant stuffed in.

Significant improvement! The AC is now cold. Not ice cold, but cold enough that it will probably be OK. I need to stick a thermometer in the vent to see what the actual temperature is.

If this isn’t enough, the next step will be to replace the condenser. Modern cross-flow condensers work much better with modern R-134a refrigerant than the old style restrictive condensers and are a recommended upgrade when updating an old AC system. Even better, they are surprisingly affordable – I should be able to get one for around $200.

The downside is that they require new mounting brackets and new hoses. The mounting brackets are easy, but there is limited space to run new hoses. Maybe there is some way to use the existing hard lines with a new condenser? Need to study this a bit more.

On a side note, the mechanic told me that the thermal fan clutch on the engine cooling fan isn’t working. Of course I had replaced the fan clutch with a new one to ensure that it worked back when I put the engine together… Now to see if I can find the old one and see if it works. This could be another part of my ongoing cooling problems. Oh well, more tasks for this winter.

Like other parts of the Imperial the radio has a story behind it. A story that I would love to know but will never discover…

It is a factory radio – has to be to fit the curved dash. State of the art for its day – one of the earliest radios to receive FM. And one of the early radios to use transistors – the six transistors in the radio are the only transistors in the entire car. Compare this to a modern car which has tens of billions (yup, billion with a “B”) of transistors in over a hundred plus separate computers. A modern car is a data center on wheels. But that is a different topic…

While it is a factory radio, it isn’t a stock radio. I don’t know what has been done, but the radio reminds me of Frankenstein’s monster. The case has been cut up and modified in several places. The tuning knob is connected to the tuner with a length of rubber hose and two hose clamps. A large hole has been gouged in the case where the antenna connector was, and the antenna connector itself is now a half inch inside the case.

The speaker and power wires aren’t stock – they are thin (20ga – 22ga) modern wires with printed foil labels saying things like “Right Speaker”, “Left Speaker”, “Power”, and “Ground”. And I can’t really tell what they are connected to inside the radio. Clearly something has been replaced inside the radio.

Having said this, the radio does work. For certain values of “work”. The tuner barely moves and only covers part of the radio band. It is too sensitive – turn it just a little and it will go through three or four stations. Even if you do manage to tune it to a single station it will drift over time. And the sound quality is, ummm, “less than audiophile”. But it is better than no radio.

I’ve gone through a few generations of connectors on the radio. Started with 1/4″ spade connectors and then moved to some smaller spade connectors. This involved individual connectors on each wire, requiring me to figure out which wires went where each time I touched the radio

This quickly turned into a nuisance. I wanted to wire up a single connector for all of the radio wiring. The thing holding me back is that the WeatherPak and MetriPak connectors I’ve been using everywhere else in the wiring are total overkill – too big, too bulky, way more current carrying capacity than needed, and difficult to connect to 22ga wire.

After a bit of research I decided to try some “automotive connectors”. These are much smaller connectors, not waterproof, support one to nine wires, and work with thin wires.

I needed a minimum of four wires to connect the radio.However (you just knew this was coming!) it would make sense to go bigger. I’ve run the wire for two rear speakers – this was easy to do when everything was apart for paint and interior. And there are two speaker wires coming out of the radio; might as well connect both. Even though only one seems to work…

So, eight wires to connect. A nine pin connector it is!

Those smaller terminals and the finer wire… Yeah, it took some experimentation to be able to get reliable crimps with them. One of the reasons for getting such a large connector set is to have plenty of parts to screw up. No – of course what I meant was plenty of parts to experiment with and learn on!

After learning how to crimp these smaller parts came the joy of inserting the connectors into the nine pin body. Recall that the male and female connectors have to be wired up mirror image of each other. I of course got it right on the first try. The initial three attempts were just a learning exercise, so they don’t count!

In any case, the radio is now working and it is much easier to remove it and re-install it. And I’m ready if I ever get around to replacing it!

Another entry in the list of places where I have outsmarted myself trying to improve things…

When I got the Imperial the rear springs were sagging a bit. As part of rebuilding the rear suspension I replaced them with new springs – along with replacing all of the suspension bushings, new shocks, and adding a rear sway bar. I had a choice on the springs: standard or heavy duty. Well, heavy duty is better so I ordered that!

The new heavy duty springs raised the rear end significantly. Producing two side effects: first was causing a mis-alignment in the drive shaft. On older Imperials this is known to produce a noticeable vibration on acceleration between 25 and 30 mph. Yup, I’m shaking. Badly. I’ve removed one leaf from the springs which helped. Really need to take out another leaf but this is a difficult job I’ve been procrastinating on. Driving the car has made the situation better as the suspension pieces settle in and this problem is almost gone. Guess I’ll keep driving and see if it goes away completely.

The second problem is that the headlights are pointing down at the road giving you what seems like ten feet of light in front of the car. Nowhere near enough light for safe driving!

I upgraded the standard sealed beam halogen lights that came on the car with a new set of Hella headlights that use modern H4 bulbs. These Hella headlights are direct replacements for the old style 5-3/4″ sealed beam headlights, get good reviews, and have a much better light pattern than the old sealed beam headlights. They are also significantly brighter.

I really wanted to go with a set of Holley RetroBright LED headlights which are modern headlights that can be installed on old cars. They are fully street legal, unlike many of the cheap LED headlights you can buy online. The Holleys get great reviews and look like the way to go. Unfortunately they are $200 apiece. The Hellas, on the other hand, are under $200 for a pair. And I probably won’t drive the Imperial at night that much…

Knowing about the aiming problem and considering how sharply down the headlights were pointing I really cranked the alignment setting up when installing the new headlights. I used the brute force method of turning the headlights on and adjusting the beam against the toolbox on the back wall until it looked good.

Which brings us to a couple of days ago. I finally decided to fire up the Imperial after dark and check out the headlights. The Hi beams (old headlights) were still pointed down into the road. The Lo beams (new headlights) were doing a great job of lighting up the tree tops. Yeah, other drivers are really going to like that…

The good news is that, on average, the headlights are aimed properly!

Last night also got dark (amazing how that works!) so I headed out to the workshop. Measured to the top of the headlights and marked that on a yardstick with a piece of tape. Set the yardstick up in front of the headlights and turned them on.

The new Hella’s have a great pattern – very sharp horizontal cutoff to the left to avoid blinding other drivers and a rising cutoff to the right to help you better see things. And the cutoff was well above the height of the headlights meaning that they were pointing up. Yeah, not good.

I adjusted the aim so that the cutoff was an inch or two below the tape. Then moved over and adjusted the other Lo beam. Head out around the block and see how this adjustment is.

Much better! I can’t see the treetops as well and the light cutoff on the left side is providing reasonable range and doesn’t seem to be high enough to bother other drivers. Visibility to the right is better, but doesn’t go as far as I would like when turning corners. Hi beams are a mix – good from the Hellas and the old headlights still point down.

Back into the shop and tweak the adjustments. Turn the passenger side Hella farther to the right. Adjust the old headlights so that their beam is closer to the tape mark – these headlights have a much rounder pattern so this adjustment is more approximate.

Head back out on the road and admire the headlights. The low beams provide good visibility. I’d like to have them brighter so looking into some high output bulbs. Bulb choice is one of the reasons for choosing the Hellas – any H4 bulb will work in them. Including the 100 watt “off road only” bulbs. Well, there are also a number of legal choices to try.

The Hi beams are great – they really light up the road!

With things checking out driving around the neighborhood it was time to take a longer drive. The good news is that I can see much better now. Not as good as the headlights in modern cars but entirely usable. Even better none of the other cars are flashing me – a good sign that the headlights aren’t blinding them.

Now there is no reason to fear sundown!

Update:

I went ahead and ordered a set of Sylvania 9003 SilverStar Ultra High Performance Halogen Headlight Bulbs – these got good reviews as one of the brightest bulbs available without getting into the 100 watt offroad lights. They are noticeably brighter than the standard H4 bulbs.

Got in a good night time drive – headlights are working well. The instrument panel is easy to read and the HVAC push buttons are clearly lighted. Life is good!

I’ve had an intermittent electrical problem for several months – one of the most frustrating things that can happen. The courtesy lights – lights in the front doors and a map light in the dash – come on when you open a front door and go off when you close the door. At least they are supposed to…

The problem started last spring when the courtesy lights came on with the Imperial just sitting in the workshop and then completely drained the battery. Fortunately I was able to recharge the battery and it seems to be OK.

I started to trouble shoot the problem and it went away after driving the car. OK, yet another reason why you need to regularly drive your cars!

Since then the problem has randomly occurred and then gone away. Finally last week the lights came on and stayed on. Great! A hard failure can actually be diagnosed! And it was a good time in the project where nothing else was in the way. Time to dig out the multi-meter and patch cords and see if we can chase this gremlin down!

The first thing to know about lighting circuits like these is that they are wired up backward. Most circuits switch the power on and off and have ground permanently connected. This can get complicated when you have multiple switches and multiple lights on a single circuit and require multiple wires to make everything work.

On the other hand you can permanently provide power to all devices and have the switches connect to ground. Any place you close a switch, completing the circuit from power to ground, all of the lights on the circuit will come on. Simple, elegant, and effective!

I’ve been suspicious of the door switches. These are 60 years old and subject to wear. It would be easy for these to start making accidental contact to ground.

Starting with the drives door I manually worked the door switch. The initial signs were encouraging: Off then on, off then on. But then it went Off then on, off then on, off then on, on, on, on – even with the door switch physically removed from the circuit. OK, apparently not the driver door switch.

Next the passenger door switch. Once again the initial signs were encouraging: Off then on, off then on. But then it went off then on, off then on, off then on. Looks like we found the problem, so put the trim panel back on. And admire the now shining lights. That are supposed to still be off.

This actually makes sense! Looks like there is a short in one of the wires. Take the trim panel back off and the light goes off. Carefully examine the wires. Hmm, can’t find anything; the wire looks fine. Put the trim panel back on the the lights come back on. Take the panel off and the light goes out.

Just a minute – if I wiggle the wires in a different place the lights come on! OK, maybe there is a short circuit someplace in the middle of the dash. But these wires also look good. And now I can’t get the lights to come on.

Put the trim panel back on and the lights come on. I’m now getting both annoyed and frustrated.

While pondering the situation I hit the electric window button to make sure that the power windows still worked. The window worked great, instantly dropping down a couple of inches. And the lights went off. Raise the window back up and the light came back on. Ok, this is interesting. Try it some more: down/off, up/on, down/off, up/on, down/off, up/on.

This is a strong indication that there is a problem with the wiring inside the door! It looks like the window is rubbing on something and creating a short circuit. It is going to be a pain to open up the door and work on the wiring inside the door, but at least there is something solid to go after.

The first step in taking the door apart is to remove the light fixture from the door. And maybe I will get lucky and the problem will be close to the fixture so that I can fix it without taking the entire door apart.

Remove the chrome plated metal fixture from the door and the light goes out. OK, it really looks like a wiring problem! Play with the wiring for a while; nothing obvious. And the light doesn’t come on.

Put the fixture back in the door to check how the wiring fits. The light comes on as soon as the metal fixture touches the metal door. Try it several times and get the same result.

This is odd! Many light bulbs are grounded through the shell and this would be expected behavior. But this bulb has two terminals – one for power and one for ground – and the shell of the bulb doesn’t do anything. Unlike most bulbs the shell isn’t electrically connected to the filament. It doesn’t make sense for the bulb to light up when you ground the fixture.

Pop the bulb out and carefully examine the bulb, the socket, and the fixture. Nope, don’t see anything that would create a short.

Except…

I had replaced some of the courtesy lights with LED bulbs for more light, less heat, and less power. Just some of the bulbs – the LED bulbs wouldn’t fit into some of the sockets. And this was one of the LED bulbs.

Could there be a problem with the electronics inside the LED bulb creating an intermittent short circuit to the shell? Perhaps a short that was temperature or vibration related? Could it simply be the wrong bulb for this application? Could I have (once again) out-smarted myself trying to improve things that worked fine before?

Dig through my stash of bulbs and find a standard 1004 courtesy light bulb. Install it in the fixture and then ground the fixture. Nothing! Open the door and the light comes on. Just as it is supposed to.

Re-install the fixture in the door. Open and close the door several times – the light goes on and off every time. Try the drivers door – the light goes on and off every time it is supposed to. Try the map light switch. The light goes on and off every time it is supposed to.

Grab and wiggle the wiring every place I can reach it – the light stays off. Try the doors and map light again. Everything works.

All of that work was yesterday. I went out to the car today and tried everything again. Still working like it is supposed to!

At this point the indications are that it was in fact a defective LED bulb. But I’m still going to keep a close eye on it for the next several months. And I probably won’t be “upgrading” any more lights to an LED without a good reason!