Imperial Journey

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!

You know when you have a sweater with a thread hanging loose and you pull on it? And you keep getting more and more thread until your former sweater is nothing but a pile of sheep fur on the floor?

I decided it was time to get the air conditioning charged again and see if I could make the Imperial even cooler than it already is. Something about a black car and the hottest July on record.

First order of business: flush out the AC evaporator, condenser, and hoses with AC flush. This went fairly smoothly and flushed out less crud than expected. OK, that’s a good sign! Call the garage and schedule the re-charge.

One of the idiosyncrasies of the new generic heater control is that it engages the AC compressor clutch when selecting MaxCool, Cool, or Heat. The temporary expedient was to unplug the compressor clutch over the winter. So I needed to plug the compressor clutch back in. And check to make sure it still worked. As you probably guessed, nothing.

Well, dogbreath!

First question: is it the clutch or the wiring? Hook up a temporary jumper to the clutch, connect it to the battery, and be rewarded with a solid clunk of clutch engagement. OK, wiring it is.

Next, check the fuses and make sure that power is going to the heater control. Yup, power is good at the fusebox. Sigh… Nothing left but one of my most dreaded jobs – remove the heater control!

Remove the glove box. Remove the ash tray. Remove the right hand defroster vent and hose. Remove the radio. Now start blindly reaching into the back of the dashboard to unbolt and remove the heater control. Yup, buried just as deeply as it used to be. Yup, just as awkward to get to as it used to be. Yup, just as many sharp edges in there as there used to be. Yup, I still have trouble finding things by braille.

With the heater control finally out, wipe the blood off and start electrical trouble shooting. Hmm, no power to the clutch circuit. There was a similar problem last time. Fine, be that way! I have plenty of spare power circuits in the new fuse box, so just run a new dedicated power line directly from the fuse box to the heater control.

Try the compressor clutch again. This time I’m rewarded with a solid clunk when I push the button. Out of paranoia check the fan (which is the other part of the heater control): low, medium, and high, check. And the new LED lighting panels work (separate post on that). Reinstall the heater control. Check that everything is working. Still good!

You know, I should probably check the power antenna switch while the radio is out since the radio completely blocks access to this switch. Hmm, only goes down… OK, dig out the factory service manual and check the wiring. Three wires: power, up, and down. Of course the wires are different colors on both sides of the connectors…

Grab the multimeter and check all three wires. OK, this wire has 12V on it, so it goes to the center of the switch. The other two wires go to the other two connectors. And the antenna now goes up as well as down!

Reinstall the radio. Wrestle with the defrost vent and hose until they cooperate. Reinstall the ash tray and glove compartment and then sit back and admire a difficult job completed. Just to be sure, check out the compressor clutch and the fan. Satisfying clunk from the compressor, and fan works on low, medium, and… No high speed on the fan.

Well, carp! I can’t leave it like that.

Pull everything apart and start checking with the heater control now hanging under the dash. Everything works… OK, maybe a loose connector? Re-seat all connectors, re-install the heater control, wipe off the blood, and check. Everything works.

Re-install the radio. Check everything again before going any further. No high speed on the fan.

Pull the radio out. Check the fan. Works on Low, Medium and Hi.

What the freaking Hades is going on here?!? There is NO connection between the radio and the heater control. There is no way for the radio to interact with the heater or fan. This physically cannot be happening!

Pull everything apart. With the heater control hanging under the dash test all functions. Yup, with the radio removed the fan works on Hi.

As an alternative to an exorcism of the car I dragged out the wiring diagrams and multimeter and started tracing and checking each part of the heater circuit from the fusebox all the way to the fan.

Hmmm, this is odd.. This connector near the fan feels like it has a broken wire. This is a butt connector covered with heat shrink tubing that should be one of the most solid and reliable parts of the entire circuit. And, of course, it is on the high speed circuit. This part of the wiring harness goes from the heater control, under the radio, and to the fan. Where it would be moved and jostled when installing the radio. No, no – this is just circumstantial evidence – don’t jump to conclusions!

The usual test is to tug on a wire and see if it comes out of the connector. This doesn’t work when marine grade heat shrink tubing glues everything together. The situation is suspicious enough that it makes sense to just cut the connector out and replace it.

With the old connector cut out might as well take it over to the workbench and slice off the heat shrink tubing to check the wire. Yup, damaged wire and a bad crimp. Moving the wire would make and break the connection. This evidence is more than just a smoking gun – it is like having surveillance video of the crime scene! The worst part is that these wires are new – I made them as part of installing the new heater motor. Yup, the usual idiot is to blame.

Double check and triple check the crimps when installing the new connectors. Make absolutely sure they are solid this time.

As part of the detailed trouble shooting I reviewed the heater control switches. I had wired the new switch just like the original factory switch, which meant (with this new universal switch) that the AC was running when heat was selected. Connect it differently and AC only came on for Cool and MaxCool, so I went ahead and hooked it up that way.

Check all functions — all good. Re-install the heater control. Check all functions — all good. Re-install the radio. Check all functions — all good. Re-install the defrost hose and vent. Check all functions — all good. Re-install the ash tray and glove compartment. Check all functions. Wait for it, wait for it…

All good! Not there yet – fire the car up and take it for a test drive. Check all functions — all good.

OK, I’m getting cautiously optimistic.

The AC recharge is now scheduled for next week.

Unfortunately we aren’t done yet. Three back panels are required – two sides and a center piece. These panels fit around the mounting brackets for the seat back and arm rest. Unlike the factory cover, these will be seat material instead of carpet. Each panel is measured, cut, sewn, test fitted, and then sewn to the cover.

Finally we are ready to fit the entire cover. With some pushing, pulling, tweaking, and cursing the complete cover is in place and looking good. Flip the seat over the use hog rings to secure the seat cover to the frame. Then flip it back upright and check the overall fit. Not bad, not bad at all! Since everything is in its final position, cut out the holes for all of the mounting points.

Being thoroughly paranoid at this point, the complete seat is assembled – arm rest and seat backs – and the whole seat is checked over for any last problems. Everything still looks good…

Time to take the seat back apart, drag the engine hoist out of the corner, hook everything up, and call She Who Must Be Obeyed.

The seat base went back into the car smoothly. The mounting bolts slipped into their holes in the bottom of the car – everything still fits. Run the nuts onto the mounting bolts and tighten everything up. The next moment of truth – plug in the power seat and see if it works. It does! It moves in all six directions. So far, so good…

Install the arm rest with its cover. Install both seat backs. Install the trim pieces on the sides of the seats. Everything is still looking good.

Now for the real moment of truth – run the seat back to its correct position, slide in, and sit on it.

Wait for it, wait for it…

It is good! The seat is now firm and comfortable. There is much better support and it doesn’t feel squishy. It even looks good! And there was much rejoicing!

We’re not quiet finished – the front door cards still need to be done and I need to do some tweaking around the windows. But the car is usable and even looks good. We may eventually get a Thursday that isn’t raining so I can take it to the local car show!

I’ve been working on the interior more or less non stop since the first of February – three and a half months so far. The front door cards still need to be done and there is some trim work left to do. And the success on the interior has inspired me to consider some additional projects – yeah, potentially a bit of foreshadowing. The car is ready for the road, so I really should spend some time driving it instead of working on it. I sometimes forget that this is a car to be driven, not just a never ending money sucking series of projects on a static display… That this is a vehicle, not an art project!

She Who Must Be Obeyed has graciously reminded me that some projects on the house need to be worked on, so I’m going to shift gears for a while. But I’m happy with where the car is now!

Today is a new day. Returning to the debacle of the seat cover that doesn’t fit the first thing is to cast aside all assumptions and do a systematic trouble shooting of everything.

The first thing I discovered is that the sides of the seat aren’t at right angles to the front – they are actually at 83 degrees, not 90 degrees. OK, that makes a difference. There is an inward jog at the back of the seat. OK, that needs to be included in the template

While the factory seat covers aren’t suitable for making templates they can give you a rough idea. Working against the seat frame I had made the corners with a 3″ radius. Looking at the original covers they had a much larger radius.

But how to make a large radius? Well, the drafting set I’m using (a professional set from my days as an aerospace draftsman) has an extension bar for the compass. Let’s make circles with radii from 5″ to 10″ , cut them out of cardboard, and see which one fits best. After trying all of them it looks like an 8″ radius is the best fit.

Taking this information we create a new template.

As long as we have the seat backs mounted on the base let’s mark the foam with the edges of the seat backs and the seat inserts. We can then use this to fit the top seat cover and precisely locate the seat inserts and center panel.

With this information we can position the seat inserts, add filler strips on the outside edges, and determine the exact size for the center panel between the inserts.

Based on the new template I was able to save and re-work the seat inserts – all other pieces had to be discarded and done from scratch. This wasn’t completely bad – the inserts required the most work to make so I was glad to be able to use them. All of the other pieces were simply cut out and sewn together.

The new template is used to mark the outside edges and the radius for the corner. This corner radius goes into the insert, so the insert is trimmed to fit. After the entire top panel is sewn together it is draped over the seat base and test fitted.

The front and sides were made using the original front and sides as templates. Despite the problems with the first seat cover these pieces seemed to fit OK, so we will use the same templates to make the new ones. To correct the problems with the seam we sew the front and side panels together and pin them in place on the seat base and foam. We then use the edge of the side and front to mark the top panel, add seam allowances, and mark this on the top panel. Hopefully this will give us a consistent seam around the entire seat rather than one that dips around the ends.

Taking a deep breath, sew the top and sides together. With considerable trepidation test fit the new cover.

And it fits! Maybe not perfect, but much better than the first cover.