John S's Journal

After discovering that I needed to fix a toasted brown wire that ran from behind the console up into the main loom behind the dash, I knew it was time to remove the dash. It came with one of those plastic dash caps and it was loose so it obviously had a badly cracked dash beneath so I figured I couldn’t make it any worse. After some geriatric gymnastics, I managed to get it pulled up and off the studs to get at the various gauges and discovered some very crispy white wires on the tach so all in all it was a blessing in disguise. Removed gauges one at a time after taking some pics for reference and then plugged the wires back onto the gauges.

With the dash out now I could assess the state of affairs in the loom. Decided to tackle the burnt brown wire first so started removing the dried out blue tape at the console and on up to the brown wire cluster on the right side behind the pillow part of the dash. Dead wire had fused to some of the other wires but was able to separate individual wires to see that no other wires needed repair. A little electrical tape on a few where the insulation was thin just to play it safe.Clipped the soldered end where the brown wires were joined and replaced the burnt one. Soldered, heat shrink and a big wire nut for added measure. Wrapped new blue tape over all of the wire from console to the firewall end behind the wiper motor.

On to the crispy tach wires next. Peeled back the blue tape to sort out how far back and where the two individual wires ran. One to the coil across the dash and out through the firewall to passenger side. The other to a multiple bullet connection on the driver side. Fished a couple spare white wires out of my stash and soldered in a couple of repair sections, heat shrink, and re-wrapped the rest of the loom from the other repair area all the way to the driver side. Done.

This stuff was done a week or so ago and the thought was that I’d re-glue the cap back on and be done but it was such a gooey mess to try to clean up just to put a half-ass fix on so the thought process changed to sourcing a new pad and a few other goodies to put the dash pad to it’s former glory. Pillow dash detractors will argue it was never considered glorious but I rather like the fact it was only used for four production years. That in addition to it being a one year only split bumper car kind of makes it a little more unique. Next journal entry will detail the dash pad replacement learnings and installation.