JensenHealey
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Posts posted by JensenHealey
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But every time I mention that possibility to someone else they wonder about the wheelbase length. Was the Caprice chassis the right wheelbase for the Avanti or did they have do some work to cut the chassis down? According to google the 1987 - 1988 G body cars were 108" wheelbase and a 1989 Caprice was 116"
What did they do with that extra 8 inches? Or are the 1989 Convertibles 8 inches longer than the 1988 cars?
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Can anyone positively identify what chassis a late 1989 Convertible Cafaro built car would have been built on?
I understand the GM G body chassis was only built through 1988 so what did the Cafaro Youngstown factory do for the 1989 cars?
Did they continue to somehow source 1988 G body cars and use that for the 1989 and 1990 cars or did they somehow transition to using a Caprice chassis?
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OK, but how hard is it to actually access the ECU? Does a significant portion of the dash have to come apart?
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Is the top on a 1989 convertible Avanti electrically actuated by an electric motor or is there an electric motor that drives a hydraulic pump?
When I hit the switch on my 1989 Convertible, I can hear a motor running but nothing happens. Someone told me it might be out of hydraulic fluid if there is an electric motor that drives a hydraulic pump.
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I have a need to get to the ECU that controls the throttle body fuel injection on my 1989 convertible Avanti so I can figure out the exact part number of the ECU. Can anyone clue me in as to where it is located and how to get to it?
Thanks
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Yesterday evening I spent a few hours pulling the gas tank out of the 1989 Convertible. Since this is a 1989 car, it has the gas tank under the floor of the trunk and the filler neck comes out the side of the vehicle on the driver rear quarter panel, just behind and above the rear wheel.
Once I got the tank out I was surprised at the size of the tank. According to the replacement tank for a 1989 Caprice sedan, it is 22 gallons.
The other thing I was surprised at was how the Avanti plant had modified the original Caprice tank to fit into the 1989 Avanti Convertible.
Here is a photo from Rockauto of a replacement gas tank for a 1989 Caprice sedan.
Note the rearward facing filler port that would have had a filler neck ending up behind the rear license plate.
The 1989 Avanti Convertible tank instead has this rearward facing filler port plated over like this:
And then they added a new filler neck onto the back corner of the tank with some crude welds.
Anyway I need to drain the old smelly gas out of the tank and then open it up to see what condition it is on the inside. The outside of the tank doesn't look that great.
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9 hours ago, IndyJimW said:
I pulled the fuel tank this evening. Once it was on the ground, I decided I had enough for the day and came home to make pizza.
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No, the small diameter piece of wire is actually supposed to burn through.
See the following article on fusible links: https://itstillruns.com/causes-fusible-blow-car-12161001.html
When it fails it should look something like this:
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I spent another couple hours working on the dead circuits issue on the 1989 convertible this evening.
Here are some photos showing what I found when I pulled the wiring harness away from the starter solenoid.
Other than the main positive battery cable these are all of the wires that are normally connected to the positive supply lug on the starter solenoid.
These are two photos of the main positive battery cable that was connected to the positive input on the starter solenoid. The green corrosion on the cable lug and the rust on the starter terminals do not look very good at all but this turns out to not really be the root cause behind the dead circuits for headlights, taillights, and etc.
This blurry photo is a closeup of the main positive connection from the starter solenoid to the positive post on the alternator. Even though the photo is blurry, I hope the greenish corrosion can be seen. This too is bad but yet again this is not the primary cause of the dead circuits.
These two molded connectors that make the transition from the fusible links to the regular wiring are the REAL cause of the dead circuits. These molded connectors do not pass any power through them. As a temporary fix to confirm this is the problem I cut these out of the harness ends and replaced them with standard crimped butt connectors to connect the fusible links to the regular wires in the harness and then hooked them all directly up to the positive post on the battery and HEADLIGHTS ARE NOW WORKING!!!
Yahoo!!!
Next I have to figure out how I want to make a permanent fix.
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This evening I finally went over to my shop to investigate this further. I ended up unbolting the starter from the engine block so I could completely disconnect the whole wiring harness from the starter. After doing that and disconnecting a single wire going to a sender (oil pressure perhaps) on the side of the block near the starter, I was able to pull that complete section of the wiring harness up from below the engine to the top of the engine compartment so I could examine it and work on it much easier. I found that there were three 16 gauge fusible links and one 12 gauge fusible link connected to the power post on the starter solenoid. I found a spot on the 12 gauge fusible link that was heavily corroded. I didn't have time to completely confirm this is the issue or even take a photo of the damage. I will do that tomorrow.
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Yeah, replacing with a real fuse seems like the way to go. Do you think a 30 amp fuse would be appropriate for that location?
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Does a fusible link have a particular rating like a regular fuse or circuit break that determines under what load it will melt?
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Based on suggestions from IndyJIm and looking at the power distribution wiring diagram he uploaded recently I have come to the conclusion shown below based on the list of dead circuits I have in my 1989 convertible
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Thanks Jim
Which specific plug through the firewall are you talking about?
I do see what I think is a large bundle of wires in a "plug" like structure going to the firewall but I have not figured out how to "unplug" anything there to examine the inner workings of any connection.
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I have posted here before about some issues my 1989 Convertible has with various electrical subsystems that do not work. Briefly the list is:
Things that work:
- starter
- gauges
- hazard lights & turnsignals
- brake lights
- power windows
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power top motor (I can hear when working the switch but I don't know if it actually raises or lowers the top)
Things that don't work
- headlights
- taillights
- reverse lights
- gauge lights
- trunk release
- gas lid release
- power seats
- fuel pump
I have continued investigating this and I have discovered that there are two fuses that seem to have no power supplied to them when the ignition key is turned to the ON position. Also there are some BAT power taps that I believe are supposed to be supplied power all the time and these also do not have any power available at any time irrespective of the position of the ignition key.
The dead fuse positions are TAIL LP and CTSV-CLK. The Dead power taps are two near the bottom of the fuse box with a label of BAT and another in the upper half of the fuse box labeled LPS or maybe LP5. Can anyone tell me what the LPS or LP5 or BAT power taps are? Also what is the fuse at the very top of the box with the label of C/H ? Am I correct that these BAT power taps should have power continuously?
The lower BAT power tap has a red wire and a blue wire going into it. The upper BAT power tap has an orange wire in it. The LPS/LP5 power tap has a grey wire going into it. These can be seen in the lower photo.
These are shown in the image below (arrows added to fuse box diagram posted by IndyJim):
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Just thought someone might find this photo useful for ID'ing which fuses are which in the fuse block buried up under the dash on my 1989 Convertible
If anyone is interested I have a higher resolution version of this same photo.
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I cleaned as much of the undercoating off the wires going to the fuel tank on the 1989 convertible so I could try to identify the wire colors.
This is what I ended up with:
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I will try cleaning the undercoating off the wires and after that I will try to get a friend to help turning the key while I am under the car checking for an electrical signal. Thanks for the hints on the wire colors.
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The 1989 convertible with the throttle body fuel injection has an in-the-tank fuel pump. I want to see if it is getting power when I crank the motor but I have to know which wire does what. Here is a photo of the modular harness plug going to the fuel tank. One wire is red and another wire is a lighter color and the third wire is too obscured with undercoating to tell what color it is.
Anyone know which wire does what?
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The front fenders on both my 1989 convertible (shown below) and the 1988 coupe both show evidence of cracks at the top of one or both fenders. The fenders on the 1988 coupe are much worse than this.
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So would this 15" wire wheel have been a Keystone or Appliance wheel?
I was just assuming it was a Dayton wire wheel until I saw this wheel chart you posted.
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Thank you so much Jim
This is a huge help.
Just curious though how you happen to have such a thing. Did this documentation come with your car when you got it?
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What rear TV ? None of these three cars have any sort of "rear TV"
What was this rear TV supposed to be used for? Do you mean a screen for a backup camera?
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Yeah, one of the parts people I spoke with about these with talked about that crappy velcro attachment of these parts on the later cars. I think his name was George at Olympus Avanti
Strange thing is the 1988 silver blue convertible is car # 286 and it has the four screws holding the bezel on and the lip in the bezel. But the 1988 coupe which is car # 374 has transitioned to the smooth part held on by velcro.
What chassis were the 1989 Cafaro convertible cars built on?
in 1984-91 Avanti
Posted
I just spoke with Randy Ellis who worked at the Avanti plant in 1988 - 1989 (maybe through 1990 as well) and he says one way to identify what chassis the later cars (Youngstown cars) were built on is by the position of the gas tank. If it is a car built on the Monte Carlo or Regal chassis then the gas tank will be behind the rear seat above the frame and the spare tire will be recessed into the floor of the trunk. If it is a later car (1988 or 1989 and up after the rear wheel drive Monte Carlo and Regal G-body cars were discontinued) then these cars were built on the Caprice chassis that had approximately 7 inches removed from it. He said the gas tank on these cars sits below the floor of the trunk and the spare tire sits up inside the trunk. So identifying the location of the gas tank is the easiest way to tell what chassis was used to a particular car in those years.