It's been about a month and time really does fly. Getting on to those final few electrickery jobs created or coincided with the cluster failure, which drove me mad and made my brain hurt for a month. We have been working to move to move the car to VA where before it can be registered must go thru a safety and emissions inspection, Well a non working horn and wipers that won't park might be a failure.
The tracing of the horn issue was no wiring problems but just 2 burned out and shorted horn units. Strange that they were BOTH dead and shorted but that is Stella for you. These are tucked away in a nice tight spot that is hard to get your hands into so changing is not the easiest of tasks for my big fat hands. New horn, new fuse and horn now works like it should.
The wipers were and easy fix, as the relay looked right but was wrong. I think it had a mirror/rear window defrost relay in there. They all have the same pins but one is black and one is blue and they different part numbers. But they look so similar, someone put it in there and the replacement from Woody fixed it right up.
Ok now, we are getting somewhere! Horns fixed and wipers work as they are supposed to. Lets take this baby out for a quick ride to make sure we have it all under control......
Well, 3 minutes out on the road and Allie says the dash isn't working. WTF? Well, we were under the dash so maybe we pushed a wire or something and knocked it loose. We pull over and check plugs and wires near the fuse and relay panel, check fuses but no joy. Dead as the Dodo. Car runs great so we head back to the shop and begin to scratch heads and think of how we broke the cluster or the wiring to the cluster. Pull cluster, pull center stack, pull ignition switch, etc..., looking for a loose or broken wire, particularly the grounds as multiple things were not working that SEEM unrelated. All gauges and the LCD's are dead as well as the dash lighting. These to me seem completely unrelated so I'm thinking broken ground under the dash. Nope, all grounds are solid. Stare at wiring diagrams that some kind folks sent me, by the full factory manual and stare at this wiring diagrams too. Read everything, post here get some excellent responses but no fixes. Chat with Woody and he thinks it's grounds but sends me a cluster to test it with. Plug in replacement cluster and BOOM everything works!!! PLUS some stuff that didn't work before :-) Outside temp is now reading and we didn't even know that was there, Bonus.
New dash in, re-install all the other center stack stuff, replace some light bulbs, finish attach the door panels with new plastic easy-break pins and load Stella into the trailer. A side note, now that Stella is OUT of the shop permanently, the Lotus Esprit, my girls have named Vivian, is in.
Yesterday we drove over to VA to drop that car, take it to inspection and have dinner with Allie. All is good, we go to inspection and the car passes the safety inspection with flying colors. GREAT!! The emissions test we didn't pass or fail. Not enough miles to put the computer into "ready" mode so Allie and I went for a long ride of 93 miles and today she will get back and see if it will read now.
Stella runs perfectly and drives really well. Allie is so happy and excited to have the car up and running after so much work and money spent on it. She will get it to inspection and begin using it as a DD now. We have more cosmetic stuff to do but as far as a driver it looks solid and trustworthy.