ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Oh! AND "Come Get Joe", I left you out. Thanks for your support, it is appreciated! "Oh to suffer the (written) slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!" 
Ah. B. Normal: GOB-BALT build has Started!
- Thread starter ah.b.normal
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Desert Sasqwatch
Goblin Guru
I've never been good at following instructions, that's why my Goblin build went off the rails and I have a frame, suspension, and driveline that don't conform with the 'standard' Goblin. Highly doubt my build will be completed by then, but everyone is welcome to visit my garage for chat and some story telling. Shoot me a PM when you get ready for your trip to Globe. Plenty of great places to eat in Queen Creek and Apache Junction.DS and Scott, Thank You for coming to my aid, I Am Really sure GobFanClub was only joking!!! Well ain't you a lucky bunch of Lug Nuts! Because I ain't likely disuaded from anything by negative comments from others! I'm 60 y/o, I've heard them all! I've built a parade float platform and a camera vehicle out of junk cars. I've kept my own junk on the road day to day for 30 years. AND my accomplice "The Farmer" makes me look like a piker! He's built and won Tractor pulls, Demo derbies and dirt track low buck near demo derby racing. The Farmer "body dropped"(I helped) a 55 Olds 2 door on a 85 Caprice chassis for a Delta Airline pilot. That Delta Pilot then proceeded to drive it virtually everyday and just about anywhere, towing his motorcycle on a trailer.(his budget was the list price of a new 1991 Hyundai) His furthest vacation drive was Atlanta to Fairbanks AK.(w/ trailer)The Olds took the ferry from Seattle to Anchorage. My feelings are teflon coated and bomb proof, naysayer's are wasting THEIR time, not mine. They(NOT YOU GFC!) are only telling me what THEY cannot imagine or cannot do. I've never understood why they would find it so important to tell everyone how shallow, unimaginative, ineffectual, impotent and truly callow they are? Mebbe they're looking for my sympathy? Hey All, Look at my Sig, it shows I'm crazy!
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Everyone! Warning! Don't read this!, this means you! I mean it this time. This is not a message to you, it is to DS. If you end up knowing what I'm telling DS, I will not be held liable, you inflicted this knowledge upon yourself. I'm not sorry. It is purely your fault!...... Will give you ample warning of our arrival in Globe, DS.
I mean it this time. This is not a message to you, it is to DS. If you end up knowing what I'm telling DS, I will not be held liable, you inflicted this knowledge upon yourself. I'm not sorry. It is purely your fault!...... Will give you ample warning of our arrival in Globe, DS.ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Stretching the engine harness from the fuse box to the rear of the car is a daunting task. Just collecting enough wire in similar colors and appropriate gauges is a chore! As you well know contigious colors make troubleshooting easier and more reliable. Wire count to follow. I had considered following DF's lead and just putting the fuse box in back but I am keeping the entire car's other systems in tact.
95Blitz
Well-Known Member
You should have taken that box of wires I have.
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
For it is wire I have, nee, it is patience I test!
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Dang! I’ve bit off a fair piece of trouble here. I’ll get through but I just spent a day harvesting wires from the Main Body Harness of an HHR. What an unholy mess. Similar method to cleaning a deer but not near as messy! I used a chain fall, hooked around the mid point of the wiring on it and raised that point about 11’ up. Then started peeling and clipping off ends. I raised and lowered the tangle occasionally as needed. I’d have needed a 30’ banquet table to stretch this mess out! I need wire segments 120” to extend the 3 connectors(computer, fuse block and that little 3 wire connector) of the engine harness from “the former location” of the back seat, up to the standard location of the under hood fuse box. About 55 wires total. There are only about 4 wires that DON’T need to be extended. I’m only complaining about the time consumed, I’m on a dead end schedule, end of April. Then I’m probably not going to be near GOB-BALT, in GA, again until April 2024.
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
What is that mount off of? Saab or your original donor?
95Blitz
Well-Known Member
The 2.0T Saab.
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
It seems every application has little differences. The Saab, Saturn ION and the Cobalt/Pontiac G5 are all GM “Delta Platform”. I guess the platform is truly just a platform as the Saturn Ion coupe and sedan also share many floor pan specs, like seat mounting, but are very different from the bottoms of the doors up. I think the ION’s use the same brake and clutch pedals but the manual ones have a separate clutch reservoir. HHR’s use a gas pedal that bolts to the firewall plate, very different. Saturn wiring and computers are very different as well but use the same spec engines and transmissions? Oddly Saturns use a different strut/spring design at the top but the steering knuckle is the same. I think all use the same beam rear axle.(I haven’t seen a Saab in person.)
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Bothersome update: It appears I spoke too soon. To relocate the engine, I have changed gears and will be relocating the ECM to the “new” engine compartment in the rear and stretching the Body Harness “cobra head”connector (about 34? wires) from the front former engine compartment to the ECM’s new location. On an 06 the little dash harness connector above the brake booster has only 3 wires to stretch. The fuse box “black connector block” has only about 10 that need to go rearward. The engine harness to ECM “cobra head” alone has 43 wires. If anyone knows an easier way to do all this wiring hooey I might suggest you keep it to yourself until after you’ve done yours! Then show me! Monday Morning QB’s are useless.
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ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Thanks for that Steven. I haven’t seen it’s like before! I’ll avoid it.
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Today’s update: Wiring. I decided to stretch the ECM “cobra head” connector from the Main Body harness, to the new ECM position in the rear. (I’m trying to modify the engine harness as little as possible.) I am extending all those wires in the Cobra Head connector(35?) to the new ECM location behind the driver in the new engine compartment. For the small plug above the brake booster(dash harness?) I made an extension cord out of a salvaged “dash harness connectors” 05/6 used only 3 wires (a LAN twisted pair and the lt green reverse light wire) for a manual, easy stretch! I have several wires to run from the Black Block at the fuse box to the engine harness. About 14 wires in the engine harness go to the black fuse block unit. 4 stay up front, fan and several grounds. The fan stays up front. Easy to combo ground in the old engine compartment since the battery will be relocated to the front as well. I’ll actually use the battery positive wire backwards, that short wire from the starter to the fuse box will now be my Battery positive and the big wire running from the the battery to the fuse block + post will now become the feed to the starter.(I hope the electrons don’t get confused and try to run the old direction in those repurposed battery cables, it would overfill the battery!)
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Gee? No comment on my "lost electrons overfilling the battery" theory? Ya'll are slipping. I spoke to Adam Doyle this morning, my Toe Link Bar is on the way!! Today was a J/Y day and running errands for the wife. I also had to locate and find some bits and pieces for other projects at Shawn's garage, gotta pay the bills and keep the lights on! I finally chased down my fourth and final alloy lower control arm. I want GOB-BALT to look hi-tech and nearly 21st century!(I know my standards are low but I am proud to have any standards at all! Those steel lower control arms are just so DeClasse, N'cest Pas? They would have made a 1902 curved dash Olds look antiquated! I claim every stock steel part for GOB-BALT actually already has "speed holes", I just haven't let my drill empty them out yet!) If I've said it once, blah blah.... It's got to actually function before I can Hot Rod it! Tomorrow, more wiring, yay,...grumble grumble. Then Sawz-All slicing and dicing the front of a donor body to create "a Cage"(the subframe mounts, L, R engine mounts and upper strut mounts) to slip up into the 06 chassis, to then be squared and welded to the existing rear uni-body structure.
,...grumble grumble. Then Sawz-All slicing and dicing the front of a donor body to create "a Cage"(the subframe mounts, L, R engine mounts and upper strut mounts) to slip up into the 06 chassis, to then be squared and welded to the existing rear uni-body structure.ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Awww DS, You and Colin know that it's true!
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Friday! Worked on stuff to keep the power company paid up! I did spent a couple of hours wielding a soldering iron. I figure soldering wise I am half way there, but it took mucho careful research and some serious grave robbing just to get to the point of cutting and extending the wires!(wire harvesting, not brains!) ALSO, I think I'm developing a case of BIC THUMB! That heat shrink doesn't just shrink it's self, AS YOU ALL KNOW! Rainy forecast here for the next 4 days, Bummer. I hope it will clear up in the afternoon so I can be attacking the donor body with the Sawz-All tomorrow! I've laid in a large stock of fresh blades! This part will have some pix! And even more pix when I drop the drive train out of the front and more when I drop that clunky rear axle out from under the Cobalt. Will this be the Moment Cobalt begins it's new life as GOB-BALT?(I'm hearing strains of Steely Dan, Sign in Stranger. "Do you have a dark spot on your past? Leave it to my man he'll fix it fast. Pepe's got a scar from here to here. He will make your Mug Shots disappear! Doesn't matter what you did or what you've done. You Zombie!, Be born again my Friend!, Won't you Sign in Stranger?") If I give this car a name I think I will name him Walter(to his friends), in memory of Walter Becker: RIP, you left us too soon!
ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
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ah.b.normal
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Noah and the Ark time locally; with a sprinkling of tornado's! I'd gotten a lot done on Saturday and then the storms moved in. We winnowed down the front steel of the cadaver donor, a bunch, to create my "driveline cage". Driveline cage will locate all asundry "GoGo" bits to the back. It saves the original 4) "K member" mount points, R, L engine and Strut mounts, keeping everything dimensionally stable. There is more to cut away on it, then we're down to jamming it into the 06 body by actually cutting on the car! I called a glass guy to pull out the back window and the little triangle quarter windows. (or I can just hit them with a hammer and make a huge mess for me to clean up. But we're trying to step away from our Demolition Derby roots, at 60, we are "sophisticated auto enthusiast's" now?) I've completed my wiring extension "kits" and next I will actually cut, splice, solder and heat shrink all the connections(there's only 45 of them) under the hood of the currently functional car to test. {Sometimes I'm thoughtful, I remembered I could just coil up the extensions and test my systems now!} The extensions will just be disconnected as with any engine drop and zip tied to the engine. This car runs currently but has a bad clutch, no release, though it may hold pressure long enough to actually drive. Just now? Laundry.
) under the hood of the currently functional car to test. {Sometimes I'm thoughtful, I remembered I could just coil up the extensions and test my systems now!} The extensions will just be disconnected as with any engine drop and zip tied to the engine. This car runs currently but has a bad clutch, no release, though it may hold pressure long enough to actually drive. Just now? Laundry.ah.b.normal
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the likes! To quote Hans Gruber, a movie villain: "One of the many benefits of a classical education."Oh! AND "Come Get Joe", I left you out. Thanks for your support, it is appreciated! "Oh to suffer the (written) slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!"