So the goblin is complete-ish, but I thought I would go back and post some pictures I took a long the way, and have a build thread for posting progress and issues, rather than making new problem threads in the electrical sub forum each time. For background, the donor was a 2009 LS automatic, which for the A/T model is good. In my discussions with the DF crew, the manual transmission is a bad choice for the A/T model, as it is geared pretty high.
I got the ugly yellow donor of Copart for 1150, in early January. which for anyone else in Michigan knows isn't the best time of year to be working on cars. It ran when I got it, but had a dead battery and a leaky fuel line, which got way worse as soon as I crawled under it and touched the rusty spot (it essentially disintegrated and dumped fuel all over my barn floor). It took another month or so to get a car hauler trailer, as the pandemic apparently made everyone want to buy those, but once I got that I was able to get the donor on it and take it in to get the refrigerant pulled out of the AC system, and then got to work tearing it apart.
Wasn't long before I had a pile of parts and the husk of a car.
Which brought me up to the wiring harness. I watched all the vidoes first, and tried very hard to be careful and follow instructions, but man oh man did I screw that up.
I ended up cutting out and thinning out all the wires from one of the ECM plugs, thinking that I was working with a ABS connector.. Lonny came to my rescue and sent me a spare harness that he had laying around for an LT fortunately. Lesson learned there, LABEL EVERYTHING! I'm pretty hard headed and the only way I seem to learn is the hard way, but I get there eventually. So then the kit arrived:
Got it unpacked and the frame off to powder coat, and while I waited for that I changed the water pump and timing kit on the motor:
Then the frame came back from powder coat and I got to work
Assembly went pretty well, aside from missing some suspension pieces for the rear, which the DF crew got shipped out to me quickly.
But then I ran into a major problem. I had inadvertently broken the anti theft system when I was disassembling the steering column. So after getting everything put together, the car was locked into anti-theft mode and wouldn't start. I ended up having to load it up and take it to a dealership to get a new module installed and programed, a process that my dog found to be very exciting.
After that, I junked out the crappy donor wheels and tires, and put some good all terrains on it:
Then my seats finally arrived at the end of July. I was able to get the last few items buttoned up and get the car running just in time (literally, the first start was on the trailer at 6:00 am) to get it into a car show that we do at work each year. It was very well received there, so well in fact that I won the show!
Unfortunately, that little bit of running wasn't going to be a trend. After that day, it would not run again and I ended up having to replace the starter, then the ECM before it would run again. At that point though it ran great, I took it out on the gravel roads around my house on a shake down cruise, probably put about 10 miles on it that night:
Unfortunately after that it is back to not starting again. Currently the only clue I have is it has a P0315 error code, which showed up after I replaced the ECM. I can force it to crank by jumping the relay, so power is everywhere it aught to be, but the computer won't let it crank with the key turn. All the crankshaft sensor learn procedures that I can see require a special scanner, (and the vehicle to run), so I'm kind of stumped at the moment.
I got the ugly yellow donor of Copart for 1150, in early January. which for anyone else in Michigan knows isn't the best time of year to be working on cars. It ran when I got it, but had a dead battery and a leaky fuel line, which got way worse as soon as I crawled under it and touched the rusty spot (it essentially disintegrated and dumped fuel all over my barn floor). It took another month or so to get a car hauler trailer, as the pandemic apparently made everyone want to buy those, but once I got that I was able to get the donor on it and take it in to get the refrigerant pulled out of the AC system, and then got to work tearing it apart.
Wasn't long before I had a pile of parts and the husk of a car.
Which brought me up to the wiring harness. I watched all the vidoes first, and tried very hard to be careful and follow instructions, but man oh man did I screw that up.
I ended up cutting out and thinning out all the wires from one of the ECM plugs, thinking that I was working with a ABS connector.. Lonny came to my rescue and sent me a spare harness that he had laying around for an LT fortunately. Lesson learned there, LABEL EVERYTHING! I'm pretty hard headed and the only way I seem to learn is the hard way, but I get there eventually. So then the kit arrived:
Got it unpacked and the frame off to powder coat, and while I waited for that I changed the water pump and timing kit on the motor:
Then the frame came back from powder coat and I got to work
Assembly went pretty well, aside from missing some suspension pieces for the rear, which the DF crew got shipped out to me quickly.
But then I ran into a major problem. I had inadvertently broken the anti theft system when I was disassembling the steering column. So after getting everything put together, the car was locked into anti-theft mode and wouldn't start. I ended up having to load it up and take it to a dealership to get a new module installed and programed, a process that my dog found to be very exciting.
After that, I junked out the crappy donor wheels and tires, and put some good all terrains on it:
Then my seats finally arrived at the end of July. I was able to get the last few items buttoned up and get the car running just in time (literally, the first start was on the trailer at 6:00 am) to get it into a car show that we do at work each year. It was very well received there, so well in fact that I won the show!
Unfortunately, that little bit of running wasn't going to be a trend. After that day, it would not run again and I ended up having to replace the starter, then the ECM before it would run again. At that point though it ran great, I took it out on the gravel roads around my house on a shake down cruise, probably put about 10 miles on it that night:
Unfortunately after that it is back to not starting again. Currently the only clue I have is it has a P0315 error code, which showed up after I replaced the ECM. I can force it to crank by jumping the relay, so power is everywhere it aught to be, but the computer won't let it crank with the key turn. All the crankshaft sensor learn procedures that I can see require a special scanner, (and the vehicle to run), so I'm kind of stumped at the moment.
