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~ Nix the charcoal canister conversion..It didn't leave enough room to install the washer reservoir, so, I opted for the more modern, much smaller, vacuum "ball" style. All the vacuum lines are fresh and now in place.
~ Epoxy repair of Coolant overflow tank did not work, so, I re-melted the crack with a soldering iron and sealed it up. Seems not to leak now.

~~A few more random progress pics. The car is presently up on jacks awaiting the temp exhaust setup so we can connect the dash harness, check out circuits, and crank it...
~ install the doors, hatchback, hood, and send it for paint....sounds simple...not.

Looking good, hope you are going to install a cowl/hood seal to keep your interior cool. With no seal engine compartment heat will be drawn into the interior through floor vents. I know a guy who makes them LOL. cjbiagi@yahoo.com

I wonder who that could be! LOL

Dick

Just trying to keep everyone cool! LOL Seriously, I took the cowl seal off my car to help alleviate some engine compartment heat. It worked great! Unfortunately all the heat ended up in the interior and I was sweating my ass off. I quickly reinstalled the seal. That's how I discovered where the floor vents get their air from.

Funny you should mention the cowl gasket as Jon and I had discussed it earlier..but thanks for the reminder.
~ The exhaust manifold turndowns seem to be complete and ready to install. The major difficulty was that the lower of the 3 studs coming off of the manifold flange was hitting the frame area of the lower control arm and provided no clearance for the flange to be installed. This area had been "massaged/dented" but it wasn't quite enough. We cut 1/2 inch off of the flange stud and used a grinding wheel to remove the raised area of the cast flange to make it flat. With it being flat, it allowed clearance for installation. I understand that the new cast flanges are flat with no raised portion.
~This would not have occurred if we had used the Power by Ace motor mounts as they come, but we cut those mounts and re-welded them a full inch forward to AVOID having to cut the shift linkages, cut the drive shaft, cut the torque arm. dent up the fire wall at the bellhousing. We did have to cut the excess half inch off of the water pump for clearance with the e-fan.
~ Next step will be to attach the temporary flex pipe with a temporary muffler so we can crank it.....after electrical checkout.

If you, or anyone else, needs a cowl seal I will be making them again in mid March. $39.95 + $6 shipping within the States. These come with 5 new "T" clips installed ready to install in existing holes. cjbiagi@yahoo.com

Thanks for the offer, I am not sure where my cowl gasket has gotten off to, I haven't seen it lately, so I will probably take you up on that offer.

Exhaust (temporary) is completed and ready for a couple of temp. mufflers for start up soon. Speedo cable and reverse wire needs to be heat insulated before we are done underneath.
~ We had a heck of a time with the stock cast manifold flange (raised boss)and the metric flanged nuts ('98) because of lack of clearance of the drivers side even after we had "massaged" it (before engine bay paint). A bit of custom grinding took care of the flange and boss. Of the three manifold studs, each with a "nipple", we removed the nipple part of the lowest stud closest to the "frame", to allow clearance to install the 3-hole donut flange and ground away the collar on the nut. It's a close fit. The starter side is good to go.
~ Finalizing ground and aux.power leads for dash components, tidying up underdash. Should connect the cluster harness and commence circuit testing this week and if all goes well, engine startup should happen soon.
~ Glad we haven't painted it yet, Bodywork needs to be gone over again for dings that we put in since we fixed it...Then we have to mount doors an hatch and send her out for paint...planning on painting the GT stripe in Crystal Pearl Black with the stencils, on top of the color, then clear coating both colors....
Then the fun begins with the carpet, seat installation, center console wiring, dash pad reinstalled, headliner, seat belts, window regulators, door trim, swing out glass, all other glass, clips and trimwork, bumper installation....on and on...then the suspension final setup.
~ I truly had no idea when I began this project that EVERY part and piece of the car had to be visited and dealt with at some time or another. This restoration is more akin to a complete rebuild. We took no shortcuts and a lot of advise from the forum.

~ Connected all the dash wiring for the radio , speakers, dash harness, radio antenna amp. Connected all battery cables EXCEPT the one that goes to the starter. Turned the keyswitch to ON, checked the blower...nothing....lights...nothing....horn...nothing...turn signals...clock....nothing....emergency flashers...nothing...radio...nothing...
~ The only good news was...nothing smoked. Boy, is this fun or what? NOT!

I don't know for sure how the Vega in general (or this one in particular) is wired, but I thought that the power for all the accessories comes off the heavy wire (fusible link) that is joined by bolting to the heavy battery cable on the starter post?

The ground to the engine block and then to the firewall would also need to be connected.

I haven't seen the inside of my stored sunbird's engine bay for a long time, so my recollection may be bad here.

Yeah, all body power comes from the starter connection.

As you may recall, there was a thread on the forum about relocating the fusible links at the starter and dedicating them to their own sub-fuse panel, which I did.
I have power on the engine bay side of the harness connector, in two spots, at the firewall, but, no power at the entire fuse block under the dash. We powered the (batt.) terminal at the fuse box and got the e-fan to work, but, that's not the right way.
I intend to un-loom the wiring and try to hunt down the problem.
The main power feed to the starter is disconnected, the engine is not ready to start yet, but that shouldn't keep everything else from being energized.

If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying the positive battery cable isn’t hooked up to the starter?

Tracy

We went from a 3 terminal-4 wire '74 stock starter setup..to a 2 terminal high torque starter. The 75 Schematic for vega/monza shows a 2 terminal setup. I found a Fuel pump and oil sending unit test procedure in the Fisher vega service overhaul manual that let me know that the pink wire on the sending unit is supposed to be hot....but it isn't. I'll try to be more exact on the changes we made in my next post, after I go look and take notes....Thanks for the help 'yall...Peace