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Made a ton of progress. None of this was working when i got the car. Now, all lights inside and out are working. All vacuum systems are working, including headlight pop-ups and heat/ac, and the trunk release. More than half the hoses were either misrouted or disconnected, perhaps by the same expert who did the wiring.
Some details of what I had to mess with are earlier in the thread, but obviously I've left out a lot of the quality time spent on the olds. If in the future someone has questions, I'm happy to try to help since I've touched just about everything in the tangle of wires and hoses.
Some remaining previous owner engineering:
The hot water control valve has been replaced by some home plumbing parts. I plugged the loose vacuum line for now, and note that the temperature control on the HVAC works fine since it moves a flap, so I get both heat and not-heat. The proper valve is in the trunk, unknown condition. I may just improve this arrangement rather than use the water valve.
Last edited by mike 66 toro; November 12th, 2023 at 09:35 AM.
Nearly every nut and bolt at under the dash was loose. No idea why. I've tightened everything up, and realize two parts are missing.
Before I get to fabricating these pieces from scratch, any thoughts? I'm missing the lower left knee panel, to the left of the steering column. Fortunately this is relatively flat and mostly out of sight, so I can make one if I have to. Also missing the support highlighted in the picture, again easy enough to fabricate.
Last edited by mike 66 toro; November 12th, 2023 at 10:11 AM.
I've never had an actually working ammeter in any of my projects, and would like to get this one working since it's my "classiest" classic.
Did not find a schematic for the wiring leading to and from this ammeter though. I assume it's out there and I just missed it.
You won't find one. This is one of the aggravating things about the 66'. Being the first year, the manual has quite a few errors and omissions and the charging circuit is the most glaringly obvious example of this. I've often wondered if they corrected the issue in a TSB in later years. I have a full 66' TSB set and there's nothing in it about this. I also have a full 67' TSB set coming soon and if I find anything in it I will update this thread.
Here's a good question though. Does your voltage regulator have a pin that has two wires crimped on it? Mine does, and it's not shown on the diagram. I've spoken with several other Toronado owners and they also have the extra wire. I'd love to know if that extra wire (the black) actually goes to one side of the ammeter? I suspect it does but haven't been able to confirm. Is your instrument panel still apart?
Last edited by ourkid2000; November 12th, 2023 at 10:41 AM.
it's not shown on the diagram. I've spoken with several other Toronado owners and they also have the extra wire.....
Is your instrument panel still apart?
interesting! I only have one wire there. The colors match the diagram. Its not apart at the moment, but suspect ill be bqck there again. I guess we should research other gm vehicles' ammeter scheme.
interesting! I only have one wire there. The colors match the diagram. Its not apart at the moment, but suspect ill be bqck there again. I guess we should research other gm vehicles' ammeter scheme.
Crazy.
Who knows what's going on here. Some cars have the extra wire, some don't. The 67' wiring diagram doesn't show the extra wire, however, the 68 wiring manual does. I put a ton of work into trying to figure out why my ammeter doesn't work but never did get to the bottom of it. I thought that the black wire might be the issue, but maybe not.
What I did find on my car though was that the black wire was taped into the main harness and just stopped prior to going through the firewall. It looked cleanly cut, as if someone snipped it and the harness looked untouched since the car was new. I removed the tape, expecting to find a broken wire.
interesting! I only have one wire there. The colors match the diagram. Its not apart at the moment, but suspect ill be bqck there again. I guess we should research other gm vehicles' ammeter scheme.
Most of the other one I've looked at just have the GEN light. Will look into it and see what I can find out.
For that missing knee panel, try John Dorcey at toroguy@msn.com or 702-690-8077 - he has quite a few 1st generation Toros as parts cars. He can probably also help with that missing bracket.
Black wire with white stripe is crimped together with red thick wire. Shown in picture. That is one side of the ammeter.
Other side of ammeter goes to the "shunt splice" which is 5 red wires (and the black wire going to other side of ammeter). This is believed to be somewhere under the dash near the fuse block and is super easy to access (sarcasm).
The ammeter is apparently reading the very tiny voltage drop along that wire, which is about 5 or 6 feet long. If that red wire it reads across were to ever be cut, the ammeter would pretty much fry immediately, which is why the ammeter is hard connected to each end of that shunt wire.
If a huge load were seen on that wire, well above expectations it looks like that also would nuke the ammeter since there appears to be no fuse protecting the ammeter from unexpectedly high voltage across the ends of the shunt. A 1 amp fuse would seem appropriate, but that's just a guess.
So, if the ammeter is connected correctly, one should see 12v at all times on each of its terminals. In actuality you'd see a very small difference in voltage between the two, provided you are drawing a lot of power with accessories. On the order of millivolts.
Anyway, that would be how to isolate a failed ammeter versus a wiring issue. I'd play more with this if I wasn't side tracked with carburetor and now a sticky front right brake. More on that later...
AND (ourkid2000 will like this!) judging by the diagram and a hunch, the black wire from the ammeter could instead be connected to the red wire on the regulator and it should get the voltage differential needed to operate the ammeter. This would actually be a lot safer too, so I could see them making this change mid year. Problem is, it appears to be connected to the brown wire in the photo. That particular mystery continues.
Last edited by mike 66 toro; November 12th, 2023 at 11:16 PM.
Great writeup. I pretty much came to the same conclusion a while back. I redrew the circuit, as I understood it, back then (I'll post below). If memory serves me correctly, I don't think the B/W wire is attached right to the junction block on my car like it is on yours. It is actually connected to the flexible fusible link that comes off the junction block, but I will double check this. It looks to me that your fusible link isn't even there.......again, I will double check how mine is hooked up.
Last edited by ourkid2000; November 13th, 2023 at 05:23 AM.
My car is at the body shop currently so I can't 100% confirm, however, when I was working on getting my horn working last year I took a bunch of pictures of the horn relay and junction block. It looks to me that my ammeter blk/wht wire isn't directly connected to the JB like yours is, rather it's connected to a splice a bit further down on the fusible link wire that is on the JB. See picture below. Please excuse the dirt and grime, this is before I cleaned everything up and replaced the relay.
No black and white wire.
Last edited by ourkid2000; November 13th, 2023 at 05:54 AM.
So I suppose our conclusions are that the ammeter itself is shot? Or is that cut black wire you mentioned the likely problem in your case? That'd be great, I guess. You could test the meter by disconnecting and carefully applying a very small voltage across it looking for movement. I'm reluctant to pull the instrument panel again just to improve/remedy this ammeter problem, but I will at some point because the sooner you know your alternator or regulator has quit, the better.
That junction area, with or without dirt, is such a mess, and under that AC component just for fun. As if the lack of fusible links (prior to your build at least) isn't bad enough, they also had to put an octopus of disorganized, always live wires, (and unfused is worth repeating here). I seldom criticize design from this era, but yikes! Just a few years later, marketing folks talked a lot about electrical safety. One of the top bullet points in some early 70's brochures was "fusible links". I wonder why... Perhaps people experienced frequent electrical fires? Maybe? 😂😂 I'll definitely be adding something in that line.
Last edited by mike 66 toro; November 13th, 2023 at 07:28 AM.
Just another previous owner splice to share. While examining my house plumbing parts substituted for the water valve, I saw some tape and a cut wire.
Someone knifed the insulation on the coil primary, cutting half of the copper strands of course and loosely wrapped a red wire. Then loosely covered with duct tape, then covered that with black tape. Good job! Shown unwrapped. The red wire was cut off at some point and just left there, bare tip searching for a ground to get friendly with.
Last edited by mike 66 toro; November 13th, 2023 at 07:39 AM.
Mike, you and Jaunty75 need to talk about your Toronado and get what you've gone thru with this car in the Toronado Owners Association's Front Wheel Driver . He's the FWD editor. Guarantee few if any Toronado people have ever seen, much less had to correct, such cobbled up **** as you have. Though Bob S is getting his share of it too!😄
This is the kind of horrorshow I'm used to seeing on Camaros, Chevelles and Fords, not Oldsmobiles and especially not Toronados.
So I suppose our conclusions are that the ammeter itself is shot? Or is that cut black wire you mentioned the likely problem in your case? That'd be great, I guess. You could test the meter by disconnecting and carefully applying a very small voltage across it looking for movement. I'm reluctant to pull the instrument panel again just to improve/remedy this ammeter problem, but I will at some point because the sooner you know your alternator or regulator has quit, the better.
That junction area, with or without dirt, is such a mess, and under that AC component just for fun. As if the lack of fusible links (prior to your build at least) isn't bad enough, they also had to put an octopus of disorganized, always live wires, (and unfused is worth repeating here). I seldom criticize design from this era, but yikes! Just a few years later, marketing folks talked a lot about electrical safety. One of the top bullet points in some early 70's brochures was "fusible links". I wonder why... Perhaps people experienced frequent electrical fires? Maybe? 😂😂 I'll definitely be adding something in that line.
In my case, I'm not 100% sure yet. I'm actually starting to think that the cut black wire was actually installed from the factory like that. As if they were building in functionality that could potentially be used in the future, or maybe the harness is also re-purposed on another car in 67' (mine is a later part of 66' build). In any case, the clipped off part of the wire was completely within untouched electrical tape so it appears that it is original. The cut is just too clean and the fact that it's buried within, what appears to be original, electrical tape makes me think that's just the way it is. My car is a relative time capsule as well as my dad bought it off the original owner in 1973 so it's unlikely that anything was monkeyed around with. The car was my dad's baby and he stored it every winter. It's very original.
I had my instrument panel out of the car last year. While it was out, I swapped in a replacement ammeter that I had (yeah, I have a spare, loaded, instrument panel) for troubleshooting. The ammeter still doesn't work. I should have done a bit more wiring checks, but I didn't. In any case, I'll be pulling my panel over the winter to re-do the crinkle paint on it and I will dig into the ammeter at that time. Seeing as though it's probably not the ammeter, I suspect there's a connection problem there somewhere.
I actually just built myself a very low power DC power supply for testing small items and I have the old ammeter available to test. I'll see if I can apply a super low voltage to the gauge to check for movement. That's actually a pretty good idea I hadn't thought of, thanks for that.
Mike, you and Jaunty75 need to talk about your Toronado and get what you've gone thru with this car in the Toronado Owners Association's Front Wheel Driver . He's the FWD editor. Guarantee few if any Toronado people have ever seen, much less had to correct, such cobbled up **** as you have. Though Bob S is getting his share of it too!😄
This is the kind of horrorshow I'm used to seeing on Camaros, Chevelles and Fords, not Oldsmobiles and especially not Toronados.
I agree, he's run into some unbelievable stuff and I'm super impressed with how he's taken them on. This thread will be a treasure trove for Toronado owners in coming years. Would be great to get it in that publication!
I'm remembering why this became tiresome when I was troubleshooting. See photos below. What I see is that it isn't a blk/wht and blk wire on the ammeter connections......it's supposed to be Tan for Terminal 1 and Blk for Terminal 2. On my car, that Tan looks red. The blk/white isn't blk/white........it's blue and white and feeds the instrument light. Would be interesting to see what other people have here.
Last edited by ourkid2000; November 13th, 2023 at 12:48 PM.
Did you trace where the black and "tan" wires end up in the car? I wonder if anyone with a 66 has a working ammeter 😂
LOL, no I ran out of time before I could really get into it. I had to get the car out of the garage at the time so the panel went back in. I threw the parts cannon at it (replacement ammeter/oil light panel that I had) and hoped for the best. I got really frustrated with the fact that the wire colors didn't match the wiring diagram and there seemed to be no documentation in the CSM that was correct for that system so my patience ran out.
I'll be restoring the panel over the winter though so I will definitely dig into it then.
I'll be pulling my panel over the winter to re-do the crinkle paint on it and I will dig into the ammeter at that time. Seeing as though it's probably not the ammeter, I suspect there's a connection problem there somewhere.
I'm curious how this is done. I assume there's more to it than "buy can of crinkle paint". Mine has chipped off in a few places.
I'm curious how this is done. I assume there's more to it than "buy can of crinkle paint". Mine has chipped off in a few places.
That is exacly what it is (buying can of crinkle paint) plus a whole lot of work. Here is a shot of my dash when I got my car (from the original craigslist add actually).
After stripping the entire dash down to bare chrome, I masked all the areas needing to stay chrome and painted the areas semi-gloss black that needed it. Once fully cured, I masked off everywhere but the black crinkle areas and sprayed the crinkle paint. There are specific steps to follow including spraying the surface from multiple angles to get the correct finish. I used this paint:
Here is the final result:
There is are some small areas on the sides of the clock and vent pods that did not fully wrinkle but after countless hours of masking and painting and masking and painting I was happy with the final result.
As a final tip, heat helps the wrinkle process. I sprayed the dash outside on a hot sunny day.
It's round and has threads. If it wont go, that just means you should turn it harder.
Or did GM use three fasteners of one thread size, and one oddball?
I've seen those double-end nut studs with coarse thread on one end and fine on the other but don't remember ever using them. Regular bolts work fine for mounting a QuadraJet.
Last edited by rocketraider; November 13th, 2023 at 10:20 PM.
It's round and has threads. If it wont go, that just means you should turn it harder.
Or did GM use three fasteners of one thread size, and one oddball?
Mine has two studs and two bolts:
Pic taken when I was painting intake & valve covers
I see two vacuum connections there, where I have one and a plug that looks like it's been there since day 1.
I may as well get VHT SP403 Engine Metallic Titanium Silver Blue while the carb is off.
I see two vacuum connections there, where I have one and a plug that looks like it's been there since day 1.
I may as well get VHT SP403 Engine Metallic Titanium Silver Blue while the carb is off.
Oh, that may be because my car is a California only car that came with an extra system installed that yours wouldn't have. It's called the K19 (A.I.R) system and it uses an extra connection on the manifold for some of the extra emissions components........I think I have that right.
Got the bodywork hammers out while I wait for other parts to arrive. Far from perfect but a lot better. May hit it with the grinder before painting everything.
Last edited by mike 66 toro; November 14th, 2023 at 05:31 PM.
Imagine my surprise, finding a heater water valve in the trunk! Why would a PO have house plumbing in place of the heater water valve? Maybe they couldn't figure out the vacuum hose spaghetti of a previous-previous owner? We may never know. The before and after... works properly with controls now that the hoses are all sorted. Little by little, sanity is restored...
Charging voltage started reading low, so I installed a new alternator and regulator on today. Funny, I had bought these already.
Removed the very long heater hose and installed the stock-like rubber-metal-rubber setup.
Replaced upper radiator hose.
Put the front wheels back on, finishing yesterday's brake job.
Tidied up the main harness that goes across the firewall, along the valve cover, and inner fender.
I also discovered that my "wonderbar" radio does the automatic mechanical seeking thing. Neat! That's a good thing because the tuning **** doesn't move the pointer.
Installed a 17,000 BTU diesel heater in the garage. Incredible output, no odors, very economical.
Made some notes on the diagram Hope this helps. Should be interesting to see where this goes, so good luck!
I have my headlight switch on the bench and have determined that the "mystery switch" in the above diagram is the full counterclockwise positioning of the headlight switch ****. It selects a detent that turns on the courtesy lights. Maybe it's obvious to people who are used to these cars but the switch itself isn't labelled on the diagram. Hope this helps!
I also discovered that my "wonderbar" radio does the automatic mechanical seeking thing. Neat! That's a good thing because the tuning **** doesn't move the pointer
WonderBar in action for those who've never seen one. Wish the guy had said something on the signal strength switch.
Just thought I'd point out that both the Wonderbar3-position sensitivity ****, and the rear courtesy light switch built into the headlight switch are both covered in the Owners Manual. I know we often think it's a pain and totally unnecessary to read the "owners/operators manuals" of any and all products, but there can be a wealth of information to be found there.
November 12th, 2023, 09:16 AM
