Gullwing Painting

In the process of painting my Knight Rider Gullwing. Painting the "Knight" logo was a real finicky job. I had to keep tweaking it and doing some edge cleanup with Acetone. Some wet sanding too even. But so far I'm liking it. I need to get the "Quick Release" adapter to attach it to my steering column. 

K.I.T.T.'s Voice Box Bezel Ordered

Probably one of K.I.T.T.'s most famous and prominent features next to his scanner is the voice box. I have finally gotten around to ordering the bezel for my 2 TV dash, both from Knight Rider World. I can't wait to get his voice modulator installed into my dash. lol right now I have it sitting upstairs in our bedroom loft under the stars just so I have a little more room in my back room to prime, paint and clear coat the rear bumper and then finally the Turbo Hood.... there is a pain in the backside project that I had wanted to get done all winter but not having a simple box fan for ventilation was holding things up.... Oh well... just as well as it probably would have been too cold for the paint to set properly with the window open anyways ;) Warmer weather coming so it's time to "Get it On!"

Bumper Repainted

I have finally gotten around to repainting the rear bumper for K.I.T.T. I still need to do a little touch up and then clear coat it. Slowly but surely getting work progressing on the back of the car. I'm still waiting for the weather to get a little more warmer before I can paint that compartment behind where the tail lights assembly sits. Once we get some nice weather I'll finally be able to prime, paint and clear coat the tail light compartment and finally get Billy Gunther's Tail Light Blackouts kit from Knight Designs fully installed. Right now all I have been able to do is put together the assembly and do a test fit... I SO can't wait for the painting and prep work to be done so I can get that puppy installed... gonna look so cool :)

Gage cluster connectors

Gage cluster connectors detail

I have taken the liberty of identifying am labelling each of the wires on the connectors that connect to the circuit pathways on the back of the gage cluster. I figured I would do this for educational purposes and to help anyone wishing to not use the gage cluster when installing either their Knight Rider dash or any other kind of after market digital dash setups.

T - tap connectors

T - tap connectors

Now this is just for illustration purposes. I took one of these connectors that makes the connections to the back of the gage cluster out of my parts car so you can see that this is what I was talking about in my last post as one possibility of tapping directly into the wires. My other thought is to just solder wires directly to where you need to make your connections on the copper prongs and slip over some heat shrink tubing and label each wire accordingly. Not yet sure which route I am going to take but this is certainly some ideas to play with.

Dash Cutting

Working on cutting out the dash plastic. I did some delicate cutting out around the area I had marked out and found I needed to cut a little more. I gained a little more wire slack on that lower white dash cluster connector, not much but a little. I'm going to experiment a little on the connectors pulled from the parts car and see if I can devise a crafty way of connecting directly to the copper tabs on those connectors. I have a few ideas, one of which is to make a special "Long Spade" style connector using some stock copper that I can cut and attach a ring connector to and then cover that with a wire cover something similar to heat shrink tubing. If my plan works ands the connections are solid enough, by that I mean able to withstand any shock the car will naturally be succumbed to during and kind of driving, then I may go with that method. My other option is to cap off any wires that are not needed and just butt connect longer wires that I will label and connect to a 20 pin Male / Female connector to the dash electronics.... we'll see. ;)

Dash Connectors Install Plan

I think I have a route chosen for how I want to do my dash install. I've been humming and hawing a great deal on what would be the best way to do this. Now I know a lot of folks simply make their connections right to the back of the dash gage cluster which is fine, but to me seems a bit of a waste, I mean why have the dash cluster there at all if all you are using is just the circuit pathways?? Why not just identify the coloured wires that you nee to tap into and not use the gage cluster at all if you don't need to?? I know it can be done, I saw a video on YouTube where it looks like they are pretty much doing just that.

You can see in the above video that they clearly do not use the gage cluster at all which to me seems like a more cleaner and professional dash install.

By examining the wires at the connectors it seems to me that one should be able to determine where each wire is going on the back of the gage cluster by following the circuit pathways and using it's colour code.

My thought is to either cut off these connectors or just use T-Taps and patch a wire right into each wire needed. my other thought is to butt connect additional colour coded wires to each wire once the connectors have been snipped off at the wires. If I do that I will need greater access to the wires on the white lower connector, that sucker is in there tighter than a Nun's Bible lol

So I'm thinking what I might end up needing to do is make a cutout in the dash plastic to pull the wires out of the dash a little more in order to make my butt connections for adding additional wire and giving them more length for connection to the dash via a 20 pin male / female connector.

I have an idea of where I will make my cutout to gain access to the wire a little more seen here in my photo showing my red dotted lines for my intended cutting.  Seeing how the top part of the dash may need to be trimmed a little anyways depending on if it interferes with the electronics on the back of my 2 TV Dash. I see that some people have needed to trim the top of their dash depending on how "Beefy" the back of their electronics install is. So what's a few more cuts in the plastic I figure. My only other option is to take the dash out and lengthen the wires to the connectors and then reinstall the dash plastic which is a real pain in the backside, I've taken out that whole assembly on the parts car so I know how much of a pain it is, much easier to just make a simple cut in the plastic and pull the wires through, strip off the ends and butt connect longer wires to the ends. I'll keep the connectors so I can doubly make sure of which wires went where.

Gage Cluster Prep Work

Just starting to do a little work on prepping my gage cluster for hookup to the new dash electronics. I'm trying to determine if this circuit on the back of this gage is part of the gage cluster board or if it can be safely removed with the gage? I'm getting ready to attach some wires to the correct locations on the back of the gage cluster. I want to see if I can have my connections go to plugs that can be connected and disconnected for convenience of any future maintenance that may ever need to be done to the dash.

Examining the gage cluster circuit board on the back it seems to me that it is simply running connections to the lights, and various gages, so I'm wondering why not just simply make your connections to the connectors that are attached to the dash that the gage cluster inserts into. To me this would make for a much cleaner and less complicated install. If anyone has any thoughts to share on this or if you think I'm WAY off the mark please feel free to chime in and offer up some clues or rock hard solid ways that you did your dash install. Please bear in mind that my Trans Am is a 1982 and does not have that yellow box on the back of the gage cluster that is for the VSS system. now I'm not sure if that makes a difference if any??

I took a couple of closeup shot of my connectors that the gage cluster plugs into. I just need to check and confirm my wire colours to make sure which wire is for which gage. I'll compare them with the illustration in the Service Manual and double check with the instructions for the 2 TV Dash install. If I can just connect these connections to plugs that I can rig up for the dash then any future maintenance will be a lot easier to do than having to pull the whole gage cluster out along with the dash and all of it's electronics. ;)

Fog Light Support Structures Ready

I have my support structures for the Fog Lights primed, painted and ready to go back onto the impact absorbsion bar on the car. I will follow up with another video a little later on today.  ;-)

More Prepping for the Front Nose Fog Lights

Continuing on with some prep work for installing the front nose Fog Lights and relocation of the Turn Signals. My goal for today was just to simply re attach the front Impact Absorption Bar onto the car now that it has been cleaned up and repainted. First step was to place it on it's back so I could put the shims back on and then carefully lift it back into position and insert the bolts into the mounts and then hand tighten the nuts back up until I had it pretty much centred on the car.

With that done I re installed the front nose support structure. I'm pretty sure that nut closest to the front top of the support structure is either going to need to be removed or relocated as it sits right in the middle of where the Knight Rider front nose scanner shelf sits, so I notice it tends to bow the scanner shelf up in the middle creating a slight but noticeable hump or bend. I'll do that later on but for now all I needed to do is get the Impact Absorption Bar, Front Nose Support structure and the front nose back on so I can mark where I will need to install my Fog Light mounting brackets.

While re installing the front nose I can see that my passenger side is still not fitting as nice as I would like, I'm wondering if it is the fender that is more the issue?? Perhaps it need to be adjusted forwards a little to match up more, funny because I didn't notice any miss alignment with the stock front nose. In any event the nose looks a lot better black, even flat primer black it's starting to REALLY come together. I still have a little sanding and priming to do in a few areas on the front nose but it's getting a lot closer. ;)

Prepping the Front Impact Bar for Fog Lights Assemblies

Now that I have a box fan for the back window for ventilation I have been able to get the room set up for some priming and painting of some of these larger parts for K.I.T.T.

I primed and painted the front impact bar that the impact absorption rubber was attached to. It was just white before from the original paint on the car, I took it off and gave it a good going over with engine grease remover, and then cleaned it up several times with soapy water, then gave it a good going over with a scuff pad. I had to remove any of the black pain that had not adhered very well due to a not very good cleanup job before it was painted from white to black. My guess is that they probably figured why bother seeing how this is a part that gets covered with the stock front nose so it's never seen, however with the Knight Rider front nose, you do see this bar a little through the front nose openings for the Fog Lights and relocated turn signals. While researching how to do the Fog Lights I came across many different methods, most seem to use the impact absorption bar to mount the lights but others with higher budgets I noticed got pretty fancy with custom made parts... all depends how much you want or have to spend and personal taste I guess. But for me I figure I might as well utilize the impact absorption bar seeing how it's there and I can easily rig up brackets for the Fog Lights to be mounted to based on what I have seen others do.

My small finishing paint gun was perfect for this part, not to big and not to small. I got a great finish on the impact absorption bar. Now I'll remount it back onto the car after I clean up the front end a little more and then I can refit the front nose and mark where I need to situate my mounting brackets for the Fog Lights and Turn Signals. Then the nose will be coming off again so I can work on getting the Fog Lights assemblies and brackets all into place, then take them off for priming and painting before installing the lights... a lot of put on and then take off, put on and take off in this project ;)

Hidden Headlight Assemblies Cleaned Up

I'm all done with the cleanup on the hidden headlights assemblies, they look to be in great shape after I gave them a thorough de-greasing with engine de-greaser.  I don't think I will need to repaint them as they look good with the mat black finish and are pretty much hidden behind the headlight bezels. Now to clean up the rest of the front of the car. I need to pre fit the nose again so I can mark where I need to fabricate my Fog Light mounting brackets onto the impact absorbsion bar. I may take that bar out first just simply because it will be a lot easier to clean the back side of it. It's pretty grimy and will need a thorough cleaning before I can paint it.