Monterey 2004 Trip Preparations
As part of the preparation for the Monterey trip, there were a number of tasks I wanted to complete.
I've never gotten the trunk lid painted correctly. Even though I'm not showing the car, I want it to look nice. So I painted it for the sixth time. Once that was done, I was able to install the carpet on the trunk lid.
My wife noticed that the passenger window wouldn't go down on the test drive. I didn't fix it then because you have to remove the door panel with its several screws and clips. Once we got home, I took it off and found that the 'down' wire was disconnected. This had happened once before, so I wire tied both wires together. If one comes off, the other will have to also. Hopefully this will prevent a future occurrence. I also greased all of the cables and pulleys. That made a big difference in how fast the window goes up.
I noticed that the wiring to the red light in the rear edge of the door had some exposed wiring, just waiting to short out. Originally there was some red rubber that covered the contacts, but that was brittle and would no longer stay in place. I ended up shrink wrapping each contact with just enough overlap so they were completely covered when plugged together. I'll probably need to do this on the other door the next time I have its panel off.
I had bought a matching mirror for the passenger side a couple of years ago. I had planned on installing it with a plate on the inside of the door. I would tap three holes in the plate, two for the mirror and one for a screw to hold the plate on the inside of the door. But with the door panel off, it was clear that one couldn't reach the inside where I wanted to put the mirror. I checked on the other side and found that the driver's side mirror was mounted with sheet metal screws. So I did the same on this side.
 |
 |
The antenna wire for the radio had also broken at the antenna. I never had the right adaptor and had just soldered it to the screw on connector. This left it exposed and after a couple of years getting banged, it broke. So I took off the adaptor and made a cleaner installation which can get hit with luggage and not fail.
I had never installed the stainless steel trim around the rear window. Click here for the completion of that task.
The last, but very important, item was putting the wiring in for the Valentine 1 radar detector. I have had one of these for a few years, but it wouldn't work properly in the 330 GT. Every time the revs would drop to an idle, the detector would reset and go through its beeping power on cycle. So I had always used one of my old standby's, a Passport detector. No laser, but still outscores most modern detectors on X and K bands. A couple of months ago, I bought a second Valentine detector for the 308. Just for kicks, I plugged it into the 330 and found that it worked fine. I don't know if the earlier model was somewhat defective or had a design flaw that they corrected, but I'm happy to be able to use the new V1 for the Monterey trip. I pulled out the wiring for the Passport and installed the permanent wiring for the V1. The wiring runs from under the passenger side dash, up the inside of the A pillar trim and across inside of the headliner trim panel, exiting right at the mirror. The detector just fits above the mirror and doesn't interfere with the window visor.
Well, this is Sunday, about 5PM. I leave tomorrow morning around 7AM. A whole 14 hours to spare! Now I have to get packed.