Normally when I send Snarfy off to find a weird part, he comes back with something that will work. Well, finding a rubber boot for the wires to run through (from the door jamb to the edge of the door) proved to be just too much for him and I had to kick him!
The problem was that I saw that the "factory" boots were listed in one of the supplier catalogs, but they wanted 59 bucks each. Cheap guy that I am, I had Snarfy spend tons of hours trying to find something else that would work. NOTHING!
I then went and started making phone calls to see if there was any reason for the "factory" reproduction pieces being that costly.When I called the supplier (to remain unnamed), I was told that was the price (insert "eat worms, just pay the money" here). After calling and looking some more, it ends up that the price in their catalog was correct, however, it was for two!!
Here is the lesson to be learned, if a price seems wrong, look up the price from another supplier! There is almost always another supplier that has the part you need!
On with the story.
The factory rubber boot is rather strange in that it is a molded piece with three grommets on it! One grommet fits on the door, one goes on the door jamb, and the last one goes on the kick panel inside the car. All three grommets require a different size hole!
Chevy knew that I was going to do this project and there are index "divots" where the holes belong. These look like little dings in the panel and are there so that when built at the factory, the holes are correctly located.
To drill the holes, I had to remove the fender. You still can't get a straight shot at the door jamb and using a hole saw is out of the question! What I did was put masking tape in the area, mark a circle that is the correct size, drill a small hole, and then use a "chassis punch". (you can find out what a chassis punch is in the "cool tools" section)
I then used a die grinder with a carbide grinding bit to open up the hole to the size marked on the tape.
The hole on the left in this photo is the edge of the door. The hole on the right is the door jamb (on the body). I had to also do the same thing on the kick panel for that third grommet.
This is the grommet in place and you should note that nasty kink in it. The wires are not through the tube at this time.
I installed the boots and found that there was no way to feed the wires through (I tried everything). I had to remove the boots, feed the wires, and then reinstall the whole assembly!
Here is the drivers side with all of the wires in place. There are a total of 9 wires going to the drivers side!
There is something that should be noted here, I'm wiring up the switches different than Chevy would. The "stock" wiring would have voltage to the control switch and I chose to have the switches grounding instead. The switches work relays that in turn power the motors. By doing this, the wiring to the switches can be smaller in gauge due to not having to directly power the motors.
Two of the wires will go to the power door locks.
There is a large gauge ground wire due to my wanting to make sure that the door assembly was properly grounded.
The wires (from the relays) that power the motors are large gauge.
I'm now farther along!! Now I have to figure out how to make up the relay assembly! I also have to make up door panels!
return to part 2 Modifying regulators
go to part 4 Wiring for relay assembly
go to part 5 Making the door panels
return to "tech reference" index page