More Wiring and Dashboard

I only had a few hours to mess with the car today and wanted to get the power antenna and the engine computer wiring out.

The computer wiring was pretty straight forward.  I was a little confused on how to remove the connector from the inner fender well, and with some guidance from thirdgen.org, I had the wiring out in a few minutes.  I removed the computer itself and another black box (not sure what it was) mounted behind the passenger dash, disconnected the connectors to those boxes, unhooked another few connectors that were part of that harness, slid out the clip that was holding the connector to the car and fed the wires out the side.  I then pulled the connectors up through the opening into the engine compartment and the wiring was out.

The power antenna was a bit more interesting.  There was a relay mounted behind the dash.  I could get my hand on it, but could not get enough leverage on it to pull the connector out.  The relay was screwed to the dash from above, and I couldn't get a socket on it due to the awkward position.  From underneath I could an opening through the top of the dash, and with two people and a long extension I probably could have probably gotten the bolts out, but it was just me.  So I decided the only way to get at the relay was going to be to remove the dash itself.  

The only thing holding the dash in was the instrument cluster, so I removed the lower nuts, pulled the cluster forward, used a screwdriver to pop the speedo cable out and then disconnected the wiring for the other switches (headlight, rear wiper, lighter, etc.).  I removed the upper two 13mm nuts on either side of the dash, the one 10mm lower bolt that I left on the passenger side and the dash came right out.  All of the wiring on the driver side was still hooked up, so I couldn't remove the dash entirely, but it came forward enough for me to get the relay bolts out easily.  With full access, I pulled the connector going to the power antenna.  

With the wiring disconnected from the relay, I pulled the grommet from the fender side and pulled the antenna wiring out.

As easy as all of this went, I still ended up with some problems.  First, the top of the right dash mounting eyelet snapped off.  It was cracked before I did anything today (which is why I'd left the lower right bolt in place) so I figured it wasn't going to last.  I need to figure out how to fix that.  I also broke one of the plastic fingers that holds the plastic dash to the lower, metal dash support on the right side of the steering wheel cavity. 

Last, and most critical, is that I cannot not seem to get the dash back in to place correctly.  I got the studs through the upper eyelet holes, but the lower dash is at least 1" - 1.5" too far forward and both sides.  I could pull the lower dash in to place and get the bolts in, but that bending would put way too much pressure on the entire dash and I know it would crack over time.  I've no idea what is in the way but will look at it next week.

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