348 CHALLENGE GRILL UPDATE 6/11

Manufacturer called me at 6:45 CST and said we are a go. The very first production unit will be on my car by July 15-ish. That is dependent upon the following:

1. Expedient manufacture of the wiring harnesses - I am awaiting word on this. If they have the parts in stock or readily available, this is a 4-week timeframe. If certain parts need ordering, there will be a delay. I should know something by tomorrow.

2. Proper fitment of the part. I only wish that a 348 owner near Chicago or Indianapolis would agree to have his car trucked 2 hours (at my expense) away for a couple of days so that everything could be measured on an actual car. However, I have submitted detailed drawings and measurements, as well as photos, so I am hoping we have a good fit on the first one. There could be some adjusting needed, however.

We are getting closer guys!

 

Bad news on the wiring harness front: I haven't found a manufacturer yet that can make it, due to apparent unavailability of a few of the connector parts. If we wait on this piece of the puzzle to get solved before we produce and sell the panel, we could all be waiting a while. So...plan B is you will have to do your own re-wiring.

Actually, it's not that difficult and is quite easily reversible, but it will require 60 to 90 minutes of your time. Mark in Utah did this successfully did this recently and was kind enough to document how it's done:

"Rewiring from the 348 to the 355 is actually very easy if you can do basic electrical pin chasing. Here is the how to:

1. With your 348 lights plugged in, follow the wires from the lights to the pins.
2. Reverse is red/black, brake is double red, turn is blue, and driving lights are yellow with black or red stripe, black is ground.
3. Take a small eyeglass screwdriver and remove the pins from the connector, keep the connector by placing back in the 348 lights for storage.
4. The outer 355 lights have three pins and the inner lights have 4 pins. The female pins you just removed from the 348 connectors will fit over the male 355 pins. The outer light pin will be black, no pin, yellow, then blue. The inner lights will be black, skip pin, red/black, then double red.
5. Fill in the space around the pins with a semi-rigid grey RTV silicone gasket maker...effectively creating my own 355 connector plug.
6. The only other step is to add a pigtail from the double black ground 348 loom to the inner light (ground pin is not long enough to span to the inner light from the outer.

By doing it this way, there is no splicing involved and the pins can be pulled from the RTV silicone and reinstalled in the the 348 connector if you ever want to return to factory. No damage to 348 parts. If necessary, the 355 lights would need to be cleaned of the silicone. Hope this helps."

Mark


Sorry to be the bearer of bad news on the wiring harness front, but I will keep looking at other alternatives. If you want to convert to the round tail light panel, it looks like you're going to have to do a little wire chasing! (for now)

 

I'm not giving up on the wiring harness - no doubt I will eventually have it produced. By the same token I am not going to let the tail wag the dog and let the wiring thing stall the entire project. It's not that hard to trace wires.