IML: Hello, and 1982 Coupe quesitons...

[Nat Hall <nathall@xxxxxxxx>]

Hey folks,

I'm brand new to this list.  I bought a 1982 Imperial Coupe this week with
the intention of restoring it to a mostly factory-original state. I say
"mostly" because there are a few things I would like to do differently, but
more on that later. The car has approximately 206,000 miles on it.

I apologize in advance, as this is going to be a fairly long message.
Please don't skip over it, though. :)

I live in the greater Seattle area and sometime last year I came across a
guy who was a customer of the company I work for who had this 82 Imperial
he was working on slowly restoring.  He was the second owner. We talked one
day for a bit, and he told me he needed to sell the car because of personal
reasons that would prevent him from working on it further. He was asking
$3,800 for it but at the time it wasn't a good financial decision for me.
Turn the clock forward to last week and he contacted me to see if I was
still interested in the car. Surprised it hadn't sold, I said sure, and he
told me $1,000 and it was mine. I agreed and here we are today.

A little bit of background on me:  I am a big fan of Chrysler/Mopar and in
my life I've only had one vehicle in my name that wasn't Chrysler built.
I've always been fascinated by the Imperials, but never owned one until
now. When I lived a few blocks from here, a neighbor of mine had an early
70's vintage Imperial (not sure what model, but it wasn't a LeBaron).  My
favorite has always been the 81-83 model, however. My other car currently
is a 1987 New Yorker, and my fiancee has a Kia Sephia.

OK, with the intro out of the way, on to the car.  The car is beautiful for
the most part but needs some work.  The guy I bought it from had 90% of the
interior restored and very little of the exterior (just the wheels).

My first question is with the motor that drives the headlight doors.  The
previous owner had disconnected the motor because he said it didn't work,
so the doors were always open.  In actuality, the motor does work (I tested
it).  But it will only close the doors and not open them.  Nothing is
frozen on the unit since the knob turns freely to manually open and close
the doors. What do I need to replace in this case? Is the headlight switch
itself faulty? Some relay somewhere? I assume that since the motor turns
one way under power, it should be able to turn the other.

Second question is another electronics question, related to the digital
dash.  The digital dash seems to work almost 100%, with one exception. When
I press a button to get a current MPG reading, it always reads 99.9. It
does this for both trip-to-date MPG as well as current MPG. This doesn't
make any sense to me since the odometer works fine, as does the fuel level
sending unit. This would only make sense to me if the fuel level sending
unit wasn't functioning and was always reading a constant fuel level.

Next is a quick electrical question.  Is the radio/stereo wiring harness on
these Imperials the same pin layout as the '87 New Yorker's? I have a spare
factory AM/FM cassette deck for the New Yorker I would like to install into
the Imperial. The original, also an AM/FM cassette deck, is completely dead
and probably broken beyond repair.  There is half (yes, half) a cassette
tape broken off inside of it and none of the buttons do anything.
Physicaly, the two units are the same size and look almost the same except
the one from the New Yorker is in pristine condition.

Last question (for today), related to the engine. To be clear, this is the
second car I've had with the 318 V8.  I used to own a 1988 Chrysler New
Yorker 5th Avenue Ed. with the same engine. I know from that experience
these are very smooth running engines.  This one is too, but it idles
*slightly* rough. You can only occasionally feel slight vibration at idle.
I never felt anything at idle on the '88 5th Ave, but maybe that's a result
of the different fuel delivery systems the two cars use combined with old
age. Anyway, on the Imperial at idle *occasionally* the "LOW OIL
[pressure]" light will flicker for a millisecond or two.  It is almost not
even enough to call a flicker, and in bright daylight it's undetectable at
all because it's so quick and faint. I've noticed the trend is that it
happens sometimes (but not all the time) after a long freeway drive at
65-75mph ands tends to go away after I've gotten off the freeway and driven
around town for a bit.  If I'm just driving around town and don't go on the
freeway at all (or only for a short time) it doesn't seem to happen at all.
The light never even gets close to being completely illuminated. The oil
level is completley full. I don't notice any difference in the feel or
sound of the idle when it happens.  There is no knocking or valve clatter.
I am curious because I never saw the low oil pressure light on the 5th Ave.
Another interesting note is that in the Imperial manual it says you may see
the low oil light just after starting up, and occasionally at idle. So is
this normal for this car?

Lastly, there are a few specific parts for this car that I need and if
anybody out there knows of a source, is close to a source, or has them I
would greatly appreciate a message back.  I need:

* A new climate control unit for the dash.  The one I have mostly works,
but the fan switch doesn't actually change the fan speed. Aren't these
shared with other 80's Chryslers, like the LeBaron and such? I swear it's a
pretty common part. I almost want to say the one my 5th Avenue had was
identical. The '87 New Yorker uses a completely digital system.

*  A new armrest for the driver's door. Hopefully this isn't part of the
whole door upholstery. The rest of the door upholstery is beautiful. The
armrest has a big giant rip in it, though.

* A new front grille.  Probably hard to find, but I seriously hope not.
Mine has chunks missing. The surrounding chrome is in pristine shape,
though.

* A new front cornering light/side marker light unit for the passenger
side. The wiring and bulb sockets are there, but the lense and light
fixture isn't. Are these shared with any other Chrysler model? The one on
the New Yorker is different.

Well that's all for now, folks.  I'll be back with more questions soon
enough I'm sure. :) Thanks to everyone who could bear with me through all
this. Next time I won't be so long-winded. :)

-Nat

Nat Hall
1982 Imperial Coupe




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