After I got the front suspension done I moved to the dash wiring to get the later model steering column and switches installed. The main reason for swapping these was because my 79 column was damaged pretty heavily when the car had been stolen and I really couldn't stand not having wiper delay.
I did a lot of research on this and read that it was kind of a pain to swap these over. I was a bit nervous about the whole process but once I got in there what I found was that it was a relatively very simple swap. Anybody with an early g-body could do this...
First off, the steering column wiring is almost exactly alike between my 79 and the 85 Cutlass columns. The 85 column had some sort of additional plug near the bottom that took a little research to figure out. It went into the engine computer and after a little debate on the g-body forum and a bunch of research with different wiring diagrams I finally found it safe to assume it was a simple gear indicator switch and I could leave it unplugged in my car. My guess was correct, it didn't affect function at all.
Next on the list was to swap the headlight switch wiring. The 79 dash had the typical push/ pull headlight switch with the dash light dimmer activated by turning the knob. The junkyard 85 Cutlass switch is a push button with a separate wheel that adjusts the dimmer. I think just this alone will give the interior a cleaner more modern look.
Here's a photo comparing the wiring for the newer switch and the 79 wiring. Notice they're the same.
I pulled the pins from the 79 switch and trimmed and spliced them into the wires for the 85 switch. Pretty basic wiring here.
The process was basically the same for the wiper wiring, wherein the wiper switch is now on the column rather than on the dash. I did this back in August, so if memory serves me right, the 82+ g-bodies got a re-designed wiper motor that has reversed polarity. To do this steering column swap YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST SWAP TO THE NEWER WIPER MOTOR TOO. On the right is the wiring from the column, the left is the 79 wiper switch. The main difference is the green delay wire, which needs to be wired directly to the green wire coming out of the newer wiper motor rather than spliced into any dash wiring. On the switch in the photo you also see a black and white wire that is the light for the 79 switch. I left this unplugged and eventually conveniently spliced into it as the power and ground for my aftermarket gauge lights.
