New project for my father...

Since my dad is getting ready to retire for the 4th time, he needed a new project to occupy his time...

Illumination....

I was able to find some time this weekend to make a little progress on the Chevy truck re-wire.  Essentially, the front half of the truck is done.  It cranks, has spark and all of the front lights work.  As typical with GM's, the front parking light are wired to turnoff when the headlights are on.  The fog lights are on their own switch but are wired in conjunction with the tail lights.  So, when the headlight switch is completely off, the fog lights will be off as well.  However, they will be able to be turned on with or with out the headlights.

Rolling Deep On some 15's.....

Since the Volvo is getting once step closer to it's 2JZ swap, I needed to temporary replacement for it's daily driver duties.  This beauty found me and for the price, I couldn't pass it up...

1994 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham...

Oh GM, you had such a good styling department through the 90's....

Wiring progress...

I have never been a fan of having wires pass through a grommet on the fire wall.  Sure, the grommet is necessary to prevent any type of chaffing, but it just looks like hell.  An idea that I originally saw on a stock '40 Ford was to hide all of this behind a cover plate.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a stock '40 ford cover plate, so I just made one...or at least a variation of one...

After some hammering, trimming, more hammering, a bunch of finish planishing and finally some more trimming, the cover fit fairly decent.

I really like using this cloth wire loom.  It has great abrasion resistance and a fairly high temperature rating.  Plus, it looks attractive and fits with era of the vehicle.  The majority of the time associated with wiring is actually taken up by sorting out the loom.  Sure, it's definitely tedious work.  However, once its done, it'll last for a very long time and provide excellent protection to the wires.   

There are still several clamps to install but it's nice when a harness fits well enough to hold itself in place...

Radiator modifications....

Before the Chevy truck came over for the rewire, I had to do a quick modification on an aftermarket radiator.  The customer was having a hard time keeping original radiator in his '61 Ford truck from leaking.  He finally bought a new aluminum unit off of the internet but the lower hose was in the wrong location....

...no big deal, just cut and weld...

It's Wirery...

We are finally making some headway with the rewire.  Sure, it appears that there is still a long way to go, but in all actuality, the hardest part is done.  Terminating all of the ends is the easiest part, it's running the wires and making it appealing that takes the time.

The biggest issue that I found with the Rebel Wire Harness is the fact the the wires protrude out of the back about a 1/2".  The instructions say to bolt it down but I wasn't too keen on potentially pinching a wire.  Plus, I wanted a way to unbolt the harness from the inside without the need for a 2nd person to hold the bolts on the other side of the firewall.  So after 10 minutes of some 3D modelling and another 5 hrs of printing, I had this ABS 3D printed part...

...which fit perfect.  The standoffs were included so that the part could be directly bolted to the firewall and not compress the insulation and firewall pad on the inside.

This picture really shows how far the wires stick out...

Once installed, it should never have to come back off.  The panel bolts directly to it using (6) 10-32 screws and overall it is remarkably sturdy.

I started laying out the loom and cutting it to length.  Everywhere a wire exits the main harness, it will be eventually covered with heat shrink tubing.  Before that happens though, it is import took make sure all of the wires are run correctly and that you do not have to run any addition wires.  Take it from me, it is a pain to try and fish a forgotten wire through a finished harness. 

Again, I cannot stress it enough, it's all about preparation....

Tangled Spaghetti...

So it's fairly apparent that over the years that there have been quite a few people "working" on the wiring of this truck.    Now, I don't want to sound like I am critizing other's work, but I find it amazing that it hasn't burnt to the ground.  I have never seen so many bare and uninsulated wires in a single vehicle.  There wasn't even any type of fuse panel, just random in-line fuses hidden in the web of tangled wires.

Here is the main under the dash harness...

...and since the first time I saw this truck, I absolutley loathed the bundle of wires running at an angle across the firewall....not to mention the terminal strips...

So, the only thing to do was cut it all out...

...and start with a new aftermarket harness.  We decided to go with a Rebel Wire Harness.  There have been quite a few positive reviews about their product and customer support, so I figured it time we try.  Plus it's made in America with American components.

Here is the rebel kit straight out of the box...

It's personal opinion, but I much prefer the harnesses that are terminated at the fuse panel.  Some of the kits available, like the Ron Francis Wireworks, have the end user terminate the wires at the panel. While these kits make it very easy for a first timer to do a complete wire job, it is very difficult to make them look presentable.

The first impression of the Rebel Harness is that it's on the higher end of this style and price bracket of kit.  Sure there are some quirks about it that we are going to work through, but overall, I am very pleased.  The majority of similar kits have the horn relay and flashers separate from the fuse panel requiring additional mounting provisions.  The Rebel kit is designed so that it can be fastened together, which gives the appearance of more a factory install.

The most important aspect of a wiring job is preparation.  With every kit that I have installed, the wires coming out of the panel have required to be rerouted to fit the particular vehicle.  The worst part of the entire job is cutting the main zipties and having all of the wires loose.  Things can get out of hand and tangled real quick...but that is were having a little patience and plenty of extra zipties come in hand...    

and after a little rerouting...

And speaking of zipties, I hate seeing them in a finished wiring install.  A properly installed harness should have a minimal number of them.  I usually go though about 100-150 ties during an install to keep everything orginized but only keep 2-3 of them when it's done...but more on that later....

Old equipment....

I picked up a fairly old South Bend lathe in really nice condition a while back.  It was mounted on a bench and didn't have any legs. Fortunately, I had a couple cast iron ones in inventory.  I still have some work to do like fab a chip bed and mount the motor, but I am fairly excited to start using it.

It's back...

The '50 truck is back for some more work.  We have to do a complete re-wire and relocate the gas tank.

Since there is a commercially available kit for the gas tank relocation, we figured that this was going to be easy.  Right...that couldn't be further than the truth. 

The kit we ordered from Brothers wasn't even close to fitting.  Of course, it was on back order, but when we finally received it, the filler neck came out in the totally wrong location.  It hit one of the main mounting strips in the floor plus it would stick up a good 2 inches above the floor.  The main mounting tabs weren't close to hitting the the frame plus they hit several of the frame brackets.  After calling to make sure that we, (1) received the correct tank, (2) get instructions since none were supplied with the tank and (3) to check on some other back ordered items, we figured the hell with it and we'll just make it work.  

Since the neck wasn't going to come up in the right place, the first thing we did was place it where we thought it should be.

You can see how much it was off...

 Does someone actually test fit this stuff?  I sincerely doubt it it...

Oh yeah, apparently, there aren't any instructions...

Shop art....

A couple of years ago, I was able to acquire the Formula SAE car from my senior year of college.  I was team captain that year and devoted way too much of my time getting this thing running.  My GPA certainly took a hit because of it too...still it was a great experience and I highly recommend any student to get involved.  We were able to place 7th out of 140 schools, which, at the time, we didn't think was too shabby.

I had grand visions of getting this thing running and taking it to some auto crosses. Maybe competing in some SCCA solo events.  But, the more I thought about it, why spend so much time trying to get this car back on the track when there really isn't any class for it?  It's not like I could take it to an open track day since it more than likely would pass any type of tech.  If I am going to invest my time in a racer, it's going to be a bit more legit...maybe one of these days...

So, for now at least, it's going to hang on the wall