MR HYDE IS COMING TO LIFE

[Dr Jkel]

January 5, 2012 Thursday

Did I mention that there are A LOT of wires in this truck. Well if I haven't let me tell you there are A LOT of wires in the truck.

While doing this wiring my main goal was not only to make it functional but also make it easy to remove if something broke i.e......fuel gauge, tach, headlight switch etc...... A couple of items already had connectors, albeit the wrong internal pins, but were not wired correct.

We de-pinned these connectors, added the correct terminal ends, soldered, heat shrinked etc... each one of them.

I have also learned the GROUNDS are very important and can not be stacked at a single grounding point. Pretty much each ground must be attached at a seperate location, which means drilling holes and inserting bolts. I have also learned that there is an item called a PLUSH Nut. Basically a plush nut is a blind nut that looks and is installed like a rivot...Drill a hole, install the nut and rivot it in. They look clean, work great and that is what we are using on all these grounds.

If you do not use seperate grounds then you will get feed back from other items and it causes those items not to work properly like the speedometer, it has a bouncing effect.

So we got all the gauges wired up in the instrument cluster and added a 12 pin connector. I did this so that the instrument cluster can be removed without cutting the wires if one of the gauges goes bad. Also got the neutral safety switch and the brake light switch wired up.

All that is left to complete the drivers side of the dash board is to add terminal ends on the main harness to the wires for the instrument cluster. (12wires). Then we can move towards the radio, A/C and computer connections.
Once that is completed we will install the rear bulkhead and finish the interior wiring.

After that all we will have to do is add the correct wires to the front and rear bulkheads for the exterior of the truck and the wiring will be complete

We will be re-routing the wiring harness for the front end so that will take a little bit of time...........

But progress is continuing......Matt seems to think that we can pretty much finish up the wiring this weekend.....The instrument cluster area of the dash is the worst and that is almost done.

[garcmol]

That's great news!

[Dr Jkel]

January 8, 2011 Sunday

Does the words wiring mean anything?:( Yepper wiring galore.

We have just about got the interior wiring completed We have to run 3 wires from the computer to sending units like the neutral safety switch, brake switch and something else....The computer will controll all these functions.......They were not hooked up before...imagine that.

We did do some testing once we got everything kinda hooked up...We tested the door switch lights and each door switch works, headlight switch works the interior lights etc.......A/C comes on, Fan, CEL......So this is a good thing Have to order some more wires for the three we need......

We jacked up the truck and placed it on jack stands again so that we could do all the underneath wiring.

We are going to drop the gas tank, might as well check it while we are checking everything else...only problem is that I have to drain it. Once it is drained we will check the fuel pump wiring etc....

We did determine why there was so much back pressure when filling the tank and why it leaked so much when trying to fill it.

Basically the filler hose was too small and wouldn't allow air out since the pipe diamter was so small it would just spit it back out. Sooooooo we have to cut the filler neck off the tank and add a bigger neck, then add bigger filler neck pipe etc....plus not to mention when they welded the filler neck at the top it has A LOT of pinholes that allowed fuel to leak down the bed.

While we have is on jack stands we are going to take the tires down and have them balanced to alleviate that as a vibration issue.

So we have to drill a hole for the rear bulkhead, add terminals for about 14 wires for the rear harness, add about 8 wires for the front harness and we should be good on wiring.

I am contemplating changing or adding some regular footwell lighting. I know I am going to have some LED Footwell lighting for cruises but I am talking about the lighting that comes on when the door is opened.

We also have on order a main kill switch to help eliminate someone stealing it by driving it away....This will cut main power to everything. We also are adding a interior light kill switch so that I can have the LED's on and the interior dome lights off while the doors are open........

Hopefully really soon we will have everything wired up......At least I know it is done right and my truck will not catch fire now and that is a good thing.

[Dr Jkel]

Monday January 9, 2012

Didn't get a single things done on the truck as I watched my beloved Criimson Tide whoop up on the LSU tigers for their 14th National Championship.......

As we say down here....Roll Tide Ya'll or after this game Reauxll Tide Ya'll......

[Dr Jkel]

Tuesday January 10, 2012

Still kinda recovering from the BCS National Title game...Oh Yeah Roll Tide.

Decided to work on the rear of the truck last night and see what kinda wiring issues I was going to run into.

Of course I had to remove the tank...and as luck would have it I had to drain it.....Of course I had just filled it up since I thought I would be able to drive it

So The only way I knew was to put a 5 gallon bucket under it and pull the plug. Lets just say that it worked but was probably not the best way to do this. The tank had a plug and not a drain plugs which made it more interesting......but finally it was empty.

So I removed the tank, disconnected the fuel pump and sending unit wires and set it aside.

I then removed the rear harness from the truck. The rear harness had been heat shrinked so it was kinda fun getting that all off, luckily they didn't do such a great job shrinking the heat shrink which made it easier.

Once all the heat shrink was off I removed the un-needed wires from the harness, cleaned up the wires and started zip tying the wires back up.......

*********TIP******** If you are removing a wiring harness that has been electrical taped you will notice a sticky residue on the wires. Take some brake parts cleaner, spray it on a rag and wipe the wires down. All the stickiness ( Old adhesive) will quickly come off the wires, the brake parts cleaner will evaporate and you will be good to go***********

Cut the expandable wire loom to length but decided that was enough for the night since I couldn't melt the ends, especially with the gas fumes...probably not a good idea and since it was raining out last night not alot of air flow through the shop.

So I decided to let the fumes die down and continue tomorrow.........

[f5journal]

whew!!!!! I was waiting to read the "I blew up the garage and truck" part

[Dr Jkel]

Originally Posted by f5journal

whew!!!!! I was waiting to read the "I blew up the garage and truck" part

I actually thought about it when I was draining the tank......Insurance company would not have been too happy since it also has Dr.Jkel, Mr. Hyde, a 1973 mint Vette and a 2010 Skeeter bass boat oh and my Yamaha bike in the garage.......not to mention all the Adams stuff and my tools. Would have been at least 250k claim..........I do not want to go to jail

[f5journal]

I'm sure you were safe, but gas fumes can surprise you even outdoors. I blew up a gas can (and singed my hair) one time after pouring some gas on a pile of branches...then walking the can 40-50 feet away and then going back and tossing a match on the branches

[Dr Jkel]

oh gas definitely scares me........

[Dr Jkel]

January 11 & 12, 2012

Didn't really get anything done, just kinda cleaned up the shop again.

The filler neck on the gas tank will have to be removed and another one installed since it is too small ( another reason that it was spitting gas out the filler hose). I am also considering removing the electric fuel pump from the tank and placing it on the frame rail.

I had originally been told that I would incur vapor lock if it was not in the tank but in reality that is not the truth...many drag cars and NASCAR has external fuel pumps and the do not have vapor lock...but I am still trying to do some research.

[CamaroKid300]

Originally Posted by Dr Jkel

Monday January 9, 2012

Didn't get a single things done on the truck as I watched my beloved Criimson Tide whoop up on the LSU tigers for their 14th National Championship.......

As we say down here....Roll Tide Ya'll or after this game Reauxll Tide Ya'll......

Boooooo.

However, I am glad the title stayed in Bama another year......

What a crummy game though. LSU got nervous...

Can't wait to see your truck...gonna be sweet.

[Dr Jkel]

January 13 & 14, 2012

Didn't do anything to Mr. Hyde...Matt had some emergency repairs he needed to get done for some of his regular customers.....can't really complain.

January 15, 2012 Sunday

We started by finishing the wiring in the cab....installed the rear bulkhead connector and routed the wires to the connector. Added the three wires for the neutral safety switch and brake switch plus the light wire for the A/C controls. The soldering iron broke and will have to wait till the Snap-on man runs to get it fixed.

Removed the center plates from the wheels so that they could be taken to get balanced. These are allen screws and as luck would have it one of them was messed up so I will have to get another one. Looks like they used a phillips head screwdriver instead of an allen wrench to take it off. All of the little screws were loose.

We then decided to take all of the components out of the tank so we could work on it. We took the fuel guage and the fuel pump out. Immediately we noticed alot of trash in the tank. We also noticed water in the tank.

Once we got the fuel pump out of the tank and started inspecting it we noticed alot of rust on the fuel pump and it's connectors. There was also alot of sediment in the filter on the pump.....The tank is aluminum so rust should not be an issue......Really makes me wonder about this since the fuel pressure regulator was so rusted.

We then decided to see why the fuel guage was not working......Luckily this was a simple fix. Evidentially they did not know how to install a fuel guage sending unit. So we adjusted the length and tested it to make sure it worked.

We took the fuel pump apart and will have to adjust the depth of the fuel pump as well. Going to put a new pump on it.

Decided to stay with a in-tank pump for a couple of reasons......one because a 6" hole had been cut in the top of the tank for the fuel pump and secondly the cost and time associated with changing it to an in-line pump.

Took the starter off since it was fried.

Enough for today.

[Dr Jkel]

January 16, 2012 Monday

I was off today and decided to clean up the shop a little bit. Removed some of teh un-needed wires from the starter, cut all the zip ties and wire loom from the mini harness going to the starter. Noticed the main power wire going into the truck was burned....looks like it laid against the headers at some point in time...so this will have to be fixed.

Matt spent the evening cutting the parts of the tank out and getting this ready to weld in the new fill neck, and adding a vent bung.

[garcmol]

Damn John, what did this shop do? I mean, nothing seems right! At least now it will be right and you'll know every inch of your truck.