There are several breaches to the firewall that have moved. I’ve patched up the drivers side for the most part, but to prepare for A/C & Heat is a different thing.
The heater core will be outside the cab, but the A/C heat exchanger will be inside.
The heater core has to outboard about 3″ as the motor interferes.
Let’s get the passenger side done and will finish the drivers side when I’m doing brakes, wiring harness, etc. If I button it up too soon I’ll be re-cutting over there I think.
From the inside under the dash you can see the 4 circled holes where the heater core mounted in the stock location. Also, you can see the bit I’ll need to cut and the + at the bottom left and top right are the same holes after relocation. I’ve mocked them in the engine bay and it looks like that’ll work.
So, I cut out the piece, flipped it over and welded it back in. Once the paint dries I can start working out some of the rest of it.
… and then I figure out that I’d need to move it up and over a bit and not use the old truck config.
So, I did some figuring and thought… maybe I can fit it if I move it up and over… is soooo close…
… and then figure out that it WON’T WORK. The interior a/c components were just about 1″ too deep… and I’m not gonna modify the dash in order to accommodate it. So, after chopping up the firewall and burning way too much time … here we go! We’re up to about plan D.
Ordered parts for old school aftermarket a/c. All I really needed (assuming using the stock compressor) is condenser (looks like a radiator) and evaporator unit with fan, vents and controls. Open the wallet and money pours out. They don’t come cheap!
A coupla weeks and brown-santa (UPS guy) later:
Here’s the interior evaporator (and controls) as an aftermarket a/c.
So now I’ve added work for myself. It is the fastest way to take wind out of your sails. I went and worked on something else for a while and came back. So, now Ineed to fix up the firewall and build up a heater box (which will use the donor truck fan) for heat.
Every bit of fabrication starts with cardboard. May as well use the newly acquired a/c boxes!
Here’s a rough sketch of the heater box (actually this is the 3rd prototype in cardboard… just to give full disclosure).
More details applied:
Pretty snazzy now:
So many ideas created and cancelled. I guess I’m “woke” now with all my cancel culture. (/s)
Yes, I take notes on my templates… in this case I need some overhang for bending over to help make the box corners.
I do need to ensure that the bolt holes for this don’t interfere with the bolt holes for the elec motor on the other side of the firewall. This is my attempt that working that out. The hole in between in the common reference.
I’ve modified the donor truck a/c motor to have the smallest footprint sensible. This is what will go inside the truck for the heater setup.
With “just the blower motor” from the donor, here’s what we’re looking at.
I’ve cut out a wedge of output-box from the blower:
Here’s a close up of some of the plastic welding. It’s a bit of a pain, but it seems to mostly work…
This definitely fits.
Mock #3 of the heater box:
Heat or no-heat.. there will be a flap that will go between the two holes (and anywhere in between).
Here it is, notice that it’s pretty flat now. Before it was flared out.
Note the plastic welding… I cut out portions and re-welded it together to save space.
Here is both mocks from both sides of the firewall with the hole between mocked in. Looks plausible.
Here’s the first shot of the backplate of the heater box (with side tabs) tinkered into place.
Just to add some flavor to the mix, I ran out of welding gas. the local air-gas guy should just comp me some cylinders at this point.
Preppin’ for repairin’
Hokus pokus, grind and paint make me the welder I ain’t? And of course, I noticed that I forgot to put one patch in.
Finally, only holes that will be used for mounting things.
Still more to go on the heater box.
Here’s how far I’ve made it. Basically I’m picking apart the cardboard template and building it in steel.
Orienting it like it’ll be on the firewall (I’m standing at the front grill)…
The air comes in from the firewall (grate in front of the windshield) and comes into the box.
This top chamber will have a flapper which will either cover the forward facing hole or cover the downward facing hole.
If the air flows through the bottom hole the air will go through the heater core.
If the air flows through the forward hole it will go into the cab as unheated/fresh air.
More parts are needed.
Propping up the heater core in place for mocking, here is what it’s like.
Here’s where it’ll go on the firewall.
I will probably end up with a couple of more holes for the high and low pressure hoses for the A/C that run to the condenser from the inside unit. I’ll deal with that a bit later once I’m mounting it in the cab. Otherwise I think the passenger side firewall is done.
I’ll take on the rest of the heater box in another post.
I’m rounding a fun corner. That corner is the one where you finish the work you’re going to do on some parts. It’s been long in coming, but it’s starting to feel good. Todays door closed on 3 different things:
Gas tank fill neck and boxed-in-area (I actually finished that a few days ago)
Gas tank mount
Frame modifications on the back half of the frame
Very soon I can add the bed to that… but I have a few loose ends to hit before I can make that claim. Let’s hop in and see how today goes…
Although I trimmed the bed floor, I haven’t attached it. Partially because I needed to get some body pucks which were the right thickness such that all the floor supports lined up!
I also needed do some welding under the bed. Unless I want to do that on my back (sucks!) or remove the bed (where to put it!?) I need to do it before the bed floor is in. It required getting some steel…
Then I cut some flats out to fit. I couldn’t use a bigger single piece because there wasn’t room to get it in there.
It was nice getting out the bigger welding wire for a bit. The fitup was nice. (For a change) I did pretty well with the cardboard template…
I think this will work nicely. It’s just going to be a bugger to weld up…
Any place it touched I (at least) tacked it in. Can’t hurt.
Similar (but so much easier) I boxed in the frame around where the suspension is mounted.
I’m not entirely sure it won’t just crack by the edge of the plates but it’s worth a try.
I will say… steel prices are up.
Turned out half bad!
I think I’m up to 300 holes drilled (to be filled with weld…) oof.
I did need to work on the gas tank structure a bit.
After getting the tank situated, I formed the straps and put the bolts in to hold it in place. What’s one of the glorious things of today? It’s removing the gas tank and straps and bagging up the hardware. I need to shorten the rods on the inside of the fuel pump structure so I can’t put the tank away, but it doesn’t need to sit under the bed while I weld the bed floor in.
While the welder was set up for bigger stuff, I tacked in the spring perches in the rear. Then…I got set up to weld in the bed.
It’s a lot of plug welds.
~300
Since there’s a chance of temp warping and/or pulls from shrinkage, I suggest starting in the physical middle and kind of work your way out. I did every 2-3 plugs then came back and filled.
These panels are galvanized, so breathing PPE is recommended. I also opened up the garage to let all the fumes out.
Once one side was done, time to fit the other in…
150 more plug welds… and…
There are a few things I’ll have to address:
Grind down all 300 plug welds and touch them with a little primer so they won’t flash rust
Fix this spot where I didn’t get the holes close enough to the edge to catch the surface I need to weld to… dangit… it was also the last corner, so I’d painted myself into that corner by the time I got there. I may just seam weld down the side and just fill the holes. Yep, I make mistakes.
Apply seam sealer on all the seams. With these being patch panels there are a lot of places for water to get in there and make a mess without it. It’ll also firm up the bed just a wee bit too although it’s pretty stable now.
Here’s what the plug welds will look like after grinding and paint.
Overall I’m pleased.. and tired… and tired of plug welds!
A few more hours and then I can use the bed for storage again!
I’ve been ordering parts and getting the gladiator ready for installation… until… one day… Your pet cat — phish
I order some 3/8″ grade 8 threaded rod (fine thread). 3 feet of it. Yeah, it’s not super common but it’s not THAT exotic. I have been using this hardware supplier online for years decades. I use them because they have _everything_ and always deliver. If you want british threaded bolts that are in pre-standard-thermal-units I’m pretty sure they list it and it’ll show up in your order.
I use them for weld-on bungs, oddball items, bushings, bulk bolts, etc. and they always come through. They even send the engineering spec which the items meet (if it’s a special metal or something that is dimensionally sensitive).
Today I had a strange event happened. I received a package that all looked good. (Woo hoo! Parts are here!)…. until I cracked it open.
It turns out that the 3/8″ threaded rod showed up as 1/4″ threaded rod. It also had the wrong thread form and wrong thread count. That bit was odd but I might have just whiffed that it was the wrong part if it was just a wrong thread pattern.
That by itself isn’t worrisome… I reached out to the supplier and they were all over it “we’ll get you one by next Wed”. Fine and dandy…
…
HOWEVER…
I then get an order confirmation with:
“…
Thank you for your order. We will deliver your items by Dec 26.
…”
Wait… wut? Last time I checked next week was still in November!
My best guess is that: 1- The one I got was the oddball misboxed rod in the bin because a restock guy didn’t know his thread/pitch/diameters… 2- Since it was an empty bin otherwise… the picker didn’t know it was wrong. 3- The reason the bin is empty… is they are ordering from over seas…and that’s as soon as they will get a replacement.
Blame it all on the supply chain! I know it’s popular to blame the fat cat oil companies… but I don’t think they supply grade 8 threaded rod.
I’m trying hard not to get in a rant. We’ll see if it shows up next week. I don’t think I should hold my breath.
I just hope all these other parts are good to go. In a pinch I can mock in with mild steel and go on with life until the hardened stuff shows.
Shocks, radiator, and bad threaded rod
Bumps for part of the bed floor support
A healthy pile of correct and shiny hardware…
A whole pile of lights, wiring fiddly bits (fuse box, relays and boxes, weatherproof connectors, usb ports, etc.) ready for starting wiring.
Some weld-on nuts to replace some on the body that were rusted beyond useability.
Yeah yeah, maybe the radiator fan will be bigger… but this one is going to cause me some headaches.
Working on the A/C I’d like to use the “modern” fan as the old one is tired and slow. Here’s the Fan (and some parts of the controls) out of the donor truck.
…but wait, what’s this doohicky?
Here it is attached to the fan motor. Wires everywhere!
Seeing that I’m going to want to do some testing, I wire up a toggle switch to a car battery (with a fuse! I’m not an animal!).
I run that into a junction box and mount a toggle switch on the top (the fuse is inline on the hot side inside the box)
She ain’t pretty, but it works. the switch is more than rated for anything I’m going to be pulling through there.
Now, back to the blower motor… I break out the full shop manual for the donor truck and dig up the wiring diagram for the hvac fan blower motor.
Well that helps!
If I read this right, if I put power to 2 orange and ground black, it should blow full blast.
(fiddling occurs in the background…)
oof. Nothing.
I test out the motor the old fashioned way (direct wire hot and ground to a 12v car battery). It works!
Huh.
So I pull the plug out of the motor and use the multi-meter to see if the leads are getting juice with that setup.
YUP 12V at red testing against a known ground.
Well, is ground not making it back? I turn off juice and check the black end, does it have continuity with the known ground?
YUP, continuity from the black tip to the known good ground.
Huh.
Another change dealing with electrics: changing over the ducks from being vacuum actuated to being motor actuated. Here are the actuators out of the donor.
I figured out with some fiddling that brown needs to be power, then you ground out then there will be one lead for clock-wise turning and 2 leads for getting it to turn counter-clock-wise. That’s getting somewhere. that gives me some (kinda weak but functional) actuators to move diverters around.
What do I mean by moving diverters? So here is one that’s open:
and then closed
It basically opens and closes areas where air can navigate. On the old truck they were actuated with a vacuum system. The vacuum actuator is under my hand. The ones from the old truck are shot and honestly, they are notoriously suspect. Vacuum systems almost always leak and give random weird behavior in duct work. So can I adapt the old truck to use the new style actuators?
Here you can see the position at the actuator when the diverter is “closed”:
…and here it’s open.
There is a push-rod that comes out of the vacuum actuator that pushes the lever which rotates the pivot for the door.
My first through is to just mount the actuator above the door and figure out how to attach it. However, there isn’t sufficient clearance to the firewall. Rats!
Maybe I can mount it where the vacuum actuator was and add a little lever arm to replace the push from the vacuum actuator.
I might need to mount it upside down so that the wires aren’t poking out toward the passenger’s legs.
To see the new actuator work, I wired it up to the test toggle switch and put the “new truck” diverter onto the actuator so you could see it move.
The idea is when the A/C or heat are turned on, power would be set to the actuator to open the vent and allow air into the cab. When it’s turned “off” then the door should close. The thing is, I don’t think the actuators stop pushing. they reach the physical limit of how far they can go, but the little motor in there keeps on choochin’. I may need to add stop-switches to limit how far it goes. I think just some micro-switches would do the trick if they are needed. I may need them regardless as I think the actuators swing too far! The door needs about 3/4″ swing, but the actuator (min 3/4″ arm) swings approximately 80 degress which means that at 3/4″ arm length minimum that’s approximately 1.5″ swing. which is twice what’s needed. Hmmm. Gonnna have to get clever.
If I get it working without the switches, I’ll add them later. They require a modest change to the wiring design.
I also need to find a way to fit the evaporator and fan under the dash, rework some ductwork and make a box for the heater core. Let’s figure some of that out.
If I could, I would use the donor truck evaporator and fan. It’s a pretty big plastic box that goes into the cab under the dash.
Here’s where it has to fit:
Just looking at all this componentry together, it clearly won’t fit under the dash. this is a shot from “above” that includes the donor truck’s A/C bits and the stock truck heat/defrost ducting:
The donor trucks stuff includes the heater core, the A/C evaporator, and the fan all in one bundle. I decided to see how much of it I could cram in there if I just trim off all the extraneous plastic. It passed the first blush with the tape measure so it’s worth trying.
I trimmed all the stand-offs from the back and kept where the high/low lines run through the firewall.
Looks promising… I’m within a few inches of fitting without cutting the firewall. that’s promising enough. So, I cut the firewall for the line relief to go through.
It looks good…until I figure it out’s about 1″ too wide for the dash. Man. So close.
grumble grumble. I had to put it down for a few weeks and ponder.
Here are the dilemmas:
Because of the engine bay space the fan needs to move inside the cab. I can use the donor truck fan (multi-speed and much more flow than the stock original)
I can keep the heater core in the engine bay but I’ll need to craft a box and air diverter
I don’t think I can use the donor truck a/c evaporator. I know I can’t use the condenser.
TBH I would like to have air coming out of the dash (or even under the dash) rather than through the heat/defrost vents. So maybe an a/c kit is worth doing?
Regardless of if I go with a kit or craft my own parts, I’ll need to have someone (not me) who can vacuum the system, make up hoses, and install the dryer and add the cooling stuff. That stuff is nasty and IMO not worth me trying to do on my own. In this case it might be best to get a shop in the discussion and see what they think is my best route.
Yup. Time to ponder. Keep your cool! Go wheelin’ ! This was a good day with good people on Switzerland trail near Nederlands, CO.
Electric light Orchestra (all of it) In the 60s you didn’t even get disco lights. What you got was point-to-point car lighting with glass fuses. blech. Just yuck. In the Gladiator they didn’t put any relays. Just full power into the cab, across the switches, out to the lights/horn/whatever. There was generally a glass fuse, but I can only imagine how hot those wires got on a long night drive. Based on the connector here, I’d say pretty hot!
“Honey, I had a hot night out on the town! My truck burned up.”
So why replace all the wiring. Just use the old harness! (Hmm… hmmmm…)
That there’s where the mice enjoyed the insulation.
Here’s the back of the ignition switch… sweet Jesus.. how did that work safely? Look at all those big gauge (low gauge number) wires all directly wired in there. I may reuse the switch. I’m 100% sure the low amps I send over it won’t blow it up! Maybe I’ll buy a new one of the same switch though.
This is mostly a planning post, but I’ll go through some wiring diagrams. Wiring diagrams are all about the logic and not about the physical layout. To do them justice I’d also need to spec out the wire color and gauge as well as things like really pay close attention to fuse size and placement in the circuits. I did some of that when the spirit moved me but I was a bit lax. We’re talking LED lights. We aren’t talking starters and such. Don’t do that if you make your own wiring harness. Pay attention to the details. Don’t make your wiring into fuses through lack of attention to details and burn your garage down.
Here’s the starting condition of the lights…
The headlights will put out a fine low-power yellow light and draw a bunch of power. There are no backup lights. The tail lights are turn/brake only…and I’m 99% sure they were pretty dim. There are also reflectors… yep, the bottom thing is just a reflector.
Let’s find a better plan.
I’m thinking LEDs. New, bright and low power.
I’m thinking of having backup lights.
I also don’t want it to be a total hack job on the body.
There are 3 things to worry about:
1- The physical lights, variety, size/shape/color/etc.
2- Devices used to make the angry pixies move around
3- The wiring between the devices used to make the angry pixies move around
Let’s talk through each of these with some pictures and diagrams.
1- The physical lights: For the headlights, I catch a break. There are kits to convert “old round 7 inch headlights” to LEDs. This kit should be plug and play. It ain’t cheap but it should “just work” with a standard light socket, etc. I ended up with just buying the bulbs but the kit gives you the idea.
For tail and marker lights… this will take some doing … one needs to find a matching shape/size/something that works. For the tail lights the ’63 had crap. It had no backup lights. I’m removing the non-useful-markers which aren’t even lights. I want backup lights. I’d like to use LEDs due to the reduce power draw and added brightness.
I found these from Grote (55202) that I think will work, but they don’t “just slot in” as the size is ever-so-slightly different. I’ll have to make some modifications to the truck bed as the internal light support needs to be reduced and some tabs welded in flush with the bed. I’ll post separately for this as it’ll include some fab work.
The plastic front marker lights were… “ok”… I don’t think there are better available and I don’t think I can craft better. I will convert the 1157a bulbs over to LED replacements. That completes all the physical components.
2- The devices that make the angry pixies move around:
Switches: This can be a headlight switch, headlight bright switch, turn left signal switch, brake light switch, etc. Anything that makes or interrupts a circuit that allows/denies moving angry pixies around is a switch.
Light circuits: Usually this is “one bulb, one filament / LED” … some exceptions are headlights that have 2 modes: low and high beams. It requires 2 circuits to the same light to get that behavior. Each one you treat slightly different.
Fuses: These keep us from burning things up. How would things burn up? If you sent 15 amps of 12V power down a wire rated for 10 amps of 12V power, you might as well call that wire a fuse. It will bake and fail. It’s one way to get your car to burn up. You might put a 5 amp fuse on that wire. The fuse will (safely) take the hit for the team and fry…and in it’s sacrifice allow the main circuit to stay intact.
Blinker Relay: I used a 3 prong LED relay which gives you that nice blinky look when turning. The LED specific relay is needed because they draw power. They basically act as timed on-off switch when power is applied. The 3rd prong sends a signal when a light is out.
Relays: The magic pixie movers that make it all work together for the good of mankind! I’ll take the discussion of relays on below. It’s too much for just a sentence to cover.
Relays serve several purposes:
Allow us to use small current circuits to drive big power draw circuits without having to run big beefy wires all over the vehicle
They also allow us to use cheap tiny wires to control high electrical flow elsewhere on the vehicle without having to run heavy wire all over. E.g. I don’t have to run 4 gauge wire to my key switch to crank the motor.
They also allow us to do some simple logic like “and” and “or” with relays. Yep, it’s a thing. combining relays allow us to do more complex logic in our circuits.
I’m going to use 5 prong relays as the main kind of relay I have. Mostly because they are cheap, I’m lazy, and they just work for pretty much anything I’m going to want.
There are some good videos out there on how to do basic relay wiring and how they behave. Here is one that pretty much explains how one relay by itself behaves. The key concept is “use tiny wires on long circuits to close switches for beefy power close to the appliance”. Of the 5 prongs, 4 are normally used so it’s not uncommon to see lots of 4 prong relays. The main use is basically documented on the relays:
… and here’s how you wire it.
So basically, 30 has (fused) “always hot” battery power coming in. 87 normally goes to the load. 86 and 87 are normally fatter wires to actually run the application (starter, fan, lights). 85 takes a 12v “signal” from a tiny wire and 86 goes to ground. When you add power to 85 by flicking a switch it will “close” the 30-87 connection. The signal power goes out to the ground coming out of the relay.
The trouble spot in wiring the outside lights are the marker/brake lights that act as markers but change to be blinking lights for turn signals. If they were just “marker lights” it wouldn’t be hard. You just wire them in a “marker light” circuit around the vehicle and you’re done. However, how do I get them to QUIT being a marker light with constant power and start being a turn signal that flashes? The trick is the 3-relay shenanigans in the diagram later which I’ll take a run at explaining/walking through. The key there is pin 87a on the 5 pin relay which is an output lead but behaves opposite of the 87 lead.
87a is HOT (has power) when there is NO power on 85 (well, the power from 30 if there is any goes to 87a). When you add power on 85 then it opens and there is NO power to 87a. This is the key for things like changing the behavior of the marker lights and make them into turn signals. More on this later. For now it’s time to make pictures/diagrams.
For my diagrams (which are pretty crappy) I used a template I had and a pen to make circuits. They are not the right shapes for “normal” wiring diagrams as I didn’t buy a template that had the electrical shapes. I used what I had on hand.
I use this for a switch:
I use this for a relay:
Finally I used this for a “light circuit”:
I use this for a blinker:
I use an s-shaped squiggle for a fuse…although I wasn’t really careful or diligent in my fuse placement. Fuses should be before the relay on the battery side scaled for the load on the circuit. Since all mine are LEDs even if I wired them all together on one circuit I shouldn’t run out of oomph for even 1 circuit on the old truck.
The relays are rated for 30 amps. I think I’m good. The boxes I bought to keep water out of the wiring have 6 relays and 6 fuses per box. Seems convenient :).
So then it’s down to wiring. Headlights are pretty straight forward. The only tricky bit is getting the high beams to only come on when the lights are on as it’s a second switch.
The backup and brake light circuits are pretty simple too. The only extra note here is “hey, there’s gonna be a trailer circuit! Yup. Gonna plumb that right in. Hopefully that won’t bite me in the butt later. I’ll likely use one of the 25′ kits for trailer lights so I’ll have a 4-prong hook-up in the engine bay (or rather a 4-prong un-hook). I could separate them by relays… but that seems like overkill. I will likely fuse those circuits because … trailers… are… horrible.
After that, the world goes sideways.
There are 3 kinds of behaviors for the rest of the outside lights:
1- Marker lights that are always on when the lights are on (easy!)
2- Turn signal circuit that only fires when the turn signal is on… and only on one side (ok, not terrible)
3- Lights that share duty. they are marker lights, but blink when the turn signal is on (wut?)
There is a blinker circuit which drives the turn signal and hazard lights.
Aside: If you’re going to hazard to do this, I highly suggest you either go “all LED” or “all incandescent”. Mixing will make your head spin. Heck, just doing the circuits I’m about to diagram out took about 5 tries to get it to where I think it’ll actually do the right thing. Even now you’ll see I have pencil added in late as I found errors while walking through it.
This is the reason smart humans just buy a wiring harness from painless. But, apparently, I like pain. I might also have the dumb.
The marker light circuit portion at the top is pretty straight forward. The blinker (in pencil) provides a blinking power signal when the circuit is complete and a constant power supply comes in (such as from the battery). These warp in as “blink” on some relay power inputs.
Then there’s the hazard circuit which uses a relay to isolate the left and right side turn circuits when it’s not on, but gives power to both when it’s on. If both turning circuits work then this just fires both off at the same time.
The left/right turn relay to left/right front light circuit (the blinker half of the 1157a bulb which has 2 filaments) is pretty straightforward.
Then there are 2 train wrecks (clusters of 3 relays) to drive the rear left/right markers/turn lights. This is the hardest bit.
Here is a simplification of those 3-relay clusters. There is one of these for the rear left marker/turn-signal circuit and one for the right rear marker/turn-signal circuit.
There are 4 cases to manage here. Let’s walk through them one at a time.
Case 0: Bulb is off, no power is going through the circuit because no switches are closed.
Case 1: Daylight driving, and we’re turning: Let’s walk through the circuit. So, it’s daytime, we’re driving with no headlights. We flip the turn signal. Power goes to both the “marker off relay” as a signal and to the “turn and marker relay” as a signal. Ignoring the “marker off relay” for the moment as it has no bearing on the outcome with the marker lights off (the power input is off). The signal enters into the “Turn and Marker Relay” which closes the circuit between the input power (blinking! because it came from the blinking relay) which then goes into the bulb and out to ground, finishing the circuit and the light starts blinking.
Case 2: It’s night, and we’re not turning the marker switch (headlight switch) is closed, so the power flows into the “marker off relay.” The output from “marker off relay” is hooked up to the infamous 87a connection which means when there is NO power on the signal part (from the turn switch) then the relay is closed and the power flows through to the marker relay, which then closes and the big power goes to the bulb and then ground and finishes the circuit. It does not blink because the battery power going into the “marker relay” is steady not blinky. (Strictly “logic-wise” speaking this relay isn’t needed. However, the signals coming in to this point are all “low power little wires” where the lights could draw some serious power as they may include things like trailer lights which might be incandescent instead of LEDs.
Case 3: It’s night, and we’re turning. This is when the 87a portion of the “marker off relay” comes back into play. Case 2 is in effect and then we flip the turn signal. As in Case 1, power goes to “marker off relay” and to “turn and marker relay”. The turn and marker relay closes the blinking power goes downstream as in the first example… “but what about the other constant power from marker relay?” you ask! The signal going into the marker off relay opens the circuit and cuts the power to the marker relay… thus turning the constant power off! Which means the only power the bulb gets is the blinky power coming out of the turn and marker relay.
If it’s confusing it’s also probably because I didn’t stay consistent about placement of which one is “source power” and which one is “signal”. I penciled it in to help. Usually it’s self evident (+ or blink for power and the upside down Christmas tree for ground on the output side).
For interior I think the circuits will be lots of direct wiring which means it’ll come from a fuse block, the power goes through a switch to the device then to ground. (blower for A/C&Heat, radio, phone charge bank, …) Since all of these are relatively short circuits, the fuse block inside will distribute the power to the many smaller circuits.
This fuse block has little LEDs that light when the fuse blows. Maybe that’s good?
This block has a hot bolt at one end and a ground bolt at the other end. The 12 screws at one end are for connecting to the 12 circuits positive leads out to the switches/devices.
Here’s a short list of interior circuits I might add:
Dome light
Interior lights (do I add door open/close switches? hmmm)
Radio (yes, I like radios)
A/C & Heat blower
Control circuit for A/C
Yeah, here’s the current dome light. Anyone have any great ideas?
I’ll go through the engine control (wiring harness) and dash gauges, etc. another post.
After all the cranial activity it was first time for some physical grinding things. Need to make a mount point for the gauge cluster in the dash.
I needed to trim out part of the back part of where the old speedo was. Basically where the template touched is what I need to leave.
… and after a little clean up … and from the back side…
Yep, after some grinding I’m almost back to earth from all the noodling. My brain needs beer.
I am not even going to try to deal with the 1961 gauges and getting a modern ECM to talk to it.
So, OUT WITH THE OLD! IN WITH THE NEW!
I didn’t want to100% hack the dash up, so let’s go with 2% hack? I’m going with a fully digital gauge cluster.
Intellitronix sells a “build your own” kit. So, I’m building my own. Is it intimidating? You betcha…but I’m gonna give her a whirl. I also picked up their “LS kit” which includes some stuff that should help get all the gauges working.
The cool thing about the kit is that it comes with a abs plasting backing, some smoked polycarbonate for the lense, and the gauges. It’s up to you to cut out the backing and lens and to mount them in the arrangement you like. So, that’s what I did.
First, I want this to fit nice and tight in the dash hopefully without mods…so start with a template!
Oof, not much free space on that template…
That just means I have to be extra extra careful laything these out.
I will lose the setback from the surface. No cure for that.
I cut off a piece of the polycarbonate slightly larger than the hole. so that I’ll have a way to mount it. then I covered the piece in painters tape so I could mark on it and (carefuling) measured and marked where the holes for the gauges go. Then (carefuling more) drilled the holes.
Here’s what it looked like putting on the first gauge.
Keep carefuling…
Almost there…
She’s gonna be tight.
I still have lots to do. Oil pressure and temp sensors as well as hooking up:
Speed signal
Tachometer signal
Fuel level signal
Turn signals
Voltage meter
High beam signal
Park brake signal
Fuel
Idiot light (check engine light)
Power
Ground
There are also some settings / adjustments needed when it’s first powered on. Can’t do that yet!
I’ll also need to figure out/fab the mount to the dash and a way to mount the smoked polycarbonate lens. I’ll do that when I go in and butcher the dash to make it fit.
That’ll happen later. Overall, it was good so far.
As much as I love working the the old ’61 J2000, sometimes you have to fix your broken junk.
Bob needed love. It sounds like a soap opera lead-in. What’s a “Bob”?
It’s been years since I checked the diff fluid. I know it still has some because it keeps leaking slowly out the ends of the axle…
The radiator has been losing a cup of coolant every time it heats up. No steam but it’s 30 yrs old and it’s the old plastic/brass mix. They are notorious about leaking at the seams.
Last time I looked at the oil I think Guiness is a pale ale in comparison.
My steering has gotten whiny and … stiffer. Do people actually change power steering fluid? What about actually putting grease in some of the zerks in the tie rod ends? I think I put some in there after the millennia flipped…maybe.
I’ve changed brakes in the last decade and the brakes seem to work. Mostly on the right side… but they do work.
The last time I had someone work on it … they sent me home with a list of “did you know that xxx is going wrong on your Jeep?” I did know. I wasn’t driving it much and I just needed to “make it through this winter because I’d work on it next year!”
“What’s that noise”… when I started moving after unlocking my manual hubs the last time out on the trail (yes, I know… there is that one that’s cracked but it still works… and yeah, it looks like water got in there last winter… or 2). Yep, last time out I had to get most of the parts (shrapnel really) of the manual hub out of the data 44 hub and put a cap over it to get home….
Fine. It’s time.
Put down the fun toy and prep Bob for Winter. It’s best to do maintenance when the weather is good.
Many months ago I ordered the upgraded Griffin Radiator for Bob. It took a while to come in. By then I was engaged in life for a bit. Let’s do this. Here’s what needs sweeping:
Oil change
PS fluid change
Diff fluid change
Radiator change
Radiator hoses change
Thermostat change (at that point why not?!)
Grease for zerks
Bearings need grease packing
Replacement bearing for the one the manual hub maybe might have possibly dumped some shrapnel into (there didn’t seem to be much shrapnel in the grease… but that’s not ideal)
New manual hubs
So I enlist the help of a friend and we do the thing.
I noticed when I put it together that the radiator was a bit close to the fan. Like 1/8″ apart. Maybe it’s ok? I mean, Griffin does good things! I’ll give it a go and see where we land.
It warmed up fine, ran fine. all seems ok. Whoa this thing really steers!
Drove it to wor….”shing!” … 5 miles down the road on the way to work… fan hits brand new radiator.
I’m thinking “oh man, I got this from Summit Racing like 10 months ago.. crap… crap crap crap”…
So I installed it on Sunday, I rek’d it on Monday. On Thursday I figured I had calmed down enough to call… because it’s not going to be a great call.
On my side of the ledger, I had just ordered $400+ of LED lights and $800+ radiator/fan combo for the truck project…so maybe maybe. On their side there have been many many Griffin of these upgraded radiators that didn’t get rek’d.
I spoke to … let’s call him “Brother”… because brother, I was happy it worked out!
Brother tells me after 1/2 hour he has been on the phone with Griffin and “they’ve never had an issue with this radiator ever before”. That’s hard to believe but I believe it. This is the 3rd one I’ve installed. This is the upgraded YJ one, it’s thicker than stock.
They stand behind it. They warrant the radiator. I get the stock replacement instead of a direct 1:1 replacement and they agree to refund the difference…and send me a shipping label for shipping the old core back. Boy howdy. I did NOT expect that level of service. Thank you Summit. Thank you Brother. Thank you Griffin.
The following Thursday the replacement shows up on my porch. Wow.
All better.
Bob is ready for the winter. All I’m really out is a bit of coolant… most of it on the road while driving home. Derp.
Don’t forget to recycle fluids.
Maybe I should check the other side’s manual hub. Pssshhht … it’s fine.
Trying to fit some semblance of heating and cooling into the ’63 J200 is going to be… a challenge. One might say “special”. The good news is that it won’t involve a bunch of rust. Probably. Maybe. Potentially.
I think there is a reason folks settle for heat and go on with life. I’m feelin’ spunky still, so I’m going to take some of it on. There are some kits which one can buy to retrofit A/C into modified cars but they are pricy and honestly they seem pretty clunky to fit in there.
Here’s what I know:
The original truck’s ducting was a mix of manual levers and vacuum system doors. I can definitely keep some manual cable ducting where it’s useful. I can even add one! (there’s no choke on the donor motor.)
The donor truck doesn’t really have a vacuum system built in. Maybe I can craft that? Do I really want to tinker with it’s intake?
The donor truck used electric actuators for the doors in the venting. Can I use those?
The original trucks heater core box was outside of the cab. I thought that was quite interesting and I’ll keep that in place. If it leaks, it won’t be in the truck! I’ll know it because of the smell, but it won’t ruin the interior.
The original truck had an aftermarket horrible a/c system in place, but with the new motor for sure the modern compressor is better and it’s matched with a different condenser, cooler, and hoses. I’d like to keep the modern truck A/C. I say the “new one is better” but it’s broken, so a replacement will also be required.
The original truck heater core box won’t fit in the original position. It needs to shift over a few inches. On the inside, that may give me room to put the A/C heat exchanger in!
There are no head-level-ducts in the truck. Just defrosters and floor… ha! Looks like A/C will be freezing the windshield or the floor.
There are outside-air-vents (which I always think is neat in old trucks) and I plan to keep them.
I plan to use one of the 3 squirrel cage fans (I have one from the donor, one from my buggy’s donor, and one original on this truck) for both heat and A/C. I think it may be digital controls in the new truck one. I’ll have to perform some experiments.
The fan was in the engine bay originally. I will likely keep that configuration if I can just for space reasons.
So let’s break this down into a few steps that I can wrap my head around:
Basic Heat Exchanger
Heat system
A/C system.
In separate posts I’ll put the physical systems as well as the control systems. Here will be concepts.
Basic Heat Exchanger The first thing to know is the fundamentals of how heat exchange works. Regardless of vehicle, if it’s got an internal combustion engine heat is pulled off the engine using the engine coolant system. Air flows through a heat exchanger to to warm the air. Below tries to demonstrate. Cold air comes in from the left and flows over the heat exchanger and flows away hot. What is the heat exchanger? it’s a snaked aluminum (or old school was copper/lead) pipe with aluminum (or historically tin) fins which dispersed the heat from the piping and the heat exchanges using convection into the air surrounding air. The higher the fin/pipe surface area, the higher the exchange of heat into the air.
The hot fluid circulates as the engine runs, the air moves as the fan blows. To “turn off the heat” the air is diverted around the exchanger. If it’s on “vent” then the air doesn’t flow over the heat exchanger.
The amount of air is usually controlled by the fan speed. The heat/cold slider usually controls how much of the air goes over the heat exchanger (or heater core). The heater core doesn’t get hotter or colder on the slider… it just diverts more or less air across the heater core. “Heat exchanger” is a general term for this kind of temperature exchange. In automotive terms they call this a “heater core” for historical reasons.
Because of the laws of thermodynamics heat is relatively happy to bleed out of the engine coolant. Air conditioning (cooling) is more complicated. I’ll go over them in more detail, but the basics of heat exchangers are needed for all of it.
Heat System
For the heat system you need a source for heat (the motor’s coolant system), a diverter or two, a fan, and the ductwork to deliver it. That’s pretty much it. Let’s walk through it.
1- There is an air intake to pull in cold (external) air.
2- There is usually a filter to take out the big pieces. It might just be a bit of permeable foam.
3- There is a blower motor which pulls air into the ductwork. (a “squirrel cage” fan is common)
4- There is something like a cable driven diverter which either directs air into the heat exchanger or directly into the cab.
5- There is a heat exchanger (heater core) which heats the air that flows over it.
6- There are some hoses to and from the engine to bring hot engine coolant through the heater core
7- There is a block for when the system is “off” which closes off all the intake or allows it through.
8- (not really shown but is indicated in the diagram is where the A/C’s heat exchanger will go.
9- The diverter which directs the air either to the defroster or to the floor
10- duct work to the respective places (either the defrost or the floor)
That’s it! So depending on the slider position in the vehicle for temperature either more or less air flows across the heater core which determines how hot the air coming in gets.
for A/C it’s a bit more complicated as nothing like to take heat away! One characteristic which you have to understand to understand A/C are 1- As a liquid evaporates into a gas it absorbs heat (so feels cool to the touch), 2- when you compress certain gases they liquify which produces raises it’s temperature.
The basic behavior of an A/C system is to compress some specific gasses (we can use freon as an example) such that it becomes a high pressure liquid which is hot. Heat is removed from the high pressure fluid with the condenser (which is a heat exchanger). When the freon is evaporated into low pressure gas, it gets cold (and sucks in heat from it’s surroundings). This cold freon liquid is cycled through an evaporator (which is also a heat exchanger) and air is flowed across it (which cools the air!)
The freon is then sent back to the compressor to be compressed back into a liquid… which makes it hot… and the cycle continues. There are some other parts for any modern A/C and we don’t actually use Freon any more.
Here is a depiction of a typical-ish A/C system.
1- high pressure liquid freon which is hot
2- The condenser cools the liquid freon
3- High pressure warm freon comes out of the condenser
4- This goes through the dryer (which is needed to keep water out of the system. Not mentioned before as this is more the physical reality rather than the theoretical setup.)
5-There is a metering device which drops the pressure on the freon. this makes it very cool
6- Low pressure (cold) freon goes into the evaporator.
7- The evaporator (heat exchanger) flows warm air across the evaporator which evaporates the cold freon into low pressure cool freon.
8- Warm air flows across the evaporator
9- Cold air flows out of the evaporator as it gave it’s heat to the freon.
10- low pressure freon gas returns to the compressor.
The only part of the system in cab of the vehicle is the evaporator and the ductwork.
Airflow path
Let’s follow the air flow through the truck.
Here is where air from the outside will enter the truck. This is just in front of the windshield. (There is a not-shown cover that goes over this)
The air is sucked back into the engine bay at the top of the firewall. (modern vehicles do this slightly differently)
This squirrel cage fan (with motor) sucks the air through that gap in the firewall and into the system.
The air comes out of the blower here:
I’m missing a piece of duct work, but basically the gap I’m pointing to bypasses the heater core, the other side goes through the heater core. there is an air flow diverter (cable driven) which divides the air between these two paths. The picture below shows the two outlets.
Between these two pieces of duct work is the firewall. Also, the lever on the top has a diverter which moves a flap which can cut off all the flow into the cab if the heat is off. I’m pointing at the direction of flow. The heater core we saw above is blow my wrist)
Next is where the A/C evaporator would go if this truck had one. It will have one, but not yet!
finally, this duct has a diverter which goes either to the floor or the defroster. (This is upside down!)
Here I have the diverter set to go mostly to the defroster.
…and here it goes to the floor.
As complicated as this seems, this is the easy part! I’ll get into the controls and more about the physical systems as I build it up. Here are some topics I know are ahead of me:
Figuring out the multi-speed fan settings (more than just on/off would be super nice). The old fan motor is tired and slow. Let’s try to use the donor truck motor.
Building all the mounting and such for the components
Building up some duct work which isn’t there currently
Since I have to relocate the firewall breach, there will be some challenges
Since it didn’t have (meaningful) A/C before, there will be some challenges
Since I want to convert over from vacuum based diverters to electric actuators there will be challenges.
I think this is where your intrepid hero is going to take a break from the A/C & Heat. I’ve found that I can very likely use these from the donor truck:
Heater core
Accumulator
evaporator
compressor
there should be some sort of control that goes from low to high pressure side. This system had electronic versions. Probably that’s not gonna work.
Fan system (I got the 4-speed fan back to 4 speeds with the control)
In-cab ducting from the old truck (mostly!).
I think I can mostly use the evaporator enclosure from the donor.
I’ll need to fab:
Housing for heater core and diverter out in the engine bay.
Some small bits of duct work inside
I need to find a partner to help me:
I need to buy an evaporator that will cooperate with the (not yet here) radiator
I need to have all the hoses fabricated
I need a control system I can work with
I need the low-side-to-high-side control worked out (I’m not smart enough)
In the meantime. I’ve learned a lot and need to wait for some other things to get fitted in.
I have not given up! I’m just kicking the can down the road a bit.
As a teaser, here’s a few pics of what I figured out:
Here’s where I tested and replaced the relay for the donor truck fan. Now I have a multi-speed fan. It was easier to replace than expected.
And here is the hole cut for the high/low lines to come through the firewall into the engine bay:
I’m nearly done fixing the cab floor on the passenger side. It had some rust-cancer behind where the seat will go. It always seems like as soon as you touch it the holes get huge. Here is the first pass of welding smaller holes and patching bigger ones. The rot (on the far se by the body mount needs more attention.
Below you can see the body mount rot a bit better.
I tend to fix the smaller stuff first to help stabilize before I cut out the bigger problems:
After cleaning, cutting, and priming what was left I welded this in as a floorpan replacement piece…
Then started forming a piece to replace the back wall of the support piece.
Slowly coped and bent it to fit.
Finally, weld, grind, and paint!
This will all be under the carpet… so functional is more important than pretty. This pretty much finishes the repair. There are a few places which will need to breach the firewall, and a few other patches but that’s most of it!
wrenchingseason 