Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

yeah, I'm looking forward to reducing the factory harness on my frame swap. no rear doors, no power midgate, no power sliding roof section, no power rear hatch door, and on and on. gonna be fun....ok, well not THAT much fun. haha
keep pn posting stuff, it's cool to see how you go about stuff.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks. What year and donor are you using? I might have some wiring diagrams you can use if you don't have them already.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I'm using an 04 GMC Envoy XUV. 4.2L inline 6, auto O/D with 4x4. 3.73 axle ratio.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Sorry I don't have that. I think paying $100 or so is worth it to have a complete wiring diagram in a searchable PDF for what you are about to do. I was lucky and found a 2008, 2010 and 2013 complete wiring diagrams for the CK series Truck and Cadillac SUV platform. In the early production years, the wiring diagrams are missing a few things and then they mature with the subsequent years. Nice thing about paying for the service at places like Alldata or Automotive they should be up to date.

thanks
Renard

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

one of the parts stores here has all data and can print off circuit diagrams. I have also thought of buying the all data program when I getthat far along to need it.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

A quick update so I don't fall too far behind on progress.

Still working on the inside of the cab. Need to get the radio mounted. I was going to put a double din radio in the transition from the console to the dash and have the HVAC controls in the location of the stock unit. This was also assuming that the door locks and window controls were mounted on the doors. But, a while back I decided to move the controls to the center console and mount the radio in the stock location.

I wanted something that fit the curvature of the dash and the size of a single din opening. I decided to use a wooden buck to form the profile I wanted and didn't look too out of place. Welded it to the dash after some fitting and cut the opening.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Finished putting in the lower air dam and drilled the holes for the transmission cooler. Put the new grill on briefly to show the boss that there is still a bright spot down the road despite the fact that I'm talking too much time. :)

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Finished body working the dash and started looking at the underside of the dash for the vents and the cover for the steering column. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I'm going to use the under-dash vents from vintage air.

I cut the vent housing into two parts. The second part that would normally be for the center of the dash will be relocated to the driver's side. I will body work these to fit the dash a bit better and close of the ends and the holes that I don't need. Eventually, they will be painted to match the dash.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I've been kicking the steering column cover down the road for a bit because I don't have a lot of experience metal forming from scratch. It takes me a while to get going. Finally got some ideas after playing around with some cardboard. I wanted it to only be low enough to hide things and remove the possibility of hitting it with your knee. Here is what I came up with.

The "ring" of metal or lip at the transition point of the dash will be used to attach a black leather boot to allow the column to tilt up and down. The cover over the column will be covered with the same material. Right now, the two screws are there until I confirm with the upholsterer that my plan will work ok. Then I will cut the two parts and weld them together and then to the column.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Jumped around on a few small items to take them off the list.

I wanted to add an additional vent to the fuel tank since the tank came with a 3/8 fitting for a return system. I need to make a 3/8 to 5/8 attachment and ended up silver soldering the two together. I was pleased with this as I haven't done that before. Hopefully, this will eliminate the slow fueling issues with some tanks as they get full. The fuel system is now complete.

Also, I painted the brake pedal and steering column while they were out. This weekend I plan to bodywork the door jambs and the beltline of the cab. The cowl area I'm still waiting on the HVAC bulkhead fitting and to figure out where the electrical harness will come into the cab.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Since I'm moving the window controls, door lock controls, HVAC controller, and the heated seat modules to the center console, I need a way to attach them to the bottom of the transition in a way that is both secure and they can be removed. The master door lock and window control for the driver was the easiest and just needed metal offsets to get the height and then weld them to the bottom of the transition plate.

The only thing I could think of for the others was to duplicate the plastic mounting scheme in metal. All of this starts out in pieces that are hand filed to fit and then welded together to make an assembly for each controller. This is tedious work and I do it off and on when I have the time and energy. I still have one more holder to make for the passenger side heated seat controller. Once I have that done, I will use the template that I'm working from now and use it to mark the holes in the console transition plate. I don't want to have to fab that again too!

That's all for now. Thanks for looking!

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

fancy!

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

That's a lot of work!

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

nice work and thinking outside the box. it takes time to do a quality build.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Nice work you are doing!

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Well.... it's been a while since I've last posted. About a year and a half ago to be more specific. As they say, life gets in the way sometimes. Long story short, we bought a place in MT unexpectedly. It was a long and complicated process that didn't close until the spring of this year, and we have been back and forth a lot between there and CO. So, it's been a distraction to say the least and will continue to be one for a while.

But I want to try to get refocused and start making progress again.

Here are few pics from July of '23 where I left things. I had just finished the floor, and seam sealed it and started working on the door gaps. I then realized I have a little bit of rubbing on the outer cowl and driver door edge when it opens, so I stopped the body work until I can address it. I think I know what the issue is. The door was caught in the wind at some point and folded back into the cowl. When this happened, the door edge bent inward. That was the last time I worked on the project.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

While the weather is cold, I'm diverting my attention to the electrical phase of things.

I made some decision like where to put the under-hood fuse and relay block. There simply isn't a lot of room under the hood without making a lot of modifications and it would still look ugly. I decided to mount the box in the cab. The benefit being a much nicer and cleaner engine compartment. To do this, I first needed to remove the firewall gromet from the interior harness and move it to the ECM harness. Which meant I had to un-pin and re-pin EVERY connection from both harnesses. In total, this took about 17 hrs.

I have a wiring diagram to check off each pin as I de-pin and re-pin it around the gromet. This process was repeated for the ECU harness. Here are some pictures of the process. Note the aluminum 3/8 pipe to get the wires through as things became tight.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

This process, although tedious, will give me a nicer product in the end. I built a mounting shelf for the box and the ECU to mount to. While I was at it, I put a battery in the stock location. I was able to use the Escalade power cable from the battery to the starter and to the fuse block in the cab. I will need to have an extended cable from the alternator to the mega-fuse mounted in the battery area.

Because I'm going to have a center console, this plan of attack will work, I think. Everything at this point is in mockup. Once I get the electrical laid our and verified, I will tidy things up and put the protective loom on everything. It is going to be extremely tight in the cab when everything is said and done. The way the box is mounted, I will have a straight shot with the chassis harness to the rear of the truck for lights, fuel pump, sending unit, and misc. sensors. The main power cable will have a clean entry to the box as well since the battery is so close. I don't like the fact I'm running a 4 AWG cable through the floor as there is always that chance it eventually gets chaffed. But I think I can mitigate that concern. I will likely have to re-wire the front harness for the lighting, electrical fans, horn, etc. as the original harness it too short based on the box location and the connectors for the fans parking lights, and headlights, won't work anyway.

The real Challege is getting the in-cab harness stuffed into the cab. :waah:

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Here are some pictures of the in-cab harness as it sits today. This is after removing everything that I knew I wouldn't transplant like onstar, yaw sensor, air bags, all the front and rear entertainment, HVAC head unit, and a number of other controllers that I don't recall.

I still have to remove the wiring for two doors. I plan to move the passenger window and door lock controller to the center console for the driver door, and move the passenger second door to the console to use as the window controller for the passenger door. So, for now I've left all door controls, instrument panel connector and some HVAC connections for debug, and some extra accessory and battery connections for the Vintage air, stereo, amps, usb charger, etc. All said, probably 15% more wiring to remove.

But it's still a lot of stuff with those two in-cab junction blocks. They have fuses in them so it's hard to remove them.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to get this harness in the truck and laid out in it's general location and fired back up and tested to verify I haven't screwed things up at this point. All the de-pinning and re-pinning has the potential for error. It was working perfectly on my pool table before that process.

That's all for now. Thanks for looking. :)

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Nice update and your pinning/tidying job looks great!!!

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Amazing work, and knowledge. looks very impressive

these pics are why I prefer Carburetors and Distributors

Thanks for posting

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Awesome build, I enjoyed reading the entire thread! Sub'd to follow along with the rest of the progress.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

A lot of good looking work taking place over there. Its funny how when you start you think there is all sorts of places to hide the wiring and ECU's but the space disappears rather quickly.

Marc

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

have you thought about a remote boost point for the battery? sometimes getting to the battery can be a challenge unless you have really long booster cables. I used some like this under the hood

https://www.yogisinc.com/YFP-5Y

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks. It's a tedious job. Hopefully I didn't make a mistake. Will know in a few weeks. :)

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thanks for your complement. A normal LS swap isn't that complicated. I'm just a glutton for punishment by trying to bring the rest of the harness along for additional features. This creates a lot more work and complications.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Thank you for sharing! It's been slow going lately, but I hope to get things going again.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I know it's going to be tight. The center console should help. I don't think I could pull this off w/o that. We will see. Thanks for your comments.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I was thinking of this last week. I need to figure something out. I appreciate the link. I will take a look at them. Do you have a picture somewhere of where/how you mounted it?

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Slow weekend trying to get my head around the main cabin harness. I started by hooking it into the main fuss/relay box under the center console. The challenge outside of the bulk of wiring, was to hide three components - the mid junction box, the cabin remote fuse box, and the body control module (BCM) under the dash and with close enough proximity to not have to cut and extend a bunch of wires. Here are some pictures of the starting point.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

For the mid junction box, I need to fab a mounting bracket to attach to the center console under the HVAC unit. I don't have the final picture of the bracket. I basically made to identical sides shown below then welded on a bottom and a wire brace in the back to keep it from being flimsy. I will be able to mount the box to the center console and then connect and remove the various sub-harnesses. The bottom pins slide in and down, then the top snaps into the square holes. To remove, you push the release tabs then pull out and up. Here are some pics.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I still have to make a similar bracket for the remote fuse block and BCM module. The BCM will mount on the factory steering wheel brace between the cowl and dash. I don't have a picture of that yet as it's just zip tied and the moment. The mini fuse block will go to the left of the steering column.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I still have a sub-harness that will run down the center console that is for the seats and the passenger door controls. I also need to put the steering harness on the column. It's small. Those are pictured below.

I also have a small harness that runs from the junction block in the console to the rearview mirror for the compass and outside temp readings. No picture of that yet. I will run it up inside the passenger A-pillar.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Last post until the Christmas break.

Here are a few pics to see a cabin view of how things are progressing. I hope to have things hooked up and tested over the holiday break. If I can do that, I will start the process of cutting and extending the window and door lock controls since I will have those mounted in the console.

Thanks for looking.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

By disconnecting some components of the original harness, will that cause problems with the canbus monitoring?

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Not that I've been able to tell so far. Earlier last year, when I removed the airbags, stability control, ABS, and a number of other items, I hooked it all back up on my pool table and everything seemed to work. The instrument cluster complained about the ABS and Airbags, but everything else left was working. I pulled codes and nothing out of the norm (for my situation) showed up. Granted, I wasn't able to fire it up, but I don't think it will affect the ECM. The cluster is looking for them, put I don't think it has the ability to disable anything. There are many cars on the road today with issues around airbags, ABS, etc and they run just fine.

When I get to the tuning with the HP Tuner, I will see if it has capability to suppress canbus codes. I don't think it can, but I'm not familar with it yet. As long has the bus codes don't hobble anything or turn the CEL on, I will be happy.

I did take the time to find the termination plug at the end of the bus and placed it at the last in line after the Fuel control module to correctly terminate the bus. In my system, I removed the integrated trailer brack controller (ITBC) so I had to move it up on the chassis harness.

The picture below shows the HS canbus network (middle one). The complete harness now goes from ECM, TCM, BCM, MBEC (the big thing under the console), FSCM (fuel pump module) and Termination. Everything else that I'm transplanting is on the low-speed network. One other note - from what I understand, you only need to have the ECM, TCM and BCM for cruise control to function properly on a Gen IV swap. Since I was going that far, I kept the MBEC and FSCM since the MBEC has all of the relays and fuses.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Ok. Made some progress over the holidays. Not as much as I would like, but progress none the less.

I started with rear taillights from this thread. https://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vbo...d.php?t=839810

They are a little bigger than I would like but a nice compromise between a vintage look and having an integrated backup lamp. The picture is of a lens w/o the backup light. I have both options but will switch to the one with the clear center for back up.

As stated in the thread, the lens is a close fit but not perfect. It wants to move around in the bucket w/o a modification. I ended up using the ring and slicing it to create a base for the lens to sit on and help center it. This got things very close and I used some foam tape to take up the rest of the play. Here are some pics.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

I then started to finish mounting the electrical modules and components.

I started with the left-hand mini fuse/junction box under the driver side dash. I fabricated a simple bracket that would hold it securely and have access to the fuses and would keep it tucked up out of sight. I welded some tabs at the top and side to mount it to the brake bracket. It allows me to access the connector on the back and the fuses.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Next, I needed to finish the mid junction box that attached to the center console. Several of the sub-harnesses connect to this box so it made sense to put it in this location.

Re: 1953 3100 "Honey-do"
 

Playing more of the hide-the-electronics game.....

Next, I need to mount the body control module (BCM). I didn't have much flexibility to move it around due to all the connections being located around the steering wheel. I made a simple clamping mount to attach it to the dash to cowl main bracket. Added a 1/8" backet for mounting and moving it just under the bottom edge for ease of wiring connections.