[Second Series]

I haven’t put in much time now that it is cold and wet. I purchased the hose fitting for the heater hose, 7’ of heater hose, and a valve. I installed the fitting and started routing the hose. That required putting in the old fresh air heater. The original valve started leaking years ago and I had replaced it with a valve with a thumb screw, that was always hard to operate. I got a new valve for cable operation that I will figure out how to use. I’m not sure if it will be with the original control knob and some custom linkage, or something else. I never did like how I had to reach over to the passenger side to operate it, so I might locate it closer to the driver side. Once I get the fluids topped up, it’s on to wiring so I can fire it up. I have been poring over the wiring diagrams for the ’88. I removed the harness from under dash from the donor cab and started ohming out connectors. I’ll modify it some. The ’88 harness has a bulkhead connector on the driver side that goes to a convenience center, a fuse panel, the gage cluster, and some connectors in the dash, it also goes over to the passenger side to connect to wires from another bulkhead passthrough, wiring for the ECM. I’d like to eliminate the bulkhead connector, and reduce the size of the bulkhead passthrough.
It wasn’t raining and I had some time, so I opened up the bulkhead passthrough. It had a chunk of glue inside. I was able to shatter it with pliers. I stuffed the end through the heater valve hole. It’s a tight fit with the split loom tubing protecting the wires from the sheet metal, I might add a grommet.
The bulkhead connector on the driver side is a nasty mess. I will eliminate it. Still going over the schematics. I had colorized one set of wiring diagrams awhile ago, but they had the wrong connectors. I found the correct wiring diagram and have just finished adding color to the wires. Now I’ll use that to go through the harness to determine what gets cut, and how to connect the DRAC, and how to use the original gauges.