47-55.1 '50 3600 re-do. Shortening things up!

[dsraven]

how much standoff have you got there?

[mobileortho]

Originally Posted by dsraven

how much standoff have you got there?

A little more than an inch.

[mobileortho]

Finally got back to finishing up the exhaust. These headers are a far cry from the other set I tried. The tuck up nice & tight, can’t wait to wire it up to see how it sounds. Also decided to change tanks, still a 64-68 mustang, but this one is baffled.

[mobileortho]

Been dreading rewiring this thing but I'm slowly figuring how to make the Fitech and Dakota digital gauges work (hopefully). Also upgraded the wiper system with a Raingear setup and ran into snag with my stereo. The wiper motor does not install in the original location and doesn't leave quite enough room for the stereo. Looks like I'm going to have to cut the grill to move it forward a bit.

[nvrdone]

I also have a Raingear motor to install. When you say "cut the grill to move it forward a bit" can you clarify what you mean? Cut the speaker grill or the grill on the vent? Move it " forward" - toward the front of the truck or toward the interior? Thanks for the clarification.

[mobileortho]

I need to cut the speaker grill to move the unit towards the interior. It was hidden behind the grill but with the wiper motor sitting directly behind the stereo there’s no room. I see that LSFab has a nice billet double din dash that would work but it ain’t cheap.

[mobileortho]

Came soooo close to firing it up this weekend. I got to a point in the wiring to at least attempt to start it in the truck but a last minute change put a halt to that. I got the starter wired up but with it being a little close to the headers, I opted to go with a remote solenoid on the firewall. I got down to connecting the very las wire (the "S") and over torqued the dang thing and cracked the housing! At that point I just stopped out of frustration. I'll pick up another solenoid & try it again.

[8man]

Keep the faith! When it fires all the other stuff will go away.

[mobileortho]

Originally Posted by 8man

Keep the faith! When it fires all the other stuff will go away.

Yeah, I know. Just had to vent. I've picked up another one & will try again 1st chance I get.

[dsraven]

been there, done that, know the frustration level you went through. grrrr.
sometimes it can be agood thing though, it gives you time to thin about anything you might have missed. solenoids are relatively cheap and it was likely stress cracked or something.
keep plugging away and you will be surprised how quickly you can get stuff done. one job at a time is sometimes best. a check sheet of things to do per job works pretty well for some guys.
post up some pics so we can see your progress.

[mobileortho]

Finally got it to fire up! (excuse the mess underneath) Not sure what that squealing is yet. Think I have a bad IAC sensor too, it won’t restart after shutting it off unless I unplug it, then plug it back up. Happy Fathers Day to me!

[8man]

Congratulations! Happy Father's Day.

[dsraven]

Happy Fathers day everybody
Whistle is likely a vacuum leak. Look for a hose connection without a hose or an open vac line.

[mobileortho]

Originally Posted by dsraven

Happy Fathers day everybody
Whistle is likely a vacuum leak. Look for a hose connection without a hose or an open vac line.

Turns out it was the oil catch can filter. It was also the cause of the IAC codes. It came with a plug so I took it off, problems solved.

[mobileortho]

Got the parking brake actuator mocked up. Now gotta find a place to hide the switch so it can double as a theft deterrent.

[mobileortho]

The parking brake fully installed.

[mobileortho]

Test fitting the headliner & rear cab cover. The template supplied by the vendor is not to scale so I kinda buggered it up, but I figure I can address that when I have it covered. Went ahead and ordered an extra set of the deco inserts and modified the rear cover to match the doors & headliner.

[mobileortho]

Man I HATE wiring!

[mobileortho]

Not much progress, currently in diagnostic mode stymied by the rear wiring. For some reason the fuel pump activates when applying the brakes & the tail light leads are hot but wont blink. I am running LED's front & rear and I switched to an LED flasher but it didn't help at all. When time permits. I'm going to have to trace it down.

[dsraven]

I usually find when you get weird outcomes like that it turns out to be a bad ground somewhere. start at the battery negative and run through all the ground connections for each part. each electrical part needs to have a dedicated ground to nice shiny bare metal frame ground. don't rely on body parts to supply a good ground. I find that when one circuit does something weird in another circuit it is because the ground isn't found in one of those circuits so it is finding a ground by running through another electrical componet and using that component for a ground. I usually ground all the lights out back to the actual truck frame, the lights out front to the actual frame and then the stuff in the middle thats not in the cab-also directly to the frame. the cab gets a seperate large ground wire from the engine or the frame to the main structural part of the cab. then the stuff iside the cab gets grounded to the main structural part of the cab as well. bare shiny metal, star washers and anticorrsion on the ground connections.

[dsraven]

it seems that the trouble is out back.try disconnecting the lights out back and then see if the fuel pump is still turning on with the brakes. while the lights are disconnected try your test light on the wires and see if the signals suddenly work. sometimes the problem is inside the light so simply disconnecting one light at a time and testing after each disconnect can reveal where the problem is coming from.

[dsraven]

is the fuel pump ground shared with the tail lights?

[mobileortho]

AAAAAHHH!!! You may be onto something! I need to check the EFI to see if it has its own dedicated ground. It's on a completely different circuit but I may have spliced the grounds that feed that system. The pump itself shares a ground with the sending unit. I'll separate those as well.

[dsraven]

Yup. A ground is as important as the power feed. It's like building a freeway going west but only a dirt road going east.

[mobileortho]

All grounds were good. Turned out to be a bad connection on the steering column. It’s a Flaming River unit, but the plug didn’t seat properly with the plug from the wiring harness. Ended up splicing the wires together individually and that solved most of the problems except for the emergency flashers. I’ll work on those when I find some time.