47-55.1 1953 3100 "Honey-do"

[dsraven]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

Originally Posted by dsraven

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.

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

[dsraven]

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

[rnrdthefox]

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

[dsraven]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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!

[joedoh]

fancy!

[8man]

That's a lot of work!

[dsraven]

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

[Rickysnickers]

Nice work you are doing!

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[rnrdthefox]

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.

[Rickysnickers]

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

[Tempest67]

Originally Posted by rnrdthefox

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.

Amazing work, and knowledge. looks very impressive

these pics are why I prefer Carburetors and Distributors

Thanks for posting

[loudchevy]

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

[youngrodder]

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

[dsraven]

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

[rnrdthefox]

Originally Posted by Rickysnickers

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

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