Not much to say here but that I finally put in a radio antenna. Bit of trouble threading the wire through the engine bulkhead, I piggybacked on another wire but it was tight. Now I’ve got radio reception, just in time for the big trip.
It is a Porsche part made by Hirchmann: 921-060-004-M50.
I’ve used Fluidfilm NAS on a bunch of stuff in the past year. Mostly it does what is claimed, sprays on easily with the supplied “professional” gun, it stays wet but sticks and protects metal from corrosion. Areas that don’t get access to dirt like the inside of the pillars stay oily feeling. Areas under the truck get a coating of dust so it feels dry but if you scratch it with your fingernail you can tell there’s gunk under there protecting the metal.
Fluidfilm AR on spare tire holder. Stuff is pretty solid, like frozen snot.
One area that isn’t getting protection though is the wheel wells and the center rear of the underside. I sprayed it on quite heavy but after a few drives in the rain there is nothing left. I’m mostly concerned with the seams there around the edge so looking for something thicker.
Enter Fluidfilm AR. The fluidfilm website says NAS is recommended for undercoating, the AR is… not. Maybe too difficult to apply? The site is strangely silent on AR and so is the internet. I bought a gallon to see how it would do, so can share.
First note that AR is much, much thicker than NAS. At room temperature NAS is like Yoplait yoghurt, you can scoop some out with a spoon and if you hold the spoon upside down it will glop off. The NAS will spray fine thought the fluidfilm gun. The AR is like frozen ice cream. You can take a scoop of it but it takes some work to force the spoon in. Hold a heaping spoonful upside down and the AR won’t glop off.
I found a video on the internet, in german, about how to apply AR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egK4XyDPpdc
The guy heats it up in a crock pot, then sprays it. Seems doable.
My first attempt to apply it I put the bucket of AR into a big pot of water on the stove, I figured a double boiler would do the trick. I had it on the stove, water boiling, for most of the day, it became soft but the fluidfilm didn’t become liquid. Using a funnel I did manage to pour some into the 1 quart spray bottles but the stuff is too thick and clogged the cold gun. I used a stick to clean it out and was able to get the 200F stuff to feed into the spray gun, but clearly it was too thick and was firing large drops, making a mess.
I tried putting the bottle into the microwave but I guess its transparent to microwaves because it didn’t heat up. Bummer. I live at sea level so failure of double boiler means Fluidfilm AR is not sufficiently liquid at 212F (100C).
Next attempt I put a scoop into a coffee mug and left it in the oven at 250F. After 3 hours it was slightly sizzling, I removed with an oven mit and it was a very light liquid, fully flowing, like turkey grease. I went down to the garage and painted it onto some hardware using a 1″ bristle brush. Initially the liquid was so thin that it ran off the bristles, dripped off whatever I painted it on. After 15 minutes it was becoming significantly thicker, like syrup, I poured it back into the bucket.
After the area I painted was all cooled down the AR makes a wonderful thick coating, much thicker than NAS. I think perfect for the spare tire holder and mechanism. Only thing with this stuff is that its very thick when cold so not good for inside doors or anywhere else that needs to drain. A glop of this would plug up a drain hole. I bet I could clog a toilet with it. So… just for surface use, M-Kay?
Conclusion:Fluidfilm AR requires a temp of above 240F to be easily sprayable.
I put my quart nylon spray bottle full of fluidfilm AR into the oven at 250F, left it for 2 hours. It became fully liquid. Given the larger quantity I was able to spray all four wheelwells and the underside before it cooled. Used about 1/2 a bottle for that. Need to be careful because that stuff is hot! Wear gloves, wear a mask.
Driving on the freeway in the last 2 weeks of heavy seattle rain (40F-50F) the stuff hasn’t budged. If you wipe your finger in the wheelwells you’ll get back a fingertip of cold greasy gunk. Note I said finger not fingernail, its caked on there. Looks like it is holding up very well all the way around.
Given how thick it was at 100C I suspect it will laugh at hot summer rain. I’ll see I guess.
I’ve had the spare tire holder sitting in my garage since I got the truck, just sitting in a corner gathering cob-webs with all the other spare bits I’d obtained from the previous owner. No idea where it goes, how to install. Why didn’t he install it?
Once when I had some POR15 left over I painted the rusty thing with it a glossy black, why not. Just was careful not to get it into the winder mechanism.
POR15 on the spare tire holder in Feb 2013.
When I was at TorFab I hit up Tor for the install Beta and he gave me the bad news: Normally the rear frame of the truck is an open “C”, the C facing inside. My frame is custom and the “C” has been closed with a welded plate. The spare tire holder bolts to the frame, to the bottom side of the top of the “C”. Since I don’t have a “C” anymore I’ll need to find an alternative.
Now I’m preparing for the big trip I do want a spare tire but don’t want to take up a bunch of space with it, I need to get that spare tire holder installed.
Come up with a plan, I’ll bolt it on with hefty bolts!
First, cut off the ends so the span fits between the frame rails.
Angle grinder made short work of this.
Really amazing how quickly a cutting disk can do this. Metal? Sheesh!
Then bolt some angle iron onto the frame, bolt the tire holder to that?
Go to the Home Despot, buy 3/8″ angle iron, buy stainless bolts, washers and nuts.
Cut angle iron and then paint it all with VHT epoxy paint.
3/8″ steel angle cut to size with the super tool!
Stuff waiting to dry in the sun.
Angle grinder can cut these in about 15 seconds.
The whole ensemble after painting with VHT epoxy.
3/8″ stainless bolts, washers and nuts.
Next evening the paint is pretty dry, not dry enough to paint again but dry enough to go under the truck.
Order is important here.
1) Drill holes in angle iron brackets using drill press.
2) Estimate where the brackets go on the frame, mark where holes go.
3) Drill holes in frame.
4) Thread bolts from backside of frame into brackets (with washers), and tighten a bit.
5) Put spare tire holder onto brackets.
6) Drill through bracket and tire holder span
7) Attach bolts from span to bracket
8) Tighten the crap out of everything.
9) Paint it all with Fluidfilm AR, especially the winder mechanism.
A bit tricky to get the bolts through the frame from the inside, I hold the bolts with a socket. Needed to enlist my son and his little hands to help
Once everything is bolted together its VERY strong. Dang.
Home crafted spare tire bracket – bracket, stage right.
My home crafted spare tire bracket… bracket.
Putting the wheel on:
I realize I don’t know how to work the winder. There is a slot but I’m not sure what is supposed to be used to turn it, or if its even reachable with the tow hitch.
Under the drivers seat there is a post jack, behind it on the drivers side passenger footwell are a pair of clips and a rod with hook on the end. The hook fits into the spare tire mechanism, but the that piece is too short to reach out from under the car… I dig around in my spare bits and on the floor is another rod! With a square attachment. I assume there is supposed to be a crank thing but its not to be… I use vice grips and crank the wheel up. No problem. Super secure. I’ll check the bolts after a few days.
Fluidfilm AR on spare tire holder. Stuff is pretty solid, like frozen snot.
Oh my gosh, where has this been all my life? I bought it to grind off the old shock tube before taking it to TorFab. $130 at Grainger with super-company discount. I just bought it because I needed it and didn’t have time to shop. Man did I luck out, this thing is a gem. I think in intrinsic goodness its up there with my Bosch Jigsaw. This thing cuts through metal like butter. Simply amazing what those discs can tolerate, spinning pieces of molten metal away. With a wire-wheel it takes off rust like there’s no tomorrow. Wear eye protection though! Model I got is the Makita 9564CV. The good:
The bad
UPDATE 4/8/2015:
WORD OF WARNING: PADLOCKS ARE USELESS.
Had a trunk locked with padlocks, lost the keys… these are home depot master locks, $15 for two, so nothing real special.
First I tried the old compound bolt cutters that I inherited from my grandfather. Not enough leverage I managed to create a bit of a scratch in one, but that was with gut busting force. The lock held up really well.
So… I’ve got this angle grinder… it can certainly do it but probably a lot of time and work… I expect this will be easier than cutting open a geode but not by much. I put on the earmuffs, eye protection, thick work suit… Ok kids, stand way back and plug your ears… Start up the disc and apply gentle pressure…
bzzzt…
Lock is cut in about 3 seconds.
For the next lock I apply more pressure and I’m through in about 0.5 seconds, almost like the lock wasn’t there. I could have cut faster but was afraid of cutting into the trunk.
So… padlocks… they’re for looks. Nothing is safe from the angle grinder. Should have figured if it could cut quartz it could cut everything else with ease.
Appointment with Wayne at “A1 Muffler Service” for next Wednesday at 8:30am, I leave seattle at 7:30 and arrive at 8:05. Spend a few minutes driving around this area of Everett. Lots of used truck lots, used rv lots, used camper lid lots, used 4×4 lots all along hwy 99. This is the car repair part of town, but wow there’s a lot of recreational vehicle businesses. Does that say something about Everett? Maybe tere is a whole nother section dedicated to boats?
Wayne arrives at 8:40, moves the vehicles and has me drive it onto the lift. I wait in the office which is a genuine old-style car repair office. Timeless look from out of the early 60s I estimate.
Vintage Office in A1 Muffler Service
The Muffler Minute-Men
Vintage Office in A1 Muffler Service
Vintage Office in A1 Muffler Service
Vintage Office in A1 Muffler Service
Vintage Office in A1 Muffler Service
Bullitin Board with Muffler Humor (and news).
Lots of “muffler industry advertising paraphernalia.” An plastic clock painted and textured like wood that reads: “We’re AP muffler Minutemen – we install mufflers in 30 minutes or less TRY US!” with of course a revolutionary war minuteman with tricone hat and rifle in hand. So… who wants their muffler installed in a short amount of time? I’d rather wait and get it done well.
I examine the other cars in the garage. An 80s firebird has several rusted holes in its exhaust and exhaust is suspended from car with 6 feet of wire. Nice looking 280z.
I mosey back into the office to sit on the big couch and wait as customers come in. Each and every one has a bitchy whiny tone with Wayne. “My alternator doesn’t work – I got a new battery but the battery light is still on”, “my brakes broke again”, etc. I speak to a fellow customer on the couch who complains that there used to be two couches. I ask about Wayne: “He’s the best mechanic there is”. Funny relationship these folk have with their mechanic. Each wants wayne to look at their issue right away, wayne politely demurs and continues the exhaust work. They grumble but tolerate it.
Some guys come in and seem really pushy, talk to fast and pretty much demand that he do something for them. Wonder what this relationship is? Does he realize that so much hinges on his ability? From 15 minutes watching and from the number of waiting people I think Wayne could raise his prices, be less busy and do better for himself.
Exhaust is finished in just over 3 hours. $200 seems a great value. I drive off into the sunset and a happy future?
New exhaust: the next day (well, that afternoon):
On driving back to seattle I notice truck has a nasty vibration throughout. Pretty harsh, loud and unpleasant sound. Dang. I’m sad. What is that? I realize… remember the snow? Shit. I bet I left the front hubs locked. Pull over at a rest area and sure enough they’re still locked. They are warm and so is the front diff. Huh.
Starting the car that evening to drive home from work the truck makes a loud clang clang clang!! Sound coming from the front engine area. The exhaust is coming into contact with the engine on startup. I put my head under and check out the exhaust. There is no flex tube at all. That is gross negligence, a diesel moves a bunch, the exhaust will be destroyed in a short while. Flex tube is not an option, it’s a requirement on this truck. Probably that is the source of the driveline vibration. I guess I’ll be driving up the next day.
The next morning I arrive back at A1 bright and early, 8:30am. Wait for wayne to show and am joined by an FJ40 from TorFab that is waiting for exhaust to be installed, then Tor arrives too. They check out the exhaust that was installed yesterday, it is not following the desired factory routing, looks more like the routing used for a 60 v8 conversion. Tor says flex tube is necessary, not optional. Explains how exhaust is supposed to be routed through the leaf springs. Wayne arrives and I explain the issue with noise and clanging, the need for flex tube. He has no flex tube. What about the one from my old exhaust? Its gone, he leaves the old stuff outside at night and its taken away by the vultures. Bummer. Wayne orders a flex tube and I’m to return in 2 hours. Shit. That’s what I get for doing no research and trusting someone to do it right. I guess I should have asked Tor to take it to A1, he’d be able to explain what was needed. Anyway, internet research shows what the OEM routing was, also the routing that wayne used. Seems that both are fine though the Wayne routing says a flex-tube downpipe is necessary to prevent exhaust from tearing itself apart. We’ll see I guess.
Black flame proof paint seems to holding up just fine.
Exhaust now exits at stock location, drivers side rear. I sort of miss the passenger side side pipe. 😦
Once exhaust is home I have at it its shiney newness with some VHT Flameproof paint. I apply per instructions with light coats every 10 minutes until the can runs out. Then I need to cure the paint by driving it so that the exhaust gets progressively hotter before cooling. Being a diesel it probably never gets hot enough but I follow the instructions anyway.
A month has passed and the stuff seems to be stuck on well. Looks good, flat black. Can’t scratch it with fingernail so I guess its permanent.
Snowed last night, several inches on our steep hill. Finally got to use my 4wd.
Parent is driving my son home from a party, very slippery they say, can’t get to my house. I offer to pick up my son at the park and ride.
Put truck into 4wd low and crawled up the hill. Yes I had a bit of 4 wheel spinning but the truck ground its way up the hill with very very little stress. At the top of the hill I switched back to 2wd and truck wouldn’t move. I guess having the weight of that engine over the front wheels really helps with traction. Thing feels unstoppable in 4wd low but would probably be useless on water ice. Can just imagine what it could do with chains, already feels like driving a bulldozer.
Picked up son and went for a late night tour. 10pm, no one out but gangs of children with sleds. We take the scenic route home up and down every steep hill we can find. Driving slowly and my son picks out some Miles Davis to listen to.
Friday night, driving in the parking lot of an office park. Have them little speed bumps? Like 3” high and 3” wide. Going 15mph, bam-bam… next set: bam-bam… then again: bam-bam-grrrrr-rrrrr. Huh?
First thought, ah jeese, I’ve broken my exhaust pipe again. My previous repair was a sheet of stainless wrapped around the cracked and rotted exhaust pipe. Kinda sketchy. It is dark, I stop and check out underneath with a headlamp.
Drivers side.
Uh-oh. There is a tube that connects the two frame rails, it goes between the rails right above the rear axle. The rear shocks connect to it… and one side has broken loose. Jeese. That’s not the sort of thing that I consider normal maintenance. I’m a little surprised because the rest of the frame looked so good but that tube always did have a sketchy look about it, looked like it had been rusted before, then treated.
Removing shocks so I can pull the shock tube loose.
Removing shocks
Measuring distance so I have info for folks I call. Also to see what average shock length is in the rear.
Shock tube removed, with shocks.
Can see the passenger side rear brake line passes very close to the shock tube. Could have been torn.
Another view of rear brake line.
Ok, well the good news is that it is just shocks, you don’t need them to drive. Broken springs would be another story. There is one part I don’t like, what is holding the frame of the truck together in the back? The body is bolted to it, probably strong but twisting might knock something else loose. I determine to drive safely home and leave it in the driveway until a repair can be devised.
Solicit advice from internet. Consensus: this is a common failure for old 60s because that area tends to rust. Also that the repair is the epitome of simplicity, just fab and weld in a new tube. Funny thing, doesn’t look like there is a lot of rust there but the tubing is very thin. I’m going to guess the failure is due to fatigue.
Anyway, I call around, I used to know folks that could make stuff like this, and they’ve all become old and highly paid so not interested in this type of work. I guess this is an excuse to give some business to TorFab up in Mukilteo. Of course taking the truck in may be an excuse for a bunch of while you’re in there.
This weekend I crawled under the truck, detached the stocks from the axle and then pulled the tube out. Very small amount of force needed to pull the cracked end clear from the frame.
Honestly the ride is much softer though it is clearly not well damped. Not the sort of ride I’d want for an autocross. Fun accelerating out of corners, it squats like a baja super truck.
I call Tor of TorFab up in Mukilteo. He says this is common, they’ve repaired it before. Probably cost between $500 and $600. Sheesh, that’s not so cheap. I figure I can find someone to do it cheaper. I take it by Ishii Motor Industries but they estimated $750. So it goes, I make an appointment with Torfab.
Repaired Tube. I hit it with Rustoleum to protect the por15 from any stray uv.
One concern, the remains of the shock mount pass through the frame. Perfect place for water and rust.
After a short drive in the rain the old tube is full of water.
New repaired shock tube.
Before bringing it in a spend a few hours under the truck cleaning up the ragged pipes with an angle grinder. Boy the exhaust is sure rusted. I banged on it a few places and ended up with a big pile of rust on the floor, sucker is shedding its surface, looks like its really thin now. Dang, need to be replaced.
Picked up truck and Tor did a reasonable job. New pipe and welded plates are secure, all well painted with Por15, which is pretty expensive stuff. The shock pins are aligned well and the shocks went right on with a little grease on the pins, no issues so problem really is solved. I did see that the original pipe through the frame was intact and the inside of the pipe was not sealed where it met the plate. Once home I wire brushed that area clean, painted with several coats of vht suspension epoxy, then several coats of rustoleum cold galvanized zinc. I also hosed down all the new Por15’d metal with rustoleum. Still, that open tube through the frame is right next to the rear tires, it’ll fill up with water and road grit once it rains. Need a way to keep water out of there.
I take a quick drive after getting the shocks reinstalled and lubing all the grease nipples: wow, here I thought I was due for some new shocks, after driving without any shocks for 2 weeks I really appreciate the ones I have. I’ll be deferring the purchase of new shocks until there is a demonstrable need.
One short sighted thing: I should have had tor weld sway bar mounts onto the shock tube, now installing sway bars onto the rear will be a big production.
When picking up the car Tor noted that my exhaust was both on its last legs and rubbing against the read rubber brake line, melting it. The brake line needs to be replaced. But.. also.. the exhaust is not routed correctly, needs to run down the other side of the car. Previous owner routed the exhaust straight down from the engine and along the driveline. This means it sits too close to the transfer case which will cook the seals. Uh… shoot. How much is that? Tor says: oh, just go to “A1 Muffler Service”, just up the road, Wayne knows how it should be plumbed and he’ll do a good job for not much money. Cool!
I stop by A1 on the way home, meet wayne. He estimates $200 for new exhaust routed correctly. Sweet! In the 5 minutes I’m waiting to talk to him he is handing out some completed welding to a customer (some sort of flange), on his back cutting a muffler loose from a a car, giving keys to another customer. We wears a black ski jacket that has been absolutely thrashed on the back, strips of polyester and insulation hang loose from the back. His face is burned and heavily creased from all the welding. I determine that in all of north America this is one of the proud few that actually work for a living.
Long ago I got good advice from “Kelsey” at Best Buy. She told me how to install a headunit and where to go to buy connectors. For that I’m grateful. I went back to Best Buy but she had moved on to Car Toys. Car Toys are the worst sort of rapist. The sort of place you go for an estimate and they tell you it will cost $2000 to put a new stereo in your car. I imagine 90% of their profit comes from ripping people off. But Kelsey is there now… let’s see what Kelsey says.
I happen to arrive at Car Toys on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. A day with lots of sales. What you know they have a nice Kenwood X397 for $75. Kelsey says it’s a good unit and a good deal so I get it along with a harness and a dash frame. Comes with “free installation”. Sweet.
I make an appointment for the install, before I leave Kelsey warns that I need to check all the speakers and make sure they work. The Kenwood has a feature where it will detect shorts in the speakers and will shut down if load drops below 4 Ohmns…
Ok, I’ve a job set out, I know for a fact the cheap awful speaker cable under the mats in my car doesn’t connect to anything, and I think its 18-20gauge, probably fine but just so awful and scrubbed up. Need something better run from the rear speakers up to the front. I hit up Vetco for some good thick cable. They have a reel of 12g with 28feet left on it, they let me have it for the price of 24 feet which comes to $24. This is seriously nice thick stiff cable, very easy to run by just pushing it through.
Spent a few hours running the cable from the rear speakers, out the seatbelt slots, under the carpet, along the rear door, across the base of the B-Pillar, along the base of the front door, through the paneling, under the front carpet to the center console. Lots of bits of plastic to remove and reinstall and of course many many little screws. In the end there are two nice ends all ready to go.
I don’t have time to check the fronts but trust they’ll be fine… what could go wrong. L
I bring car in for an appointment and Kelsey takes almost 3 hours to do the install. Lots of figuring out what the wires mean given she’s organizing a random old harness into a modern one. The bad news is that the front speakers are toast and I need new ones. She recommends some Pioneers as they are very shallow, I promise to measure and get what is appropriate. But while waiting and listening to their selection I buy a pair of JL Audio C2 400X 4” speakers, $90 on sale. The silk tweeters are very warm and they sound great to me though have little bass as one would expect from a 4” speaker. They’re 1.8” deep which seems shallow. Finally the install is done, I’ve a stereo that takes an iPhone, finally rockin’ tunes after 11 months. Yeah, it is just coming from the rear but it sure sounds good. Can’t wait to get those front speakers installed.
Take off the passenger door and find a 6” Kenwood speaker. Whoa! I don’t need to settle for puny 4” speaker, I can get 6” for much better bass. Back to Car Toys the next day and return the C2-400x for a pair of C2-600X. That night I attempt to install and find that the shape of the magnet and housing on the 600 makes them impossible, much too large and deep to clear the window. The speakers didn’t even come out of the bag. I really want to keep the stock speaker grills so they’ll need to go back. The whole time I’m super happy with the tunes coming from the rear speakers. Can’t believe I went this long without!
One sad moment, I arrive at work to find a strap of metal plumbers tape and a screw sitting on the floor, the stereo is loose… looks like it wasn’t attached very well and has fallen out.
Next day I return the C2-600x and get the C2-400x again. The next morning I wake early and install the new speakers. I seem to be making a lot of dumb mistakes, mixing up the leads, etc but I finally get everything mounted and connected well. Wow I have good sound now. Just delicious. I’m super happy with the choice of front speakers. Driving to work its freezing cold. I turn on the heater blower and in about a second the head unit is flashing “protect”. Uh oh. That wasn’t happening before. Perhaps something is wrong with the front speaker wiring?
Drop back into car toys to get a more secure install of the head unit. Not acceptable to have it fall out. They agree and it takes 45 minutes for the dude to find a better way to secure it, that includes removing and reinstalling the dash and its 11 screws.
I return home to experiment with that pesky protect mode. I find several odd data points:
– Protect occurs if blower is set above level 2, but the blower works at level 1 and 2, that means it is not the blower switch resistor.
– At idle the car voltage drops to 12 when blower is on, pretty big drop…
– With fade set to send all sound to front speakers, the passenger side speaker is louder than the driver’s side. Oh, and the driver’s side speaker makes sound when balance is full right…. There is a connection between driver and passenger side… ?
Friday night I wait until family is asleep and move truck into the garage in order to keep myself a little warmer and take advantage of the lights in the garage. Remove the dash and head unit. Remove driver’s door panel since that speaker is acting strange. Out comes the MultiTester. Exploring the harness, reading the Kenwood wiring manual, all is going well until around 11:30pm… the head unit cuts out entirely. Shit. Is that protect? No, the head unit won’t power on. It is too late I need to sleep. Dreams of a shorted head unit and needing to buy another…. I wake early and worry. Dang, did I toast it by doing something stupid? Worry, worry.
Afternoon I have another few hours to diagnose. I find no voltage coming to the stereo from the harness, which is good news. Turns out there’s not even power to the Radio Fuse. I look in engine bay but nothing wrong there. I check the relays in the fuse box, they’re good, as are the rest of the fuses. Fuse in head unit is good. What can it be? Finally I find continuity between one side of fuse and yellow, but there the ground is gone. What the heck? Head behind the fuse box I see an odd red wire coming from the radio fuse.
Digging all over everywhere I finally notice a loose wire behind the dash. Shit! Last night I remember finding a bare red wire not connected to anything, I’d taped it up and away since it served no purpose. Well 5 of the wires I taped away had no purpose, the 6th was the ground and needed to connect to the harness. I confirm the red wire is the dead side of the radio fuse plug. I recrimp the previously bare red wire into the empty crimp and now the head unit will power on again. Phew! Not a good use of 90 minutes but I guess I learned to trace voltage and continuity to figure out what I have here.
So back to the speaker with my new found debugging skills I test continuity between the harness and the driver’s side speaker plugs. Negative wire is fine but positive wire is NOT FINE. It connects to both the positive and negative of the passenger side speaker… and not to the left negative terminal… I guess it was being driven out of phase with the positive wire which is why some sound came out. The problem wire can’t be traced since it goes into the 1.5” thick wire bundle behind the dash. Solution: I enlist some speaker cable I had around the house that came from my friends truck before it went to the junk yard, I wire the driver’s side speaker with new wire back to the dash. I’ve no doubt this will work and sure enough it does.
Now there is still a potential issue. Given that the left negative wire was previously connected to both positive and negative passenger side wire, doesn’t that mean the passenger side is shorted positive to negative? Well it seems to be playing well, I’ll leave it for now but that is something to watch. Maybe I can fix in my free time. I’ll need a symptom though before I bother it: reopen dash, open the passenger door and diagnose, that’s a very busy hour, not counting time to run a new wire and splice into the existing wire before it reaches the door.
I turn ignition and get wonderful tunes from every speaker. Toggle heater blower and no issue, yay.
Reinstall everything and put the mass of tools and parts back and away. Car stereo installers earn their pay.
After all of that, I’ve got a single photo of success:
At long last. What a huge pain that was. Def Worth It!
Finally installed a pair of retractable shoulder belts into the rear of the cruiser. A condition I set for myself so long ago was that I’d install no radio until I had the safety stuff up to snuff.
While there were already shoulder belts in place the shoulder belts were manually adjustable, they didn’t retract and the kids bitched and moaned about them. Adults would nod politely and not wear their seatbelts rather than deal with the adjustment. So… a few hours and the driver’s side is installed. Very frustrating to get the bolts, washers and nuts emplaced from the far side and such a small panel to reach through.
To install the retractable shoulder belts the C-Pillar needs to be cut a bit so that the retractor spool can fit inside. To make these cuts I daringly used my precious Bosch Jigsaw. God-damn but that thing cuts well. Amazing smooth cuts like a hot knife through butter. However I needed to be careful to prevent the reciprocating blade from contacting the far side of the enclosure. Enough of that and the blade breaks. Anyway, I’m guessing there is a better tool for this, perhaps the legendary sawz-all.
Next weekend I get down to installing the second belt. I borrow my neighbors Sawz-All and go to town. A huge mistake. Sawz-All is a tool for demolition and not for careful cutting of sheetmetal in a car. After a few disastrous trials I switch to a brand new metal cutting blade but it’s no use, the thing is awful. I go back to the magic Bosch and clean up the old cuts as best I can.
The spools bolts inside the c-pillar so there’s quite a bit of precise cutting to get it to fit. I used two huge bolts with washers, holes drilled through where 3 pieces of sheet metal overlap so feels very strong. Once the plastic liner is put back the spool is invisible. The belt runs from the spool upwards and out of the plastic (no cutting needed) through a ring that bolts to the c-pillar, then can be clicked into the female end that also bolts to the floor. The new female end is the same as what I already had. There is a fair bit of cutting to get a hole big enough for the spool to fit inside.
Second, both my front seatbelts would not… lock. I replaced them with newer belts that did lock. This was a pretty simple job, took about 45 minutes to do both sides.
Now that the belts are installed I’m morally unburdened and free to install a stereo.
Brake light burned out. Went to store and they had these Kool led lights at the checkout. Shoot. No heat, bright, last forever. Expensive ($16).
Installed one for comparison. It really doesn’t get hot. It appears very bright to the eye but when I took the pics it doesn’t seem so bright. I think the light from the LED is very intense but not wide like the standard bulb. You can see in the photo below that the LED doesnt’ seem to use the reflector, it emits light straight back at you.
Wife and kids all agree its brighter so I’ll keep them. Burned my finger removing the old bulb on the left.
Light pattern on led seems to come straight out at camera, doesn’t use reflector so much.
Comparing left and right, the left is the stock light, right is the new fancy LED. Seems dim, eh?
CanadianBJ 