Meet Ol Smokey! I’m relatively new to this forum, but not new to car audio fomokey

I didn't get much done today, I got called into work for half the day, might get called in tomorrow too. If I don;t get called into work tomorrow, then I should be able to apply power to the new harness and test some of the circuits. I got the in-dash relay bank wired up. The main harness on the firewall is getting beefier. Tomorrow I should have the door locks and windows wired up.


I didn't take any pictures today, but I will tomorrow.

Remember this 7-micro relay box:


http://i.imgur.com/nsIiaFSh.jpg


Yeah, it's a pice of shit. The connectors that come with it are shitty too. I spent hours fighting it today. Right now everything is working, but if I have anymore problems, then I'll just pony up and buy the American Autowire severe duty relay box and call it good.


510599 Severe Duty Relay Panel | American Autowire


I've been totally happy with their fuse box/kit so far so dropping the coin for the relay kit wouldn't bother me too much.


In between battles with the relay panel, I made progress in other areas. It rained most of the day, so I was a bit limited in what I could do. I was able to apply power to the new wiring harness and test some circuits. I got the door locks and windows working as well as the new dash lights, radio and headlights.


The pictures are kind crappy because I didn't give the camera enough time to acclimate to the absurd humidity. This is the electronics rack:


http://i.imgur.com/WGGol59h.jpg


Yes, I'm using all 10 ports on the USB hub. There is the APL1, TwK, Holley EFI and power for the TOSLINK switcher. The other 6 ports have USB Y-cables plugged into them, the kind used to grab extra power for a nearby port. One cable will power my phone, and the other two will go to the dash ports.


Here is the drivers side dash:


http://i.imgur.com/NFoLyreh.jpg


There are two bundles of wires waiting to be hooked up. One is for the ignition switch, and the other is for the gauges and turn/hi bean indicator lights.


Here is under the right side of the dash:


http://i.imgur.com/inpBPbph.jpg


The big bundle on the right is what goes to the rear of the car, including USB cables and fiber run. That big ass bundle of wires on the floor is the factory harness that will end up in the trash soon enough. The two vertical black back bundles are the EFI and I'll transfer them to the pass through bulkheads after I get the rest of the new harness fully functional. After I get the rear lights wired(tomorrow?) up I can transfer over the ignition, brake switch, turn switch and hazard switch.


There are a bazillion zip ties all over the new harness. As I add wires, I just add more zip ties. on occasion I'll go back and remove the extras. Once I'm done adding wires and changing things I'll go back and add some protective covering, cloth tape and whatnot.


Hopefully tomorrow I can report that it's all running on the new harness and I can FINALLY rip out the factory harness.

Today I did the hard part, the steering column:


http://i.imgur.com/XceVhvTh.jpg


I got everything transferred over to the new harness and removed the bulk of the old harness. At the moment it doesn't run, I have a small list of things to do in the morning:


• Connect new ignition coil wire
• Connect alternator ignition wire
• Run constant and ignition wires to turn/hazard switch
• Connect new low current starter wire
• Replace park/turn light bulbs
• Connect ECU ignition wire
• Wire up the wipers


It was fun ripping out the factory harness, and the interior looks MUCH cleaner now. It was too dark for pictures when I got done, but I'll have some tomorrow.

Here it is today:


http://i.imgur.com/1a9PLzxh.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/Q5aQDyuh.jpg


It looks so much better with the factory harness gone. Now I just need to tidy things up, add the wipers back and a few other touch up things. I leave for a few weeks on Monday, so I'll transfer the EFI harness to the bulkhead connectors when I get back.

After getting everything on my list but the wipers done today, I did a full test of the lights. All the lights worked, the parking lights parked, the hazards hazardededed, but the turn signals didn't turn. After doing a bunch of testing, I came to the conclusion that it was just an issue with integrating the aftermarket harness with the stock Ford multi switch.


The problem is that every aftermarket wiring harness is built for a GM steering column and multi-switch. There must be a slight difference between the older Ford and older GM multi-switch setups. I eventually just wound up just pulling the flasher from the old fuse box and just added it inline to the main power line for the multi-switch.


Now the parking lights park, the hazards hazard, and the turn signals turn.

I’m still on the road for another week, but I’m in the great part of my gigs, where everything is running and I just have to respond to problems. Most of my days are spent sitting in a trailer surfing the net with a walkie that squats on occasion. This is when I get most of my research done.


One thing I want to add is cruise control, so I looked into that. It looks like the Rostra universal unit is the way to go. However, I need some sort of a vehicle speed sense(VSS) wire for it to work, and Ol Smokey never came with one.


After some digging, I found that ’87-’92 Broncos came with a VSS unit that is crazy easy to install. You just pop out the speedo cable, remove the gear from the cable, put it on the VSS unit, pop it into the transfer case, then plug the cable into the VSS unit. Ad two wires and you are done! I went over to RockAuto and the sensor is pretty cheap, and they even stock the plug, awesome! So I ordered them.


http://i.imgur.com/HcfyooJh.jpg


Next I needed to figure out how to wire it up. After a bunch of digging and asking on three different forums I was able to get the info I need. One wire goes to ground, the other goes to the cruise control, dead simple. I figured that since I have extra inputs on my Holley ECU it’d be nice to be able to datalog the speed with all the other sensors, that’s when I ran into more problems…


It turns out, the Ford sensor is a Variable Magnetic Reluctance sensor, and my EFI ECU isn’t compatible with it, only Hall Effect sensors. Back to square one! After some more digging I found that Auto Meter requires a Hall Effect sensor for their cable free speedometers, and they make one for Fords. It’s about three times more expensive than the Ford sensor, but it should work great,I ordered it. It even comes with a plug for deleting the factory speedo cable.


http://i.imgur.com/JsxNC4yh.jpg


All of that took almost two days of research to figure out.


Next up is the wipers. When I removed the factory wiring harness I also removed the wiper wiring. It turns out that a wiper system isn’t so simple. The motor has five wires coming out of it:


12v
Ground
Park
Low Speed
High Speed


The park wire is essentially an ignition wire and keeps the motor going after you turn off the wipers until it is “parked” that’s why your wipers stop in the middle of the window if you turn the key off before the wipers stop. So now that I know whats going on at the motor, I can think about switches.


I definitely want the intermittent feature, and I don’t want to build a timer circuit myself. So I started looking at the Hat Rod market to see if they have a solution for this. Nothing. I kept digging and digging with no luck. I’ve come to the conclusion that they either adapt a factory system from another car, or just suck it up and do the intermittent thing manually. I’m not that barbaric! :p


I did eventually stumble across Littlefuse, turns out they make wiper switches for semi trucks. I downloaded the design drawings and was able to find that switch number 75600-4 looks perfect for my needs. It’s a solid state switch that includes the timer circuit all in one handy body with a pigtail that I can put my own Weather Pack connector on. It also has the push to wash feature. Because they are a large quantity supplier you can’t order just one from their website, but I was able to find one on Amazon.


http://i.imgur.com/e1xZPnRh.jpg


Next up is gauges, at the moment I have NONE!


I really wanted to run a set of SpeedHut gauges made to fit my needs, but there is no way of getting an Air/Fuel ratio output from the ECU so that the gauge would read what the ECU reads, I’d have to install a second sensor. However, I did find that Holley is now making gauges that plug into the CAN Bus from the ECU making wiring them a snap!


So I’m starting with the ECU to gauge adaptor, power fanout cable for eight gauges, and one single water temp gauge, since it recently overheated. I’ll slowly add gauges as time and money allows. The nice thing about their system is that adding a gauge is as simple as drilling a new hole in the dash, setting the gauge in place, plugging the gauge into the power cable, and adding a 3.5mm stereo cable jumper to the existing gauges. The two exceptions are the speedometer(GPS Sensor) and fuel level.


Here is what they look like:


http://i.imgur.com/hM4tyP3h.jpg


With measurements from this gage I’ll beagle to start designing the final gauge panel, I have a fun idea for that.


When I get home in a week I’ll have plenty to do on Ol Smokey for the 7-8 days that I’m there and will have many more pictures coming!

That gauge looks sick!

The great thing about them is that they pull data from the ECU, so I don't have extra sensors all over the engine. Also, you can program the LED to come on as a high/low warning. They also keep a memory of their high and low readings.

I just wish they didn't have any branding on the gauge face. For me, the biggest selling point for the SpeedHut gauges is that you can customize them, including removing all branding.

Today had it's ups and downs. I didn't get anything done on Ol Smokey, and at the moment he is sitting at the shop. Remember that wheel problem I had a little while back after picking it up from the shop? Well, this happened today, only about 75 miles after picking it up from the shop.


http://i.imgur.com/OfPo0vHh.jpg


I was approaching a VERY busy, and high speed, intersection at about 45mph when it came off. The car gods were smiling upon me though as the intersection just happened to be empty when I went through. The wheel hit a tree in someones front yard and immediately came to a rest. Luckily it didn't hit any cars or cause any property damage. Thanks to my million+ mile driving career I didn't panic when the wheel came off. I just said "God Dammit" out load and watched the wheel and pulled off the road when it stopped.


I immediately called the shop and had a stupid conversation with them. I explained who I was any why I was calling. They told me to bring the car to them, I explained that I can't drive it with only three wheels. Then it went something like this:


Shop: We can't fix it without seeing it
Me: No, but you can have it towed to you
Shop: Go ahead and have it towed to us, and we can pay you back for the tow.
Me: How about you just send a tow truck over?
Shop: We don't know where you are.
Me: Good luck, I just happen to be in the phone with you and can tell you where I am!


From there they took my location and sent a tow truck to pick me and Ol Smokey up.


I don't know what the problem is, and they don't know either, but it is definitely is up there in the "Severe" side of the severity scale. Perhaps they didn't seat the studs properly when transferring them over to the new rotors? Maybe the lugnuts were damaged in the original loose wheel incident?


The bummer is, I was at the office working on a project for the Ryder Cup. I had just run home real quick to grab my iPad and a dongle to so I could test something out. I had this setup in the office:


http://i.imgur.com/BAy1KM8h.jpg


Hidden in there is the absurdly expensive Ascender 48:


http://i.imgur.com/D1QAg2ih.jpg


I'll have three of these setup and will be running 10 video screens with them. After leaving the office I had to stop by the local Best Buy and buy two more iPads to get this working the way I want. When I said it'd be cheaper to do it a different way, but it'd be slightly slower, the guy who put me on this project said, "I don't care what it costs, I just want it to work." I love those words. I fly to Ryder Cup on Saturday and will have more pics from there when I get the chance to post.

I hate to see that with your ride! Of course, being at the Ryder Cup should alleviate some of that pain!!!