The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
So I guess I am throwing in the towel on this season since its November. What can I say, guess I'm too finicky with doing things a certain way and can't be satisfied until they come out the way I envisioned them.
Case in point - wiring. While wiring the radiator fan and water pump, I started running in to things which I felt were not executed properly which lead to undoing a bunch of stuff I had done previously. Naturally this requires more work - coming up with an acceptable solution and then re-doing whatever it is to some exacting standard I've conjured up in my head.
So at the moment, almost all the wiring under the dash is hanging down, needing to be re-organized and put back in. Cleaning up the wiring under the dash was something I had on my punch list and it is a priority because there was a lot of clutter and quick fixes that were driving me nuts. It was kind of a rats nest back there with all sorts of wacky connections, excess coils of wire zip tied together, empty connectors etc.
I don't even know what most of this crap is for.
Perfect example - an MSD ignition seems to require a bunch of extra pieces that have miles of wiring attached to them. I have a digital shift light that requires an RPM activated switch. I also had an electronic tach which needs a tach adapter, both of which necessitated an auxiliary fuse box. You get the idea. I have a mechanical tach now so no sender is needed. So what to do with all the extraneous stuff? No way I was leaving it in there!
Ugh.
In undoing all these things, I had the hare-brained idea to take out the main under-dash harness, remove all the wiring that wasn't used for anything and re-install it with only what was needed. This is a pretty major undertaking but it's something that once I got the idea for I wanted to follow through on. A lot of the cobbled together wiring exists because I am working with the original harness and trying to wire stuff into it. Perhaps I might have been better served to start from scratch with an aftermarket harness but I didn't so now I am stuck with what's there.
First thing I did was make a plate to mount the MSD, fuse box and battery power bus bar. The hope is that mounting this stuff in close proximity on the back of the firewall will help reduce the amount of spaghetti behind the dash and on the firewall. The MSD was previously under the speaker grille which made it tough to access and probably contributed to the clutter. The bus bar terminal was next to the master cylinder with basically everything that needed battery power connected at that point. You can imagine the tangle of wires meeting at the one point.
I used the firewall pad as a template so as to not drill any more holes. The plate came out in an odd shape but fits in the space well enough. This stuff is more accessible now instead of having to lay on my back and reach up behind the dash to get at it. Changing an RPM chip or unplugging a wire will be less of a chore and I can actually see what I am doing. I used spacers to elevate the plate off the raised areas.
Firewall plate.
In addition to the under dash wiring, I a working on cleaning up some of the other excess wiring including the starter circuit which had three ignition switch feeds a remote solenoid and two relays up front. Can't believe it even worked the way it was but it did. Way too complex!
I will still have more than one battery power junction point but the hope is it will now be more organized and neat. I can tie another one in to the main power bus bar but the wiring shoul be kept to a minimum.
Working on the car today after I finish here. Beautiful crisp fall day, my favorite weather! Too bad I'm not running the car down the track!
More to come.
So I guess I am throwing in the towel on this season since its November. What can I say, guess I'm too finicky with doing things a certain way and can't be satisfied until they come out the way I envisioned them.
Case in point - wiring. While wiring the radiator fan and water pump, I started running in to things which I felt were not executed properly which lead to undoing a bunch of stuff I had done previously. Naturally this requires more work - coming up with an acceptable solution and then re-doing whatever it is to some exacting standard I've conjured up in my head.
So at the moment, almost all the wiring under the dash is hanging down, needing to be re-organized and put back in. Cleaning up the wiring under the dash was something I had on my punch list and it is a priority because there was a lot of clutter and quick fixes that were driving me nuts. It was kind of a rats nest back there with all sorts of wacky connections, excess coils of wire zip tied together, empty connectors etc.
I don't even know what most of this crap is for.
Perfect example - an MSD ignition seems to require a bunch of extra pieces that have miles of wiring attached to them. I have a digital shift light that requires an RPM activated switch. I also had an electronic tach which needs a tach adapter, both of which necessitated an auxiliary fuse box. You get the idea. I have a mechanical tach now so no sender is needed. So what to do with all the extraneous stuff? No way I was leaving it in there!
Ugh.
In undoing all these things, I had the hare-brained idea to take out the main under-dash harness, remove all the wiring that wasn't used for anything and re-install it with only what was needed. This is a pretty major undertaking but it's something that once I got the idea for I wanted to follow through on. A lot of the cobbled together wiring exists because I am working with the original harness and trying to wire stuff into it. Perhaps I might have been better served to start from scratch with an aftermarket harness but I didn't so now I am stuck with what's there.
First thing I did was make a plate to mount the MSD, fuse box and battery power bus bar. The hope is that mounting this stuff in close proximity on the back of the firewall will help reduce the amount of spaghetti behind the dash and on the firewall. The MSD was previously under the speaker grille which made it tough to access and probably contributed to the clutter. The bus bar terminal was next to the master cylinder with basically everything that needed battery power connected at that point. You can imagine the tangle of wires meeting at the one point.
I used the firewall pad as a template so as to not drill any more holes. The plate came out in an odd shape but fits in the space well enough. This stuff is more accessible now instead of having to lay on my back and reach up behind the dash to get at it. Changing an RPM chip or unplugging a wire will be less of a chore and I can actually see what I am doing. I used spacers to elevate the plate off the raised areas.
Firewall plate.
In addition to the under dash wiring, I a working on cleaning up some of the other excess wiring including the starter circuit which had three ignition switch feeds a remote solenoid and two relays up front. Can't believe it even worked the way it was but it did. Way too complex!
I will still have more than one battery power junction point but the hope is it will now be more organized and neat. I can tie another one in to the main power bus bar but the wiring shoul be kept to a minimum.
Working on the car today after I finish here. Beautiful crisp fall day, my favorite weather! Too bad I'm not running the car down the track!
More to come.
