The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
Did some more work on the trans cooler lines. They are fairly close to being completed. I have to figure out a way to mount the hoses coming off the cooler and then how to mate them up to the hard lines that run along the frame connector. Again, it's a little unorthodox to have the cooler in the back and as such, the lines required some planning. Short of drilling all kinds of holes in the frames to keep them to the outside or running them up into the passenger compartment, what I'm showing in the pics is the most logical solution I could come up with.
I went to a hydraulic hose place and got some protective spiral wrap for the hoses that would be exposed to road debris. It's called Rhino Sleeve or something like that. It fits perfectly over the -6 hose. Seems like tough stuff, it has to be cut with a metal shear. It's also fairly light. The place I bought if from sells it at .30ยข/inch. I bought 10' so it was just under $40. I used all of it including a short piece I put over the fuel line that's in the front wheel well. You can't find this stuff on Summit, it's pretty specific to the hydraulic hose industry and not really an automotive product.
Rhino sleeve stuff.
Here is the fuel line in the right-front wheel well. I feel much more at ease about having this here now..
The only real questionable routing here is how the lines come through the trans tunnel and make a right turn by the output shaft/yoke. I'm not overly concerned about it but if the driveshaft lets loose it could possibly damage the lines and get oil under the tires. The driveshaft loop will contain it but it may not be enough? The Rhino sleeve is definitely a necessity here. I might make some sort of extended shield/plate to bolt to the tailshaft for extra protection.
I finalized the brackets where the flex hoses connect to the hard lines. Bulkhead fittings make this pretty easy. I had to weld a piece of steel to extend the bottom of one of the brackets because it would have been too high up the side of the frame connector to bolt it on securely. I did not trust myself to weld the bracket straight. 2 shots with the MIG and some grinding and it was good to go. You can kind of make out how the top bracket is extended on the bottom. The screws used here are really good.
Still not completely finished with this job yet as I need to figure out a way to secure the hoses in the rear by the cooler and then mate them to the hard lines at the frame. I'll probably do something similar to what I did towards the front for the hard line connection but it's a little more difficult back by the parking brake bracket. So far so good though.
In other news, I put the wiring in for mock up. I laid out the EFI harness under the dash and measured where I will need to cut and terminate the wires for the bulkhead. I will have to do the same for the main dash harness.
Routing the back up light and NSS harness is turning out to be a bit of a task. The factory ran the harness from the switch on the trans up the firewall to the bulkhead and then back through the dash harness. Due to the large headers, I am trying to avoid that scenario. There's also already lot of clutter right by the bell housing with the shifter cable and bracket. Plus, my NSS is in the back next to the battery so that wire has a long route to make it's connection.
The plan right now is to route the harness through a pre-existing hole in the top of the trans tunnel and then across the passenger side foot well and up the passenger side kick panel. The backup lamp power comes from the fuse box so that can terminate there but the output wire has to run all the way back across the dash to the rear body connector on the other side kick panel. The NSS wire can make a right at the bottom of the kick panel and follow the other wires that go back to the trunk. Like I said, it's kind of a PITA.
Right now there are four separate harnesses coming from under the floor and running either along the inner firewall, up the kick panels or across the foot well to get to the main dash harness - the backup lamp/NSS harness, (3 wires) trans temp. sensor wires from the front of the pan, (3 wire) the 02 sensor harness for the EFI (5 wire bundle) and two wires for the Line Loc in the brakes. I also have to run the trans cooler fan power and ground wires from under the trunk... custom wiring can get really tedious!
More to come.
Did some more work on the trans cooler lines. They are fairly close to being completed. I have to figure out a way to mount the hoses coming off the cooler and then how to mate them up to the hard lines that run along the frame connector. Again, it's a little unorthodox to have the cooler in the back and as such, the lines required some planning. Short of drilling all kinds of holes in the frames to keep them to the outside or running them up into the passenger compartment, what I'm showing in the pics is the most logical solution I could come up with.
I went to a hydraulic hose place and got some protective spiral wrap for the hoses that would be exposed to road debris. It's called Rhino Sleeve or something like that. It fits perfectly over the -6 hose. Seems like tough stuff, it has to be cut with a metal shear. It's also fairly light. The place I bought if from sells it at .30ยข/inch. I bought 10' so it was just under $40. I used all of it including a short piece I put over the fuel line that's in the front wheel well. You can't find this stuff on Summit, it's pretty specific to the hydraulic hose industry and not really an automotive product.
Rhino sleeve stuff.
Here is the fuel line in the right-front wheel well. I feel much more at ease about having this here now..
The only real questionable routing here is how the lines come through the trans tunnel and make a right turn by the output shaft/yoke. I'm not overly concerned about it but if the driveshaft lets loose it could possibly damage the lines and get oil under the tires. The driveshaft loop will contain it but it may not be enough? The Rhino sleeve is definitely a necessity here. I might make some sort of extended shield/plate to bolt to the tailshaft for extra protection.
I finalized the brackets where the flex hoses connect to the hard lines. Bulkhead fittings make this pretty easy. I had to weld a piece of steel to extend the bottom of one of the brackets because it would have been too high up the side of the frame connector to bolt it on securely. I did not trust myself to weld the bracket straight. 2 shots with the MIG and some grinding and it was good to go. You can kind of make out how the top bracket is extended on the bottom. The screws used here are really good.
Still not completely finished with this job yet as I need to figure out a way to secure the hoses in the rear by the cooler and then mate them to the hard lines at the frame. I'll probably do something similar to what I did towards the front for the hard line connection but it's a little more difficult back by the parking brake bracket. So far so good though.
In other news, I put the wiring in for mock up. I laid out the EFI harness under the dash and measured where I will need to cut and terminate the wires for the bulkhead. I will have to do the same for the main dash harness.
Routing the back up light and NSS harness is turning out to be a bit of a task. The factory ran the harness from the switch on the trans up the firewall to the bulkhead and then back through the dash harness. Due to the large headers, I am trying to avoid that scenario. There's also already lot of clutter right by the bell housing with the shifter cable and bracket. Plus, my NSS is in the back next to the battery so that wire has a long route to make it's connection.
The plan right now is to route the harness through a pre-existing hole in the top of the trans tunnel and then across the passenger side foot well and up the passenger side kick panel. The backup lamp power comes from the fuse box so that can terminate there but the output wire has to run all the way back across the dash to the rear body connector on the other side kick panel. The NSS wire can make a right at the bottom of the kick panel and follow the other wires that go back to the trunk. Like I said, it's kind of a PITA.
Right now there are four separate harnesses coming from under the floor and running either along the inner firewall, up the kick panels or across the foot well to get to the main dash harness - the backup lamp/NSS harness, (3 wires) trans temp. sensor wires from the front of the pan, (3 wire) the 02 sensor harness for the EFI (5 wire bundle) and two wires for the Line Loc in the brakes. I also have to run the trans cooler fan power and ground wires from under the trunk... custom wiring can get really tedious!
More to come.
