When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Yeah 2" will do the trick. Did you find a grommet big enough?
I have found a few different ones, but ideally I would like to find one that sort of seals around the wires. I may end up getting a solid rubber 2" grommet and cuttin a slit in it just enough to get the wires into it and then hot gluing or sealing it shut again around the wires.
I have found a few different ones, but ideally I would like to find one that sort of seals around the wires. I may end up getting a solid rubber 2" grommet and cuttin a slit in it just enough to get the wires into it and then hot gluing or sealing it shut again around the wires.
Does it have to seal against the wire as both sides are, for all intents and purposes, open to environment? It's not like you're protecting water from dripping back into the interior of the firewall. Just has to cushion enough to not get chewed up. Plus it's behind the headlight, hidden
This technique works well. I often find a small hook or something to chuck in the drill, rather than the wires themselves. Obviously, use slow speed on the drill. No special tools required
This will get you, because as the wires twist they get shorter. So make more than you need before twisting.
Past few days I've been planning the next steps, namely connectors, kill switch, battery cables, fusebox and mounting of all of the above.
Today I'll show the CAD (cardboard aided design) prototype of the bracket for ECU/Fusebox. I'm keeping the dash complete, except without the passenger side vent. Removing that vent frees up a lot of space under the dash, which is where the ECU/fusebox will go. Also I want the glovebox to be able to close.
The actual bracket will be made of 1.6mm aluminium. At least that's the plan right now
har har har
these crimpers are expensive. this one has gotta be older than me, but seems to be in working condition.
Today I installed some new lights in the garage
I will mount 2 more tomorrow.
These are the lights - 10 125PACK 22W 4ft Day White 6000K LED T8 Integrated Fluorescent Tube Light Lamp | eBay
They are supposingly 2600 lumens each. If you order 25 @ $200 then its only $8 per lamp or 33'000 lumens/$100 - which is cheapest I have found. They mount with dinky little clips but the lamps are light enough that its ok. They can also be daisy-chained which is how I have it.
I haven't been posting but I *have* been making progress!
I figured out the routing for battery cables, bought the cable, crimper, kill switch and almost finished installing it all. The batter cables run on the passenger side door still (under the carpet) which may or may not be a fire hazard but we'll see.
Overall I'm pretty happy how it turned out. Wire is 4ga thin-strand "welding" grade stuff.
It was tricky to wire the kill switch properly. The alternator and battery go to one terminal. Starter and 12V busbar go to the other terminal. So that's the bundle of 4 wires you see. I wanted to hide it better but it is difficult to route around the heater core.
The busbar will allow me to easily connect multiple 12V leads.
The thing on the firewall is a pass-through with 3 terminals - ground, starter and alternator. We all know how fun it is to undo the starter lead, so this is a way around it. I could pull the engine by just unbolting 3 10mm nuts on the firewall side and voila!
Here's what it looks like on the engine side
Finally, sneak peak at something I've been messing around with. We all know how these projects get out of hand quickly... so now I'm putting AN lines on everything. Including the heater core. NPT fitting pictured but you get the idea.
you should be able to use a normal AN flare or certainly a compression fitting on the heater core lines. Or you could be mega lazy and cut them short and jumper to an AN barb fitting with a short piece of rubber hose.
So, the heater core from the factory has 17mm OD tubes. One of them is also real short and has that terribad rubber coupler on it.
17mm OD is a weird size and there are NO fittings in that size. However, 5/8" is 0.625" which is 15.825mm, and that's close enough. To compress 17mm OD to 15.825mm I used a flaring tool block. I bought a Ridgid 377 flaring tool for 37* flares and the tubing fixture is made of extremely hardened metal.
Basically put the tube in the black thing and squeeze it with a c-clamp until tube is 15.825mm. After that there are several options. I can braze an NPT fitting. I can use a compression fitting. I could possibly do a AN flare directly, but there's not a lot of room to work with. I could braze copper pipe and have a steampunk car, etc.
The flaring tool was $80 on ebay, highly recommended. It is supposingly made in USA too!
I'm positive you could find a female NPT to flare adapter in brass to braze onto the heater tubes once you drilled out the female threads to the appropriate size. Only thing is I don't know what angle the flare will be? And if there is any issue with brass and aluminum touching. In the plumbing contractor world, brass is our dielectric union but we don't use aluminum.
I'm positive you could find a female NPT to flare adapter in brass to braze onto the heater tubes once you drilled out the female threads to the appropriate size. Only thing is I don't know what angle the flare will be? And if there is any issue with brass and aluminum touching. In the plumbing contractor world, brass is our dielectric union but we don't use aluminum.
I want to
1) minimize the number of failure points
2) make it as compact as possible
3) do it as cheap as possible
With those in mind, I think the best option is to braze a female NPT fitting and to use an NPT-to-AN hose end, like this one
That's my plan right now, but I have to see how much/little space there is. Also want the heater core lines to be supported by the heater box.
Well, I don't like NPT either so I looked at braze-on JIC aka AN fittings. I found a couple and they all seem to be steel or stainless steel. I dunno how doable it is to braze stainless to brass heater core.
08-24-2016, 11:43 AM
0
