46 Power Wagon Restoration pt. 2

[Desoto61]

Trying to get all my parts so I can finalize what all wires need to go where, there are a lot of them.

Got the distribution panel done and mounted to the cab. Will probably need a bigger circuit breaker for the pull up coil of the fuel cutoff solenoid, but the rest should be good. The panel will be fed from a 4 ga cable from a splitter between the battery and the starter.

Hardest thing so far is to cut a wire, but most of the wires under the hood are just about where they belong. So I left what slack I had near the bulkhead and started cutting the wires and installing them into the connector. Only downside of the bulkhead fitting is it's limited to 20a max, so the main feed wiring can't go through it. Ended up having to punch another hole for the larger wires to run through the bulkhead. Of course this was after I cut them, so they'll have to be spliced back together, but I wasn't going to be able to re-run them without a lot of trouble anyway.

Still need to get my gauges so I can make sure I have the right sensor wires running where they belong, and that's just a matter of $$$. Working on running wires for the alarm, convenience module and various miscellaneous components. Ironically there is a decent amount of free room behind the dash, but not lots of mounting space. Ended up having to build some new mounting spots. Not my best design, and really hard to drill the mounting holes, but should make a strong and convenient mounting point, plus help control some of the wiring.

[Desoto61]

Playing with the wiring over the long weekend and it's starting to hurt my head. I have too many accessories and some of them just don't want to play nicely together.

Dakota Digital makes a nifty convenience module that provides some modern features like dome light controls, automatic headlights, and retained power (accessories stay on till door is opened).

Problem is it operates all the relays by sinking them to ground. While the alarm module and the headlight relay module work by feeding them 12V, so I need a relay to operate the relay, which is really annoying and redundant for such a small load. Need to find a compact way to swap the polarity, maybe a mosfet or some sort of compact solid state relay since it only needs to handle a few hundred mA. It's getting hard to find space for all these relays.

[Desoto61]

Not a lot of work on the truck, still playing with the wiring, which is nice because it supports an hour here and there better than some jobs, and wiring is not very photogenic, just a mess of wires that changes into a different mess of even more wires as I get parts of the electrical system worked out.

I picked up some waterproof LED strip lights to install. They're cheap, bright and flexible. Plan is to install some under the dash wired to the interior lights and some under the seats wired to the parking lights so that you have a little cab lighting under all conditions.

I had been running wires to items that aren't part of the harness, like the fan controller and speed sensor, but determined that the generic auto store wire isn't really that good compared to the GXL wire used in the Painless harness. Found packs of the wire at Wirehut for decent prices, so I'll have to remove that wire and re-run any of my external wiring at minimum with the new stuff when it comes.

I had also started running the wire harness that came with the fog lights I installed, being LED the wire is really light 20-ga. After thinking it over I decided I didn't want to do that either since if I ever want to replace them with something that has more power draw I'll have to run new wire. So I'll scrap their harness and just wire up my own with some heavier gauge to support any possible future use.

[Desoto61]

Spent some time in the garage with my dad and had him help me till and bleed the brakes and clutch. Good news was very few leaks, most of which went away just tightening up the offending joint. Bad news is I think my clutch has stuck from sitting so long. Not sure how to get it loose.
Won't be able to tell how the brakes will feel and react till I have the booster running.

[Desoto61]

Sometime knowledge is painful HA! I feel your pain though, I'm often missing pieces I need because I just don't have the money to drop on them yet. Gauges being the biggest, have them all picked out, just don't have the cash to drop on them yet, and then it's still a 3-4 week turnaround.

I'll be jealous if you do. I keep finding myself wanting to wire things like that system with central relays for most of my loads, less for power handling and more for ease of control. If I put the linear motors on my windshield and cowl on relays I can trigger the relay from just about anything, including that little computer. Be easy to have it open the windshield for some ventilation on a hot day for instance.

Well that's one of the reasons I post, so people can figure out what not to do!

As an aside I was learning up on welding the stainless and like you've already figured back purging seems to be a necessity if you want it to last, so guess I will need to see about borrowing your regulator when the time comes. It will be a week or two though, while the wiring is nice because I can do it for an hour or two each night, the exhaust is really more of a weekend thing where you just need to be able to hack at it all day, and my weekends are tied up for a while.

[Alxj64]

Uggh, my wallet hates you at the moment as I believe I may end up going down the route of that infinity box... it just fits the bill with my electronic controlled engine, grid heaters and timers, etc.

I will be hawking your build for more cool ideas! So get to it! ha ha.

[Desoto61]

Yes, the wiring can be a little strange if you're not clear on how it works, but the end result is much simpler and WAY more flexible, but the basic kit is just that, enough to do what my Painless kit does just at 3-times the price, then you still need to add others, plus the rear module isn't as convenient in a truck as it would be in your vehicle.

Speaking of Vintage Air controls, check out Dakota Digital, I learned too late that they have an add-on control for VA systems that is more modern and automated. It's too late for me to use, not enough room either, but it honestly wasn't much more than the billet control panel from Vintage I used. I still need to buy one of their retained accessory modules eventually for the Power Wagon.

[Alxj64]

I almost sold my kit and went after the Isis kit (now called InfinityBOX). It's a bus based system like modern cars use. Actually a lot less wiring to do and way more flexible, but holy crap the price! It would make some of the stuff I'm doing a lot more simple, but I just couldn't justify the cost difference.

Now that right there is just cool... but yea thats a lot of coin just for some simple mechanical things... I did see they have crazy cool vintage air controls too though, that way you can use whatever knobs you want and it has built in potentiometers and stuff I guess.

[Desoto61]

May do that, I know they do it at work, but that's quite a different quality level then my project so I wasn't sure how necessary it was for this.

Yes, the passenger side is very busy, guess the driver's side was worse when there were floor mounted peddles. Honestly the only place I really want more room is beside the transfer case. Tons of space on the driver's side but very tight on the passenger side, hence the little jog I need to put in the pipe. Well by the same token I ended up getting a nice weatherpack crimper, so when you get there let me know.

So far I'm pretty happy with the Painless setup, though they've updated them in the last year or so, and there are some interesting alternatives out there, but if you time it right there are some good deals on the Painless stuff too. I got a $150 rebate AND one of their wire loom kits when I bought mine.

I almost sold my kit and went after the Isis kit (now called InfinityBOX). It's a bus based system like modern cars use. Actually a lot less wiring to do and way more flexible, but holy crap the price! It would make some of the stuff I'm doing a lot more simple, but I just couldn't justify the cost difference.

[Alxj64]

When you go to fully weld that stuff, if you want to borrow my back purge regulator you certainly may. Maybe you can get better at SS TIG than myself and I'll trade some other work if you want to weld up my mess. 3" IS decievingly large under these FFPW chassis. Looks like you are making hella good progress though! Lovin it! I may bug you on your thoughts on the painless harnesses when the time comes given our trucks appear to have many similar amenities.

[Desoto61]

In the never-ending stream of parts I seem to need to connect all these other pieces parts. My OCD nature wants it all to be clean and well organized, but that takes a lot of patience and time. I'm going to need a location for some electrical components underhood, since the tank I wanted to use for windshield washers isn't going to fit here I decided to build a plate for those parts. I bent it out of aluminum and used some riv-nuts to bolt it to the firewall, loosely for now till I figure out what all needs to be mounted to it and where.

Otherwise I took a break from wire and switched to exhaust. It will be a 3" stainless setup that will exit in front of the rear tire. It's a tricky run, I want to keep it tucked up tight, but there's not as much room for it on the passenger side as there would be on the driver's side. Just kind of tacking everything in place till I know I'm happy with the final run. I figured I had more room than I really do, so the muffler I bought is a little large. Thankfully the centered rear axle leaves plenty of room for it side-to-side, but length wise it will be close. Then I'll need to figure out how to hang it all off the frame.

[deicerman]

fantastic work

this is a build that i want to do when i get a truck !!!!!! still looking

[Desoto61]

True, though some of it is my routing of the wires. But on the other hand the cruise module comes pre-terminated with a bulkhead connector so no option to run your own wire. As for the rest of it, the Painless harness is nice, all color coded and labeled ever foot as to what it does. Plus they lay out all the confusing sections like how to wire up the turn signal switches for single rear lights vice separate rear turn signal lights and such.

Biggest problem with it is that while this is a truck harness they basically just make the car harness but with an extra long rear wiring section, except some of the wires on a truck don't go to the rear, like the power antenna wire, which will probably become a remote turn-on for an amp, but is super long like the rear tail light wires. Not a big deal, but like you said, lots of excess wire. But it's all top quality wire so I can find a use for it!

[Duane Aldridge]

When I done the wiring on the 4bt 59 Power Giant cut and ran every wire from scratch all wires are proper length and nice tight and looked real nice. If I had started with a pre manufacture harness I guess about half would have been wasted. Fleabag!!

[cj7ox]

Looking good, Desoto! Really enjoying the progress!