Little By Little

[LumbermanSVO]

Ah, yes, the insulation. Yeah, it should greatly help in the winter. It has certainly slowed down the time it takes the floor to heat up in traffic in hot weather.

I do not have a hard top anymore, but I do have an idea for adding insulation to the soft top for the winter, and my girlfriend has the sewing skills to make it happen. I also have the "high output" heater, and it kept up in 0°f weather last winter. ;-)

 

[Seabronc]

It's a little late now, but I used the EVA sound deadener and heat shield kit  sold by LMC Truck to take care of the hot floor caused by the exhaust system.   It worked great for that purpose.  http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fd/full.aspx?Page=102

Good luck with your sound system.

>-

 

[LumbermanSVO]

So, I was scheduled to fly home today, but things changed. A guy st work really screwed up and got himself fired, lucky for me, I was smart enough to learn his job while being his assistant and I was promoted.

The bad news is that I won't be home until the end of the month now, and in the future I'll be gone for 16 days at a time instead of 6. The good news is that now I've saved two high dollar shows for this company in the 5 months I've been working with them.

And more good news/bad news: My girlfriend leaves town for several days the same day I get back. On the plus side, I'll have a handful of uninterrupted days to work on the Bronco!

 

[LumbermanSVO]

I got home last week and I've spent a couple days working on the Bronco. I haven't taken many pictures yet, but I have made some progress. I started the cargo cover build and have it roughed in, tomorrow I will finish up shaping it and cover it in vinyl.

I also put all the electronics back in and started the task of wiring it all. Everything has power and a solid ground now. The front speakers are all wired up. I built my own RCA cables and they are partially installed. I think I should have some sound out of it by the end of the week. 

I still have a fun list of things to do, and I have parts for most of it.

• 3G alt upgrade
  
• mount sub amp volume ****
  
• Build new mounts for the compression drivers
  
• Build new trim ring/mount for the shifter boot
  
• Fix horn
  
• Move bright switch from floor
  
• Add switches to old clock housing
  
• Replace heater core
  
• Seal holes in interior door skin
  

And that's the short list before actually building the new interior panels. I'll have some pictures for you soon!

 

[LumbermanSVO]

My work trip lasted MUCH longer than planned, but it came with a great promotion!
 
I built a cargo cover last week and today covered it in vinyl and found some neat Trim for the edges. When it was bare wood it made noise like nothing else, but the new trim should fix that, I'll be going for a short drive soon.
 
After I built the cover I mounted all the electronics again and started the task of wiring it all. It looks fairly complete, but I still have many hours left.
 
The left side amps waiting for the wiring to be cleaned up, I made all the RCA cables myself.
 

 
The right side, most of the wiring has been cleaned up, still a few small things left.
 

 
Here are the three pieces that make up the cargo cover. I've designed it so it can fold up so I can have the back seat up, most of the time the back seat is folded so it has to cover that area too.
 

 
The three pieces covered in vinyl.
 

 
It's a good color match for the current interior.
 

 
I found this neat trim at Lowe's, it was in the door section. I'm using it to both trim the edges and to for a rattle free seal agains the bed rails and tailgate.
 

 
Here you can see how it mates up to the wood. I will eventually cover the bottom of the cover in matching vinyl, I just don't have enough right now.
 

 
Screwing a piano hinge to two of the pieces.
 

 
It's crappy lighting for shooting an interior, but here are two shots of it installed. The back half is one large piece, the front half is two pieces so it can be folded back with the top on.
 

 

 
I'll get some better pictures of it installed when I get some better light.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Today was a kinda frustrating day. I covered some of the trim pieces of the interior in the same vinyl I used on the cargo cover and it looks good. The problem came when putting the trim piece back on at the top on the windshield. That stupid thing just didn't want to go back in place. I spent over an our trying to get it to stay, with no luck. I have a plan and will fix it tomorrow, and get some more pictures.
 
Next up I started working on the switch panel to replace the factory clock. I had already modified the clock housing before, so it was just a matter of modifying it some more. I started by disassembling it down the face and the piece right behind the face, the face gets thrown away after the next step. here are the two pieces:
 

 
I used a 90º pick tool and traced the face on to my new material, ABS plastic found in any car audio shop.
 

 
Here is the new piece sitting next to the old one:
 

 
Next I used my ruler and 90º pick tool to scribe the switch locations into the back of the new piece:
 

 
Here is the piece with holes drilled in it so I can get started with the dremel.
 

 
Here we are with the switch holes all cut out and ready for the switches. As crazy as it sounds, for this kinda work I just go freehand and take my time. I use my chest to help brace the piece and keep the RPM's low on the dremel to keep it from chattering.
 

 
Here is the piece with the switches. From left to right, brights, left window, door locks, right window, front speakers, sub woofers, aux speakers. I'm moving the bright switch up there because I've never been a fan of the floor switch, and it doesn't work right anyway. Being able to turn off different speakers is for when I'm doing different things, driving or camping or so on.
 

 
Here is the back of the panel with the factory piece behind it. I will bond the two together so it will snap back into the factory clock housing.
 

 
Tomorrow I will trim the radio bezel so it is one large opening instead of three small openings.
 
I also investigated why my parking brake doesn't work and it looks like I can fix it for free, or very cheap. It doesn't ratchet anymore and the mechanism is frozen. I was able to get it to move sometimes just by playing with it after removing it from the car. I dumped some **** on the joints as will let it sit tonight, then tomorrow I will see how it works. I'll also try to track down a spring to help it work.

 

[Seabronc]

If you are talking about the curved piece that goes along the top of the front window, I had a similar problem.  What I did was ditch the metal clips and used 3 stainless screws, one in the center and one on each end.  Looking good  /

>-

 

[Elmo]

i cant see any pics. What gives?

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Seabronc, yeah, it's that piece. It's amazing how it just flat out refuses to go back in. I can get two clips in, but the other two won't go. I'm hoping I can find some screws that match better than stainless would.

Elmo, I dunno. They work on my end...

 

[LumbermanSVO]

I haven't done much over the last few days except fix the parking brake.

The pedal was working, but not ratcheting. I verified that the actual brakes were working, then removed the pedal assembly for further inspection. I found that the ratcheting mechanism was frozen with rust.  I sprayed it with PB blaster until it would move again then let it sit overnight. The next day I sprayed all the moving joints with lithium grease and reinstalled it, and it works great now. It's nice when a fix like that turns out to be simple and free, even better that the assembly was easier to R&R than I though ti would be.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Well, that didn't go so well.

I just tried to pull the heater box so I can replace the heater core. Turns out, when I had it replaced last fall the mechanic didn't secure the core in the housing and after a year developed a leak.

I found the three bolts on the inside of the firewall and removed them, but the two on the engine bay side refused to come out. They just spun, and nothing I could do would pull them. i eventually got made and pulled on the housing until it broke. I did find the problem, the bolts were rusted to the nuts, and the buts were no longer secured to the firewall.

I was planning to swap over to the factory A/C instead of this hodgepodge aftermarket A/C on top of the factory high output heater. I guess I'll be doing that sooner than planned.

----------

Also, there has to be some way to keep the mosquitos away while I work, they drive me insane. 

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Tire questions:

I purchases some 17" wheels about 8-9 months ago, but then had to return them to fund my unplanned move to VA. Now I'm getting to the point that I need to do something about my aging tires and wheels.

I currently have 33x15.5's on some American Racing wheels. The tires are old, and the wheels are corroding on the inside and outside.

I want to step up to a 17x8 wheel, but keep my current 33" tire height. I spent a few hours today learning about this stuff and it looks like I need a 255/75 17 to meet my goals, is that correct?

If I'm right, then it'll be about $1300 for 4 wheels and highway friendly tires, mounted, balanced and shipped.

 

[Seabronc]

Wheel height looks real close, about 1/2 inch lower than your 33s    http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Bridgestone&tireModel=Blizzak+DM-V1&partnum=575R7DMV1&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes&tab=Specs

>-  

 

[LumbermanSVO]

Sounds good to me. I leave for a month of work on the 29th, they'll be waiting for me when I get home!

 

[LumbermanSVO]

I did a little work today, starting with trimming the center dash piece to fit my new switch setup:
 

 
Next I moved on to straitening up the amp wiring. I firmly believe in paying attention to the small details, you'll cuss at yourself later on if you don't. Since I am using 4 different amps, from 4 different lines, they all have their own needs, so its kinda hard to get a uniform look. Here are what some of the details wound up like. (phone pics)
 
The bottom of the Zapco AG200:

 
The JL 300/4 speaker and RCA connections:

 
MTX RT2400 connections:

 
The MTX RT2400 and Zapco 1500. The speaker wire coming out of the Zapco is temporary, it's for the temporary pre-fab box for the subs. The speaker wire from the MTX is for external/aux/camping speakers.

 
The PPI processor, this little gem is very inexpensive, very powerful and probably easier to operate than any other car audio processor on the market.

 
And last, the connections on the cheap pre-fab box. I found this box for $40-ish on Amazon Prime. It had different style terminals on it so I swapped them out to banana plugs. This should show that, even though it's temporary, I still want to make sure the connections are done properly.