Much of time in the shed lately has been spent on re-wiring the truck. The primary goal was the relocate the both left and right front lighting loom segments, as well as the redundant starter solenoid and the associated wiring, as well as the wiring for the twin-thermo fans I installed so that I could fron the front sheet metal tubs to the quarter panels. I also wanted to clean up some other wiring that was messy, bad or just plain useless.

I rerouted and reconnected much of the LPG wiring, including the electric lock-off, fuel gauge and primer switch.

I also refactored the wiring I did behind the dash for the gauges, making it all much neater and in the process removing more redundant elements.

Today I finished it all off, and tested all the various systems without any dramas, except for a loose fuse in the airbag controller whch had me worried I'd messed something up for a few mins. By the end I seemed to have removed a lot of extraneous wiring from all over the place, loads of old insulation tape and plenty of old connecters

I'm pretty happy with the outcome, as all the new connections were soldered and covered with heatshrink before taping up again. Importantly, my front quarter panels are wire free!

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tags:  wiring

Happy day, after months and months of planning, dreaming, measuring I finally had the billet wheels for the truck in my hands on Friday. It's been a bit of a journey, thus the lack of updates.

I put in the order with Zak at Boze Alloys back in October and he made the process very easy. Thanks also to David at McHugh and Eastwood in North Geelong who handled the freight for me. As the wheels were in transmit, I put an order in for my tyres at Associated Cold Tread Tyres in North Geelong. Toyo are the only manufacturer who could make the size and load rating requirements for my rear tyres, so I went with the Proxes ST-II, although I have to wait until next year for the front tyres.

It all came together when I picked up the wheels, dropped them off to have tyres fitted (used the tyres from a pair of my BMW wheels on the fronts for now.) I also went back to Hoppers to grab my bench seat, as I've not progressed the bucket seat frame and I'm not undecided which way I want to go with the seating.

Fitting the rear wheels wasn't as straight forward as I'd expected. The BMW wheels with the 255 wide tyres were already a squeeze to fit between the tub arch and the wheel hub assembly, and no matter what I tried the wider wheels and tyres didn't want to go in nicely. In the end, I had to unbolt the tub from the chassis, and using the beams in my sheds roof and some ratchet straps, pulled each side up enough to squueze the wheels in. I was pondering a tilt-tub at some stage, I might have to make that a priority now!

Having the exhaust fitted and lacking a hoist combined to make the process slower and more tedious than it should have been, so it wasn't until this morning I got the fronts fitted (without dramas) and then reinstalled the bench seat.The floor shift works fine with the bench seat fitted, thus making the decision about what I do with the seating a little more difficult.

I deliberately ordered the front wheels with less offset than the BMW runners I was rolling on, as they were tucking in a little more than I liked. The front now rub on the guards when the truck is fuly dropped and my turning circle - even with the truck at full height - is considerably reduced. I expected the guards would need some work when I got around to putting the front tubs in, so that should sort it all out. I have already started re-routing wiring away from the guards, and have the LHS front now running through the chassis rail.

I'm very happy with the end result, looks even better than the ultra-dodgy photoshop I did 12 months ago when I committed to this style of wheel.

One of the other reason for the lack of updates and progress has been another project I've been working on for my step-son Max. I finally finished his rather large outdoor half-pipe which he's most pleased with. This means I get back onto the truck, and with 3 weeks over Xmas I'm expecting to get a lot of the interior done. I've got the Geelong All Ford Day in Feb as a target to have it fully streetable, hopefully with engineering completed.

PS. Thanks FedEx for charging me import duty on US-made goods when you know perfectly well we have a Free Trade Agreement in place. At least they arrived in good order and on time.

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tags:  bench seat, billet wheels, Boze Alloys, Toyo Proxes ST-II, wheel tubs, wiring

Popped in again to see where things are at with the truck. It's been busier than usual at work so I've not had the chance to get out to see it or chase up progress as much as I would like. While it's not ready take home just yet, there has been progress and it is nearly there.

The bench seat is out, happily sitting in a '56 F100 cab where it's possibly going to stay. The drivers side is now sporting one of the BA bucket seats I scored a while back, tacked in place ready to test the seating position with my arse in it. The Lokar shifter is also in, and I'm glad that I made the right choice on the 16" shaft as it's the perfect fit. When I sat it in, if felt like it was made that - Cam had everything in spot on first go so thankfully there's nothing to move or change.

The wiring is also progressing, making everything legal so that the airbag controls are disabled unless it's in park. Once that's all done and the engine is ready to fire up again, it should be good to go - fingers crossed my next entry has it sitting in the garage.

I also took an opportunity to take a couple of shots of the headers, which look really good.

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tags:  bucket seats, headers, shifter, wiring