joelsmithdesigns

Got the battery box built this weekend (will put up pictures and a writeup later) and was driving the rig home at about 6:00 am Saturday morning when disaster struck.

Going down the interstate headed the short 20 minute drive home from the shop after working all night on the battery box and something in the motor popped and just started dumping oil. Complete white smoke fogging up the interstate, cars diving out of the lane behind me as oil droplets rained on their windshield. My heart completely sank.....what now?

Luckily as I'm watching the oil pressure drop like a pregnant pole vaulter, I was able to limp it off the highway and get to a gas station where I quickly turned their parking lot into the Exxon Valdez. There was an IHOP across the street, and I was only about 5 miles from home.....Figured I'd dump 3-4 quarts of oil in it, have breakfast at the IHOP next door and let it cool down, and then try and make it home. As I'm filling it up with oil, I grabbed a flashlight to see if I could locate where it was coming from. Oil was everywhere. The entire back window of the rig had it dripping off, the undercarriage was covered, there was so much oil, it was hard to tell where the source was. Rear main? Front main? blown oil line or head gasket? Then I spotted it. When I had set the timing last week, I had forgotten to tighten down the bolt holding in the distributor. Because that's right where the oil soaked chain spins, it was literally squirting oil out of that little 8mm bolt hole like a super soaker.....right onto the header and everything else. Luckily as I've been working on it a bunch lately, I had the right type of bolt to plug it up and get it tightened down.

Got everything filled back up and started for home (deciding to skip breakfast for some much needed sleep after being up all night)...smoked a little bit, but I'm sure that was some of the old stuff burning off. Ran like a champ. My emotions went from being super excited about figuring out the battery setup and getting all of that fabricated (hadn't tig welded in 8-10 years) to completely devastated when I thought something major had gone wrong with the motor. Then a little embarrassed that I had forgotten to tighten the distributor bolt down.

It's amazing how one little 8mm bolt can be so important.......a lesson that cost me 4 quarts of Royal purple and however long it'll take me to degrease the rig.

I'm really happy with how the dual battery tray came out and man was it a tight fit. I'll do a full writeup some time this week with a bunch of pictures when I go to paint all of the raw metal parts and buy a few more 2 gauge terminals (ran out at around 3 in the morning).

joelsmithdesigns

So there was a lot more involved in the dual battery tray and the clearance that was needed to get two 34/78 Optimas to fit than I though there would be.

I had to wire about 6' of extra wire (7 different wires) to move the AFM plug to the other side of the vehicle. I wanted it to look stock, so I also enlarged and replaced the factory loom that runs under the lip of the radiator support. Lots of splicing, wrapping, etc.



simple 90 degree 3" spectre elbow from Pep boys and extended MAF / AFM wiring to that location.



Extended MAF / AFM wiring


I also had to lower the power steering cooler pipe about 3-4 inches so the battery tray would have clearance. I simply widened the hole for one of the grill mounts and set up the PS cooler to run there instead. Of course I had to chop off the grill mount that was supposed to go into that hole to provide clearance, but it all worked out fine.

Another PITA was the headlight. It (and more importantly the plug leading to it) was jutting out into the area I wanted to put the battery tray. Either it had to go forward a bit, shrink, remove the plug, or a combination of those. I ended up using some extra hose as "spacers" to move the headlight forward a bit. I also cut the plug out, bent the tangs on the H4 light to the sides and used 5/16" female spade connectors to wire it up. All of that gave me about 3/4" - 1" more space for the tray.



rubber hose to move the headlight forward slightly



had to nix the plug on the back for extra room



hopefully where my dual battery tray will go.....note the lowered power steering cooler to the left

I did a little bit of research on some trays that were out there, and didn't feel like spending the coin on them, but liked some of the designs. Although I plan to lasercut out the bumper parts, I figured I could do this by hand and it may not turn out as "fancy", but would be functional none the less. I also wanted to incorporate a place for the dual mega fuses and National luna intelligent solenoid on the box (in case I ever need to remove it....I wanted to be able to take the whole setup out).

Here's a few designs I liked....(images yanked off google)







So....no CAD software or pre-determined design....I simply started with some cardboard cutouts of the lower part, did a sketch of the uprights with a spot to mount the National Luna gear and cut everything out with a grinder and cutting wheel (out of 12ga or so scrap metal....aka FREE!). Welded it all up, added in some welded bolts (for studs) and came out with the below. Obviously I uninstalled it and painted it up since then and will try to get some more pictures of the National Luna stuff installed and everything wired up. I ran out of 2 gauge end terminals, so didn't quite get the second battery hooked up yet (or the plug going to the winch), but that shouldn't be too hard to do, I just need to stop by a parts store and pick some up.



needs a logo or sticker on top



TIGHT fit!





why I had to modify the headlight wiring and cheat it forward





National Luna setup and 2 mega fuses mounted to the back - will get better pictures of that later



support bracket (ugly as sin, but I didn't even weld it....just grabbed it out of the scrap bin at the shop)

joelsmithdesigns

Here's what I've got planned for a micro Littelfuse 60 point relay box to house all of the relays needed for the auxiliary lighting I'm planning to put on the rig. I ordered the wiring and stuff to do this, and will probably sit down one evening this week with a few John Wayne movies and try to get it all wired up. I figured a diagram would help as some of this can get a bit confusing (especially if you're not an electrician....and I by no means am). I pulled the standard wiring diagram off the interwebs and threw this together.

7 fused relays in all with two extra fused 12v outputs (probably for under hood or interior LED lighting (doesn't require a relay because the draw is much less)

I also included the picture of my planned mockup so it makes a little more sense to where the lights are going.

The only two things I'm not 100% sure of is the 5 roof rack lights using two relays and coming from the same switch and I may need to use a DPDT (double pole double throw) switch and relay for the reverse lights. I want them to be able to come on with the stock reverse lights (run the relay trigger from the reverse light switch), but I also want to be able to turn them on individually or have it to where they can be turned off (not joined with the factory reverse lights).

Most of the components came in last night from Waytek wire and I'm impressed at how small the whole unit is. It's TINY! uses Micro II relays and fuses with Metri-pack 280 style connectors

space-junk

iTrader: (1)

Im glad it wasn't anything too bad. When I read that update my heart sank. You've put too much time and effort (not to mention money) into that motor for it to pop.

Battery box looks great. Any plans on selling one or would it not be worth the time?

joelsmithdesigns

yeah....there were some choice words mumbled under my breath when oil started going everywhere. Who would have thought you could lose 4 quarts of oil out a 8mm bolt hole.

I'll see what I can do fabbing up another battery box. I had found a 1/4 sheet of scrap 12 gauge at the shop.....If I come across some more I'll snag it up.

joelsmithdesigns

Here's a couple of shots of the box painted up and the National Luna Intelligent Solenoid mounted to the back of it along with the Mega Fuses.

The NL Solenoid is only rated at 85 amps and although it has a 3 year warranty, I may go ahead and do a bit of "upgrading" there. I'm probably going to swap out the actual solenoid to one that is rated at least 150 amps (120 amp jaguar alternator) and upgrade the Mega fuses to 150's as well (right now they're only 100 amp. I think there will be less strain on the system, faster charging, and less likelihood of a meltdown or blown fuse when combining the batteries to winch.





P.S. There's a better than good chance I'll be fabricating a stainless snorkel this weekend out of some "U" bends and a straight piece of 3" stainless exhaust tubing. Not sure if I want to build a watertight airbox or use the K&N sealed Apollo unit though.

bootscootboogie

iTrader: (1)

I learn something new every time you post an update. and your editing skills make your thread so awesome!

joelsmithdesigns

Thanks Bootscoot,

I Had never done an engine rebuild on a vehicle or attempted most of the things I've tried thus far (some that worked out successfully, some.....not so much). I'm learning alongside everyone else and just wanted to help pass along whatever knowledge I've filtered through (usually from this site or others). There's more plans on the books....so we'll see what all I can get done coming up (and now that it's actually running). Looking forward to one of the greatest things in life here in Texas, a camping trip down to the hill country and to tube the 65 degree spring fed Guadalupe River some time this summer......may even be planning a trip to the New Mexico mountains.

joelsmithdesigns

since most of the wire, connectors, and other components came in over the past few days, I decided to sit down and start on getting all the waterproof jumpers and connectors wired up to the fuse / relay panel. I like overkill, so I went with 12ga for the power (to the fuses, jumped to the relay, and will run the same gauge wire to each set of lights with a waterproof connector) and ground. However, such large gauge wire was a bit much for the cavities of this micro fuse box (as you can see how small it actually is in the pictures below), so I couldn't do the jumpers bridging from hot to hot or ground to ground like I had in my original diagram and will have to use a Bus bar for the negative and a separate one for the positive instead or wire all of the leads together and solder them inside a much larger single ring terminal and connect that to the battery (accessory yellow top).

Red is hot (batt +) and black (with red stripe) is negative (Batt -). I found it was much cheaper to buy 12ga AWG speaker wire than individual primary and picked up 100ft of it.....splitting it down the middle to separate the two. The wire that will be coming from the switches is 14ga and I thought it would be less confusing to use different colors (maybe even corresponding labels or nail polish dots on relays, connectors, and such), so that's the "bunch" of leads you'll notice in the background. I had purchased a kit of 11 different colors of wire from Amazon and still have several other colors that weren't used in this setup, but will be the switch wires to the winch or other accessories and run in the same loom. I just did this little bit of wiring while watching a movie last night, and actually spent more time researching than I did wiring.

I was looking into what combination of SPST / SPDT switches and relays I need to have the auxiliary 4" reverse lights work in conjunction with the stock reverse lights, or be switched on manually......It's going to use a normal relay (as shown in my original layout) with a SPDT (On, off, on) switch. That way one side of the switch is powered by a jumper to the transmission reverse light switch (On with reverse lights), they can be turned off, and the other side of the switch will be a fused 12v ignition on so I can turn them on independently of the brake lights (I saw many diagrams using diodes and other methods, and I didn't want the loop on the reverse light switch to inadvertently get powered on and make the car think it was in reverse....probably not good for the ECU).

I'll have to update the wiring diagram to include the switches later, but when I finally realized that I actually had it planned correctly if I was to use a SPDT switch, I just charged ahead with getting the fuse panel rocking and rolling.

Here's a shot of where I got to. 75% done. Also, I'm already saving a bunch of money from not buying a pre-done kit off ebay or a 4x4 site, I also refused to pay for the fancy pants terminal crimper, so some of the extra time was added from using a simple pair of needle nose and just being patient. Still don't have the wires leading from the relays to the lights installed but that's because it was late and they will be different lengths. Luckily, most of those wire runs will be very short as the battery and fuse panel will be close to the front bumper. The only two that will be fairly long are to the reverse lights and the rooftop lighting.



view from the top. Many of the holes are plugged as each relay takes up 6 positions, but only uses 4. Top right you can see a micro II 35A SPST relay installed. Great little system using Metri-pack 280 style terminals that allow the Micro II fuses or relays to be inserted horizontally, or vertically



Red 12ga will go to a + busbar and leads into the fuses, then to the relays. Black (with red stripe) 12ga will go to a grounding busbar. Colorful spools will be run through the firewall to the switches with other wiring going to the interior.

joelsmithdesigns

didn't get much (if anything ) done this weekend on the rig, but that's mainly because a couple of VIP Private Suite passes to the Indy Car race fell in my lap. We went both days, and only got to see them run about 30 laps before it was called / postponed for rain.

Might drive the rig up to work this week to test it's road worthiness before I give back my dad's farm truck. I'm heading down to the folks place this weekend for Father's day and probably dropping off the truck for good. I may try staying late after work to see if I can't get some progress made on these rear panels and subwoofer boxes.

thebeeler

Everything looks great except for where you mounted the batteries, that spot won't work. Your inner fender-well will fail, one battery is enough to mangle the inner fender-well/stock battery tray location. Two will destroy it fur sure. I would recommend moving them to elsewhere(bed) or figuring out a solid location to mount them under the hood, because that fender well is not solid.


Fuse box progress looks great, i'm currently setting up a Bussman fuse box with a Rasberry Pi based Bluetooth controller so that I can control all the lights from a smartphone. Current options on the market didn't meet my standards.

joelsmithdesigns

I've got a supporting bracket underneath the battery box and some further support that bolts on the inside of the fender. Hoping that'll be enough....it felt pretty darn secure.

joelsmithdesigns

Drove the rig in this morning, hoping to get some work done at my office after work. There's still a decent oil leak...nothing comparable to the billows of white smoke and it filling the cab before, but I could still notice a bit of fog behind me as I drove. I was thinking it was just residual oil burning off the exhaust at first, but on a 30 minute drive in, I was still mosquito fogging up the interstate. It looks like it's leaking either from the valve cover on the driver's side, Somewhere near the dipstick / distributor, or (and lets hope that's not the case) from the timing cover. Everything is so covered in oil at this point, I'm just going to have to get a bottle of degreaser and a roll of paper towels and clean it all up before I can determine where it's actually coming from.

joelsmithdesigns

Now that my 4Runner is up at work, I decided to stay late and get the rig cleaned up (it was full of boxes of gear I'm working on and other tools and stuff) so I could pull out the rest of the interior and work on getting the rear panels fabricated.

It's kind of funny, I realized that the small little dome light probably wasn't going to cut it for providing sufficient light in the rear (and I didn't want it draining the battery the whole time), so I grabbed some extra LED strip lighting we had laying around at work and ran an extension cord out to it. Holy Smokes. It was suddenly daylight in the back. I'm definitely going to have to upgrade the dome lights and rear deck lighting to some 12v LED strips somehow.





just sticky back LED strips, the kind that you can buy at Home Depot. We have a ton of them laying around the office from old projects. (they're being powered by an extension cord in this shot, but will have to figure out how to get a similar effect with them rigged up to the battery and a switch).



better photo.

Got the interior stripped out and ready to make templates out of cardboard and transfer them to masonite. Same materials and processes that I did the front two door panels with although I've also got to figure out a way to build a sealed subwoofer box (.69 sq ft. according to the mfg.) on both sides that's hidden behind the panels. I already have some ideas, but we'll see how they come to fruition. I'm also thinking about laying in some 1/2" ethafoam strips to "even out" the floor cargo area, then soundproof over the top of them, and finally cut a single piece of masonite to cover the entire back area and cover it with the diamond tread vinyl (would be flexible at the seat joints, but have a hard back that goes up the seats). I also need to figure out how I want the access panels to work, hinged / not-hinged, magnetic? locking? Lots of possibilities that will all start with the sub boxes and Amplifier layout. I'm almost certainly going to have to get more soundproofing if I plan on doing the entire floorboard and insides of the rear quarter panels and will also probably have to run some computer fans in that area to keep the electronics cool.

Here's the rig with the interior pulled out and ready to be cleaned and start fabbing.








P.S. Haven't addressed the oil leak yet, but I'll get to it.

CHEEZE

Cant wait to see what you come up with for the back. I am getting ready to do mine, there are a lot of ways to go about it, but I think utilizing the sides for storage is key. Great looking truck!

joelsmithdesigns

Thanks CHEEZE,

I'm planning on doing the rear panels with the same materials / look as the front door panels - diamond tread vinyl clad masonite with edge trim. I'm probably going to do the entire floor in the diamond plate vinyl as well and just go without carpet. Obviously, locking access panels in the rear for extra oil / parts / hoses, storage, but the tough part is going to be building those hidden sealed sub boxes and making that work out like I've got it pictured in my head. It's going to be tight, but I think I can do it.

Here's the finished front door panel, so the rear should look similar to this:

joelsmithdesigns

drove the rig home yesterday, and there's still something going on. Losing oil (probably just a leak) and it seems to be running hot. The gauge isn't reading hot, I just know how warm an engine is usually supposed to be, and this one is much hotter than normal.

So I spent a good while reading through possible issues that could be causing this and will spend the next week trying to troubleshoot it eliminating different possibilities. I'll probably try to borrow or pick up a laser thermometer to confirm the temp increase and see if I can't pinpoint the oil leak before I get too crazy into trying to troubleshoot it.

Potential causes and solutions:

• Bubbles / air pockets in the coolant system - need to make sure all air is out of the system and make sure it's full.
  
• timing is off and it's running lean - double check timing (the bolt holding the distributor did fall out after all)
  
• MAF is at the wrong angle and the spring is causing the "flapper" to bounce reading lean / rich / lean / rich - twist the MAF to be oriented the stock
  
• Thermostat is bad - replace
  
• Temp sending unit bad - replace
  
• radiator clogged - remove and flush

I'm headed home for the weekend, but will be working on it Sunday and potentially all next week (after work hours).

joelsmithdesigns

I've got a birthday party to go to this weekend, and have the other '86 completely apart and am trying to get it sprayed in the UPOL Raptor bedliner this weekend (along with some minor bondo and body work) - then I'll be transferring over all the grey interior parts from mine to it in hopes to flip it. We'll see if I can sneak in some time to work on the '89's oil leak / running hot issue. I at least got the templates for the interior body panels made and cut out of masonite for it, so there's a slight step forward. Just been a busy week....despite the festivities tomorrow, I'm hoping for a productive weekend and may be giving the truck back today (only relying on the 4Runner from here on out.....so it really needs to get fixed).

CHEEZE

Are you gonna be selling any of the gray interior parts? Let me know

joelsmithdesigns

I've got doubles of a lot of things....PM me on what you need and I'll see if I can't save it