Predictably, the one vehicle youre not working on gets jealous and decides to break. In this case it was the turn signal switch in the column of the '90 Bronco. The book says the column has to come and be disassembled to do this job, but i had another idea. First up, lower it to make some room Turns out if you de-pin the connector on the end and remove it, you can pull the switch right out of the column After de-pinning & removing the connector on the new switch, i was able to fish the new one down thru the column, and get it installed ...putting the connector back together... ...and done! Column repaired. So i studied my wiring diagrams for a bit ...and then came up with a plan to improve my old wiring, while also simplifying it. Step one involved moving the wiring for the pump away from the water tank since the pump is now on the frame rail From there i was able to break down my old sloppy wiring harness, and make a nice clean one to take its place. My old wiring harness: ...and the new one: So with that done i replaced the float in the tank since one of the wires was frayed put the nozzle back in the intake... ...and powered the system back up! water-methanol injection V.20 is now complete! Now to just drive the truck and get it tuned! Working on getting the tank mounted: I started making a bunch of straps to suspend the tank in the frame: ...and then: So with 7 brackets all bent up, i grabbed a piece of scrap steel sheet, and made side shields, and a lower panel, to keep road debris from hitting the tank ...with that done, it was time to reinstall the tank and hangar! This shows the feed line from the sump in the tank, to the failsafe solenoid: Ultimately, i decided to mount the pump in the underside of this xmember: ..and with the pump mounted and plumbed, its time to start on the wiring. This is the original harness i ran down the frame years ago, with a wedgelock connector on the end so i could plug in the extension harness: ...and this is th eenxtension harness. Originally the harness ran up the bulkhead of the bed, but with the dump bed conversion done years later i had to make and extension harness to run down to the end of the frame rail and then double back along the underside of the bed. Well, with the new tank location we wont be needing this anymore: ...and this is the wiring harness that was inside the toolbox under the water tank. With the new pump & tank locations, now is the perfect time to take this apart, clean it up, and lay it out a bit nicer So now its time to dig into my 10-15 year old wiring diagrams, reverse engineer this system, and clean up the wiring! The next part of the project is lighting. I need to wire up the bed, but i also need a place to put my license plate, trailer plug and reverse lights I spent some time staring at that space, and started thinking about just building a panel to house my lights & plate, similar to what a traditional dump truck might have Mocking up in steel: Brand new Ford wedgelock pins..... ...means i can rewire a new trailer 7-way, to plug directly into the truck's harness ...and this gray 8-pin connector is the plug for the original bed's tailllights. The plan is to rewire the bed lights to plug directly into this using some more wedgelock pins and connectors Running wires ...and with all wires ran, the panel is now installed! So i put together a video going over, in detail, how we installed and wired the Autometer oil pressure and transmission temperature gauges in our '90 one-ton Bronco Project: Ive been running around trying to get the '90 done, and havent posted any updates. So here's where we're at: I couldnt get the brakes to bleed, ended up having to replace the RABS module because it was seized I had a code for EVP below minimum voltage Which turned out to be a defective EGR- the nipple for the EVP to seat against wasnt in the EGR New one installed, problem solved! I redid the battery cables, so i could add an anderson plug for the remote-mount winch: and then i finished off the interior, by adding a pair of Autometer gauges; oil pressure and trans temp Built a standalone harness for the gauges that has one plug for power/illumination, and a second plug that goes to both sensors Back when i was putting the accessory drive together i installed the Autometer oil pressure sensor on a Tee with the OEM sensor in the factory port I thought i had a pic of the trans temp sensor, but apparently not. Its in the test port for the E4OD. Pic of it installed on the 96: While i was in the interior, i pulled the cluster out so we could go full led: ..and done! This was the scene earlier in the week ...when i started to wire up these! KC's Cyclone V2 rock lights! I have wanted to put a set of rock lights in for years and never got around to it. Im glad i waited as long as i did though, because this kit is awesome. It comes packed with 6 lights: Up close, theyre nice pieces: It comes with a pretty nice install kit too: Amongst some of the hardware are these M8 button heads to hold the lights in place. I elected to use rivnuts instead of the lock nuts, to make the install easier: Up front, im just outside the core support body mount: In the middle, Im on this body support just outside the frame. Im not thrilled with the way its mounted, but it puts the light where i need it And then for the rear, im in the rearmost body structure, just behind and outboard of the shackle hangar: As for the wiring, i only used part of their kit. The wiring itself is nice, but a bit short for a fullsize rig. Would work fine for a short wheelbase rig like a jeep or zuk. Anyways, i was able to use their harnesses for 5 of the 6 lights, and then i ran my own wires for the 6th since it was too far away. I did use their fuse holder though. I kind of liked the idea of having a separate fuse for each of them just in case i damage one, and it simplified the wiring under the hood: They want you to power this directly from a switch in the dash, but i had a spare relay in the aux fuse box i added under the hood, so i used that to power everything Conveniently, i also already had a spare set of wires run to the dash to trigger said relay, so it was just a matter of adding another switch to the dash, and connecting the existing wires That stuff is boring though, lets see how they look! Im diggin it! Its kinda funny how the taper of the rear bumper causes it to cast that hourglass shape out back, but theres nothing i can do about that. I think this is gonna work out great, i guess we'll find out next time we're on the trail after dark! Let's fix that tailgate! Couldnt get the window to go down. Had to resort to drastic measures to get the regulator out, but we were successful. We had some issues with the wiring harness that needed to be resolved ...but in the end we were successful! Man, the weather has not been cooperating! After about two weeks of rain, i spent a couple days mowing the jungle that was our yard. So now im finally caught back up, and progress can resume! First up, theres now a tee in the OEM port, so i can run both the OEM & the NVU oil pressure senders: New Ford Performance 47# injectors: ...and BAM! Injectors, fuel rail, wiring harness, and plenum installed! New BBK twin 61mm throttle body: This thing is a beast; way bigger than the OEM throttle body. Should flow a ton more air: Also picked up this cool Felpro thermostat gasket, p/n 35041T. Supposed to solve the typical ford leaky t-stat housing issue. Its ~1/8" thick, and has an o-ring seal on both sides. Its a pretty nice piece, and looks like it should work well Progress! Now its starting to look like something! Distributor all ready to go with new o-ring, cap, rotor & TFI module: Engine at TDC & distributor installed. Plus a big win- the oil cooler is installed! My frame notch was a huge success; Theres lot of room for the oil cooler, and it fit up in there easily with plenty of room to spare. Super excited about this one, it clears like it was made that way by Ford! From here on out, i think everything left to do is basic reassembly, so progress should speed up. My torque converter showed up yesterday too, which was the last item i need to finish reassembly. If all goes well, i might be able to fire the engine in about a week's time! Despite the absurd weather, i have still succeeded in making some headway on the motor install. First up, i am trying to finalize the Stinger PimpX install. As mentioned a little while ago, this thing is a 100% new ECU, based on the Megasquirt 3 technology. It is designed to work with the OEM harness & sensors, however, if you look closely, it has its own on-board MAP & BARO sensors. It comes with a flash drive that includes a custom tune, and all sorts of tuning and programming software, as well as some PDFs detailing the whole install and tuning process. One thing i did, was to get the install manual PDF printed and bound by Staples. Its pretty cheap, and its nice having it as a reference since its ~35 pages long, and you need to reference it for initial setup & tuning. I know its difficult to tell in the photo, but this page is going over our setup. You need to configure the ECU for your motor size & injection type. Sounds complicated, but theyve actually made it quite simple: The ECU comes with a handful of jumpers you install on the board to set up if youre a V6, V8, batch or sequential EFI, Mass-Air or Speed Density. In my case, all i need is to install these 4 jumpers, and im good to go! There is a TON of other things you can customize. Built in boost controllers, electric fan controller, you can configure your ignition type (including TFI, DIS, EDIS CDI box, etc), boost controller, nitrous controller, you can add cam & crank sensors, more O2 sensors, VSS (if not already equipped), there is a ton of customizing you can do. There is an extra port on the bottom of the ECU for adding in all the additional items the stock 87-95 ECU did not support. included is some high quality silicone(?) tubing for the map sensor, and a USB cable for tuning There is a USB port on the side, along with a SD slot for data logging. You need access to the port to load the tune (this will come later on in the install), and thanks to my relocated ECU i did not. Back when i was getting ready to install the dash, i built this bracket to relocate the ECU: It was a clever design, but it has to be modified. Thankfully i made it bolt-in! So i carefully removed it and notched this side, to give me access to the USB port So with that done i need to move on to some wiring mods. First things first, we need to add a wideband O2. The ECU will work with either the stock narrowband sensor or the wideband. If you use the wideband you gain a self-learning feature, which i definitely want. The install is simple, simply supply the +5 reference from the wideband controller directly to the signal wire that the original narrowband sensor goes to, and eliminate the stock O2 sensor. It seems simple enough, but i decided to do what i usually do, and make it more complicated! So, this pic shows where i mounted my wideband controller; up high in some free space above the brake/ebrake pedals: This means the +5v signal wire is right near where the factory ECU would be. So rather than cut into the stock harness, i decided to add a wire to the ECU extension cord i made. So lets take that back out! Once opened back up, you can see the board offers not one but two seperate places to tie into each circuit, specifically for piggybacking for aftermarket ECUs and controllers. So all i did, was add a signal wire directly to the signal circuit for the stock O2 sensor, Pin 29: All closed up and reinstalled, with the new signal wire hanging out and ready to be sleeved/run to the controller. Once that was done i reinstalled the kick panel and tied that wire into my O2 signal. So now ive got both signals wired in, w/oo having to cut or modify the stock harness which is a big win in my book. So now lets move under the hood. This is the wiring for the OEM MAP sensor + O2 sensor. Its a lot of wire, and we dont need it anymore. I dont like the idea of simply cutting the wires off, so instead i cut them back, crimped new pins on the wires, and installed a 8-pin plug off a junk harness i had laying around That looks considerably better! Almost like Ford made it that way. So here's what we removed. Not discarded though; ive made it us as a companion harness that will plug back in and then put away in a box on the shelf. This way, if i ever want to add the stock sensors back in, i can, without having to do any additional modifications to the harness. So this should complete the wiring mods for the PimpX, which means its time to finish the motor install! |
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