Post by myothercarsa2cv on Aug 27, 2016 8:32:14 GMT
Had a really productive day on the car yesterday and feeling like I'm in a much better place.
As I had the day off, after doing my chores I got cracking with the gauge wiring. I have three Autometer gauges (clock, boost and oil temp) which required a variety of feeds. Rather than take this off a main loom I thought he best way to make everything reversible was to take it off the new amp loom.
But first, the sub loom for the gauge panel. The hardest bit of this was the earth wire. I needed 5 earth connections. Rather than have loads of wires flapping around I decided to make one earth wire with 5 tails. Out came the knife and soldering iron. Unfortunately I couldn't find any more suitable gauge black wire so I had to use red (and then I found some!). The illumination circuit also needed three tails so I did the same with that.
I then assembled the loom with all the connections going to the right place.
Looking good! Quick wrap with loom tape and on to the tails for the amp sub loom.
For this I needed two tails - one for the gauges and one for the knocklite. Same deal, knife, solder, heatshrink. Before I know it, it looked like this:
More loom tape and I'm happy.
It was at this point that I had a thought: I really hope I've got all the wires in the right place! Would be a pain to undo the loom tape...
Anyway, out to the car. My massive boxes of fuses had arrived so I popped a fuse in the room fuse slot, plugged in my amp loom and connected the amp up, and plugged the battery back in. Moment of truth... Turned the key and...
Holy cow I have interior lights!!! And music! Good start. First impressions is that the amp is loud enough with the iPhone plugged straight in but the real test will be on the road. If not, I'll have to make space for a preamp somewhere...
Ok unplugged everything again to get on with loom positioning. I started on the gauge panel. To hold my gauges in place, I needed those U-shaped wotsits. Of which I only had one, bizarrely. So I got a saw, hammer, drill and file and attacked a piece of aluminium I had lying around. It's 3mm which is hilariously overkill!
Ain't nobody got time to make three so I made one big one. My hammering rig:
I'm always amazed what you can do with a few basic tools. It's not the neatest, I wouldn't call this 'fabbing up a bracket', but it's good enough!
It works! Good job. Now let's wire these guys up.
It's getting dark but there's time to figure out where to put the amp. I've decided to stick it to the back of the glovebox. There should be enough room and it means I don't have to do a risky drill through the bulkhead for the mounting screws. I don't know if it's sturdy enough but the amp is only tiny. Maybe it can go in the glovebox...
Anyway, I wrapped up the rest of the amp loom and tucked it through a convenient gap to the passenger side. Then slotted all the connectors together and ziptied the main one out the way. So much room for activities!
Time to call it a night as working by the light of an iPhone is really not fun!
Anyone know where I can get a cubby hole that fits a DIN sized pocket?
As I had the day off, after doing my chores I got cracking with the gauge wiring. I have three Autometer gauges (clock, boost and oil temp) which required a variety of feeds. Rather than take this off a main loom I thought he best way to make everything reversible was to take it off the new amp loom.
But first, the sub loom for the gauge panel. The hardest bit of this was the earth wire. I needed 5 earth connections. Rather than have loads of wires flapping around I decided to make one earth wire with 5 tails. Out came the knife and soldering iron. Unfortunately I couldn't find any more suitable gauge black wire so I had to use red (and then I found some!). The illumination circuit also needed three tails so I did the same with that.
I then assembled the loom with all the connections going to the right place.
Looking good! Quick wrap with loom tape and on to the tails for the amp sub loom.
For this I needed two tails - one for the gauges and one for the knocklite. Same deal, knife, solder, heatshrink. Before I know it, it looked like this:
More loom tape and I'm happy.
It was at this point that I had a thought: I really hope I've got all the wires in the right place! Would be a pain to undo the loom tape...
Anyway, out to the car. My massive boxes of fuses had arrived so I popped a fuse in the room fuse slot, plugged in my amp loom and connected the amp up, and plugged the battery back in. Moment of truth... Turned the key and...
Holy cow I have interior lights!!! And music! Good start. First impressions is that the amp is loud enough with the iPhone plugged straight in but the real test will be on the road. If not, I'll have to make space for a preamp somewhere...
Ok unplugged everything again to get on with loom positioning. I started on the gauge panel. To hold my gauges in place, I needed those U-shaped wotsits. Of which I only had one, bizarrely. So I got a saw, hammer, drill and file and attacked a piece of aluminium I had lying around. It's 3mm which is hilariously overkill!
Ain't nobody got time to make three so I made one big one. My hammering rig:
I'm always amazed what you can do with a few basic tools. It's not the neatest, I wouldn't call this 'fabbing up a bracket', but it's good enough!
It works! Good job. Now let's wire these guys up.
It's getting dark but there's time to figure out where to put the amp. I've decided to stick it to the back of the glovebox. There should be enough room and it means I don't have to do a risky drill through the bulkhead for the mounting screws. I don't know if it's sturdy enough but the amp is only tiny. Maybe it can go in the glovebox...
Anyway, I wrapped up the rest of the amp loom and tucked it through a convenient gap to the passenger side. Then slotted all the connectors together and ziptied the main one out the way. So much room for activities!
Time to call it a night as working by the light of an iPhone is really not fun!
Anyone know where I can get a cubby hole that fits a DIN sized pocket?
it would have to be A LOT!
I tried the old one and it worked perfectly. So a new one will be ordered tonight. If that does, I'll look at modifying the Fast5 bottle to take the original pump.
