Thread: Electricals - phew

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Continuing electrical work, the Pertronix kit for the smaller old points-type distributor requires a coil so I purchased a MSD "Flamethrower" coil rated at 40,000 volts and 1.5 ohms which is delightfully chrome plated and looks good against the maroon paint on the firewall. Installation of the solenoid shield shown above means that I actually installed three (3) wires this week! The real nightmare will be connecting the wires from the tilt column!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I am trying to keep this thread going for my own needs. I recently spent too much on a design for a special plastic shield for a Sony CDX S-2010 which fills a large 2"x7" hole in my dash but the plastic shield looks bulky and beastly at best. Finally I bit the economical bullet and ordered a Sony CDX M30 from nearby Crutchfield which is a marine unit and said to be better for sound than the S-2010 and anyway the S-2010 is no longer in production. The M30 has a rubber seal around the flip down face for the CD disk slot and it even has a rubber plug in the input jack hole to keep water out of that hole when not in use and the circuit boards are coated for water resistance. Assuming I can avoid rain most of the time in the roadster the M30 should provide some weatherproofing short of a direct deluge. Anyway the M30 has an infrared remote clicker like a TV set so I will be able to change tunes even if I cannot reach the set while in motion. The M30 can read MP3 disks which can hold up to 150 tunes which can be organized into "folders" so just one disk should be able to provide optional music for "Big Bands","Fifties Rock and Roll" and other categories all on one disk! The main thing is that the M30 will "look" much better than the strange lucite box I had made for the S-2010 even though I am set back almost $300 on the change to another radio and the loss in fabrication of the lucite box.. I have already learned that this is an expensive hobby and I am comforted by stories from others on this Forum about "extra parts" due to trial and error in finding the right part. Anyway my wife was was quite forgiving as long as she can continue to purchase more special plants for the growing Garden-of-Eden developments in our yard. I have made a number of purchases that were too soon to know what to get in an optimum sense but the lucite box I had fabricated for the S-2010 was so bulky and strange looking that I will just have to avoid rain to enjoy the M30 unit. I am making some progress with the wiring and just need to install the brake light and the heater connections and I should be approaching the first startup. I had dreaded the installation of the speakers and phased wiring but I marked the negative side of the speaker wires with black tape and as far as I know I have the speaker phasing set up correctly. I cannot approach the neat wiring I have seen on some other cars here but my hope is that most of my wire jungle can be tidied up with many ties. I have tried to "square" the wires along the 1"x1" tubing framework of the body interior and I have rewired some circuits three times to try for better neatness and good grounding so if I just use a lot of tie-wraps to the tubing it will at least be "square" and gathered together. The main problem is that it is very difficult to get all the wire lengths to match up about the same without tension or too much slack, but I am getting better at using shrink wrap over my soldered connections and as long as you don't look under the dash it should look OK. Today I had to carve out some more clearance in the header wood for the wiper. I ended up with a short unit from Yogi's for the wiper arm and blade but I still had to grind about 1/8" off the total length of the wiper shaft for clearance. The lesson here is that almost every piece on the car has needed some tweaking adjustment. Next I will mess with the stock '29 Ford hood since I did complete the riviting of the lacing on the cowl and the radiator. Fastening the mounts for the hold downs will be fun since I cannot lift the body off the frame now to get nuts under the edge of the front fenders but as long as I get a few good hours a day on the car I believe I can solve that problem.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

It's been a while since I visited this thread

I had a bright idea about a month ago that has just added some time to finishing my car. I'm quite tall at 6'4" so am a bit cramped as far as leg room - so I had a bright idea - why not.....cruise control I did my research and found out that only one company builds them in the US for aftermarket use, that being Rostra. Dakota Digital, Ididit, Flaming River just to name some sellers only repackage the product, with Dakota being the least expensive through Summit.

I received my $239 package complete with the "dash mounted" switch and started the installation. Of course, nothing on this car at this point is easy - no room left. Then my engine is set back a couple of inches more then the normal amount so mounting on the outside of the firewall was out. I ended up under the dash even tho the mfr recommends not to mount there due to some operating noise. My idea - a roadster, loud exhaust, wind, etc, it will never be a problem.

Mechanical installation to this point is fairly easy - but the wiring OMG - 18 (or more) new wires and of course, some are w-a-a-a-y too long, the others, too short and need to be"fixed". To make life interesting, I have LED tail lights - so of course, now I need a SPDT Bosch relay with 5 more wires plus adapt the two brake light switch wires. My under dash area used to be neat - now, a full spaghetti collandar looks neat in comparison. I'm not done yet - it will be a few more days. Of course adding to that time is my camper that needs to be cleaned and bedded down for the winter - and at 34' long and with three slides and temps dropping like a rock, plus some local town committees responsibilities - I'm beat!!!

Oh and to make life more interesting, I need the Lokar SS cruise cable which has through firewall fittings and some additional length(plus I have to match my SS fuel lines, etc) and Summit is out of stock until 30 October.

OK, enough whine!!

Don - I'll take a couple of photos to post soon of what I've done for my w/s wiper arrangements. I need to do a mock up shortly just to make sure I can find all the parts

Dave/IC2,

Do you have any photos of your brake switch installation? I had planned to use just the hydraulic line switch but my Guru at the "It's A Snap" site says that type of switch is very "iffy" so I just received a simple mechanical switch from Speedway and I planned to route the wires to both switches in parallel, particularly since the mechanical switch looks to be so flimsy. However the mechanical switch looks like it is meant to mount on TOP of the floor board next to the brake pedal arm, a place where it is vulnerable to a misplaced foot? On the other hand it will probably mount to the left of the pedal arm but even so it looks fragile just sitting on top of the floor. Anyone else have a picture of how you mounted a mechanical brake light switch?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Originally Posted by Don Shillady

Dave/IC2,

Do you have any photos of your brake switch installation? I had planned to use just the hydraulic line switch but my Guru at the "It's A Snap" site says that type of switch is very "iffy" so I just received a simple mechanical switch from Speedway and I planned to route the wires to both switches in parallel, particularly since the mechanical switch looks to be so flimsy. However the mechanical switch looks like it is meant to mount on TOP of the floor board next to the brake pedal arm, a place where it is vulnerable to a misplaced foot? On the other hand it will probably mount to the left of the pedal arm but even so it looks fragile just sitting on top of the floor. Anyone else have a picture of how you mounted a mechanical brake light switch?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Don,

I sat with a mechanical switch in my hand even after plumbing in the hydraulic version and with the body still off and tried to figure a reasonable mount or bracket which would be hidden below the floorboards - and said the H--- with it and sold the switch at a swap meet. The only drawback I could see with the tried and true hydraulic switch is when it might have to be changed, you might introduce some air and have to rebleed that side of the brake system. They work, have been used by every US car manufacturer until they started using that switch for multi function activities such as moving the shift out of park(step on the brake to move the lever, etc). You just want to get a good one - like a US (hopefully) made Standard-Blue Streak from NAPA. Is your 'guru' wrong - not really as it's really a toss up and personal opinion. In an early Ford with a hidden MC under the floorboards - doesn't make sense.

I have photos of the plumbing on a CD but the reader decided not to work today. The one attached will give you an idea where the hydraulic switch is located - it's the lower fitting you can just barely see