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flomulgator
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PostPosted: Mon May 19, 2014 3:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I thought one of the benefits of snowboarding is that you don't blow out your knees Laughing
(actually referencing my own knee zippers that looks like something else)

Will the waterproof caulk have a strong enough bond to hold in an wet outside environment? I ask because I like the patch idea for a different vehicle I'm maintaining and I don't own a welder.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Tue May 20, 2014 3:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ha! well having both feet attached to the same plank tends to prevent the knee ligament injuries common to skiers, but does not do much to protect one from impacts with trees!

i'm not sure i'd use the strip caulk for adhering an exterior patch. my application has the benefit of the battery weight holding my patches in place from the inside.

anyway, i am excited about modernizing the wiring in my van. i have many plans for auxiliary loads, not the least of which will be the new headlights. but the first step is to replace the rats nest of wires connected to the battery positive terminal with a properly speced and protected distribution panel.

step one was to borrow a pair of crimpers from my friend morgan. gone are the days of hammering lugs onto welding cable, i've been wanting to get my hands on a pair of these for so long!
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as shown above, there were originally 5 (!) connections to the battery terminal.
-power to front fuse panel (OE wiring, unfused)
-power to high speed radiator fan relay (OE wiring, unfused)
-power to passenger recaro seat (fused, added by me)
-power to stereo amplifier (30A fuse)
-power to stereo amplifier (30A fuse, yes the PO ran two independently fused conductors in parallel to the amp, what a hack!)

my goal was to add overcurrent protection to the two unfused factory circuits and add a high-current, properly protected circuit to the empty battery box under the driver's seat, where it would supply power to a fuse panel that would in turn have circuits for loads such as headlights, stereo head unit, aux lighting, seat heaters, and windshield wiper heaters. eventually the amp will be powered off the aux "leisure" battery, but until that is installed it will run off this circuit. as the distribution panel will be moderately inaccessible, it made sense to use circuit breakers rather than fuses. i will be able to reset them by reaching in through the newly cut access panel in the front of the passenger seat pedestal in the unlikely event that one is tripped.

here's what i came up with. power from the battery is routed via a single 4AWG cable to a 100amp manual trip circuit breaker. the output of this breaker will supply current (via another 4AWG cable) to the driver's seat pedestal. the manual trip feature allows this circuit to be disconnected from the battery with the push of a button. jumpers supply battery power to a pair of 50A circuit breakers. one for each of the two previously unfused factory circuits. 50A is a little close with the headlights still running off this circuit, but that won't be the case for long. bently lists the wire size for these circuits as 6.0 mm^2, which is between 8 and 10AWG, and 50A is a reasonable max current for a conductor of this size when not derated for use in a hot engine bay.

this is how it looks before installation.
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i've been pretty slow about installing all this acoustic insulation, but one thing i've made sure of is that anything new getting bolted down will have a layer of decoupled foam underneath. this power panel is no exception!
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trimmed and installed.
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the distribution board in place. i've been having fun with the adhesive lined heat shrink tubing that came with the relays.
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i also purchased a replacement for the slightly undersized factory ground cable. i never like the flimsy bent sheet metal battery terminal, and the wires were starting to fray. the conductor size is now increased to 2AWG, and the terminal is much more stout. the old one rests beside the new for comparison.
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the battery is back in place, and i can finally swivel the passenger seat without hitting a tangle of fuses and wires!
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the PO's (or is that POS) amp install. nice use of duct tape. the dual red wires have been eliminated as the power source, and the amp is now running directly off the output of the switchable breaker. installation of the the fuse panel in the OEM aux battery location will be next.
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coming soon: my first attempt to disassemble drum brakes!
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2014 8:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

How's your van coming along?
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 27, 2014 12:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

well, jimeg, funny you ask.... right around the time that you posted that question, i had just finished frantically throwing the finishing touches on my aux battery install in preparation to take off for a music festival and then new zealand for a few weeks of snowboarding.

i'd decided to take the summer off from posting about my van because i wanted to make some time for rock climbing and didn't want to enrage any more purists with my selfish preference for having fun and using my van rather than dedicating all my time and money to preserving every scrap of metal with a VW part number. but maybe that was a mistake in more ways than one, because i took a bad fall leading a rock climb on day 1 of my month of vacation and ended up with a badly broken ankle.

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so now instead of snowboarding in new zealand with my friends, i find myself sitting at home, unable to walk, and looking back to the internet to kill some time. (note that the screws in the above xray are from a previous injury. fortunately i did not re injure that bone (the talus) which means that i will get to walk again someday).

i'm going to skip over some of the more mundane projects from earlier in the summer (brake work) and skip right to the more interesting wiring project, since that's what i'm working on now in my one-legged state.

my plan all along has been for a decent sized aux battery pack to run lights, fridge, and a (big) stereo while camping. i've got no plans for solar right now considering how much time my van spends buried in snow. a pair of the 6V trojan T-105 was my initial choice, but when i stopped by my local dealer (battery systems) the manager pointed me towards the US battery XC2 2200. it is dimensionally equivalent, has a similar capacity, and sells for a little less. measuring them side by side, the trojan seemed a little taller, and with the acoustic insulation under my floor, i was worried about clearance under the rear seat. they had an "empty" XC2 with no plates or electrolyte, so i carried that out to my van to check the fit.

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this was a happy moment!

the battery systems guy claimed that they had been testing a bunch of XC2 and T-105 batteries side by side in their main office, and had found the XC2 to hold its rated capacity through more charge discharge cycles. the two manufacturers have each published "test data" showing that the other's product underperforms dramatically, but i found some golf cart forums that corroborated what the battery store was saying, so i decided to go with the US battery. the core charge was a whopping $30 per battery, but i was able to avoid paying it twice by returning the old very dead aux battery from my parts van. with a 15% "new customer discount", the total cost was around $300, but i spent another $100 on wire and crimp lugs on the way home (yep 0 gauge lugs run almost $4 each!).

now the challenge was figuring out how to hold down 124 lbs of lead and acid.

using a bandsaw to turn some scrap square aluminum into U channel.
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a quick trip to the mill to make some slots...
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and it's starting to look like a battery retention system (yes i did all this back while i was walking).
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drilling out some mounting holes in a bracket. i'm pretty ADD with my van projects; there's a half finished one off to the side.
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agonizing endlessly over where to drill holes. i wanted the batteries as far to the driver's side as possible, but decided to sacrifice a couple inches so that all the holes would line up with flat places in the floor metal. i was afraid that i would not be able to seal the holes if they were drilled through the angled metal between the many high and low sections of the floor.
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many many trips were made between the inside and the underside of the van as i attempted to measure, locate, and mark the spots i wanted to drill.
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the holes all were deburred, cleaned, and blasted with zinc weldable primer. there is a broken off drill bit visible from my first poorly measured attempt. i drilled right through the angled "transition zone" that i was trying to stay 0.25" away from.
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at last!!! time for a drink.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

some might call it "overkill". some might call it "OCD". i just call it a strong aversion to voltage drop. whether charging a voltage-sensitive battery from an anemic alternator or running loads where power output is a strong function of voltage (incandescent headlight bulbs, most audio amplifiers, etc), a fraction of a volt dropped on an undersized conductor can make a big difference. at least in my mind. so i chose some rather large conductors for my aux battery wiring.

to further limit electrical resistance in the wire termination (and to protect against oxidation) the ends of the 0 gauge welding cable were coated in conductive grease before being assembled into the crimp lugs.
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i used thick-wall adhesive lined heat shrink tubing to insulate and color code the terminals. the high rigidity of the tubing also limits bending at the wire-connector interface.
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finished battery cables.
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to ground the batteries, i removed the center seat belt under the bench seat. this is one of the few non-metric threads in the vanagon, but fortunately i already had a tap in this size (7/16-20) from removing the starter bushing. i used the tap to clean the threads and ground the paint from the surrounding metal. however, i could not find a crimp lug in 7/16", so i used my favorite new toy, a step bit, to bore out a 3/8" lug.
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(preview of my next project off to the side)

batteries and inverter wired up. the space between will eventually house a charger, ACR, and large subwoofer amp. the wiring was routed to allow room for a positive and negative bus bar to connect everything.
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at the time i finished this, it was about 3am. i was flying to CA the next morning for a few days of work, and thought i'd be flying home and leaving straight for a music festival, so i wanted an interim setup to let me run the stereo and inverter for a few days. i was supposed to leave for new zealand the day the festival ended, and thought i'd get around to buying and hooking up the rest of the DC system (including a charging scheme) when i returned.

instead i broke my ankle the next day and ruined what should have been the best month in years.

at least i had added a snarl of wires to the van in between climbing trips while i was healthy. hooking up the ends of this mess has proven a great way to kill time, and doesn't require much walking.

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flomulgator
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 28, 2014 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Destroying an ankle is bad enough but missing out on a trip to New Zealand with almost-local Kyle is just bottoming out on the SUCK scale. Very sorry to hear that.

An infamous local skier rode in my van a few weeks ago and led off with "hey I know this splitboarder!..." Gave me a good chuckle.

Your electrical work is inspiring, I aspire to redo my auxiliary setup to that quality some day. If you find your Skadi projects require an able body, PM me.
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah i've got friends in NZ that i haven't seen in years, and kyle and i had been scheming on the trip since we were in iceland this spring. so to say i'm disappointed about missing my first big vacation in ages would be quite an understatment. not to mention that i promised myself long ago that i'd quit riding and climbing if i ever got hurt again... so this has been an angst filled month for sure.

but fortunately, i find wiring to be a form of meditation. i can completely turn my brain off and spend hours obsessing over trivialities. it has been a great way to pass time without thinking too much, and most of this is stuff i've been wanting to do anyway.

but before i get into my current project, there are a few more shots from earlier this year to catch up on. after removing the passenger seat to paint the swivel and battery box and add circuit breakers to the factory power wiring and a new high current circuit to the driver's seat pedestal (all described previously) the next step was to clean up under the other seat. the plan is to use the area that typically houses a single aux battery for power distribution and switching to the front of the vehicle. but since i'll be sealing up access to a lot of the metal, i wanted to give it the full treatment first. it seems kind of silly to be spending so much time adding a little bit of paint and acoustic insulation when there is nothing but a rubber mat covering most of the floor in the front, but this is how a daily driver is restored... one tiny bite at a time.

i put my custom seat mounting bars in for a "test fit" last year and never took them out. the bolts were loose and the unpainted metal was starting to corrode. it was high time to get the seat back out.
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the PO managed to get grease and old oil into almost every corner and crevice of this van... getting the amplifier out allowed me to clean the last (i hope) filthy corner. lots of solvent, some elbow grease, and it's time to start installing stuff from my cascade audio cache.
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mounting bars painted, deadening material applied, starting to cut out shapes from MLV backed foam.
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per the recommendation from cascade audio, i am mounting the closed cell foam decoupled floor barrier product with loctite "power grab" panel adhesive.
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it was only after i started cutting foam and looking at the nicely painted seat mounts that i realized i could not bear to put this back together with the old factory seat rails still filled with congealed grease and scraped down to bare metal by the old seat sliders. cleaning these things out took at least an hour each. eyes were rolled at me during this phase.
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christoper from T3 gave the the great idea of using posterboard to make templates for the sound insulation. definitely a learning curve here, hopefully my next one will go faster!
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measure twice, cut once, then come up with a better design and start over, that's my motto!
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gotta show off all the painstaking cleaning & painting before i cover it up for good.
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cutting the back of the foam to facilitate sharp bends. extra care is required not to slice through the MLV.
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reinstalled the amp on top of the acoustic insulation and deadening material. i didn't cut the 4AWG wire to length because eventually it will end on a junction post instead of the amp, and i want to minimize scraps of expensive welding cable.
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and finally, the seat is back in.
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i didn't bother reconnecting the seat power to the amplifier the way i'd had it before. no power to the seat is part of the motivation to get started on the next phase of the project.
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getting this area sealed up was really my main goal. now i can start on the fun stuff...
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 2:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

wow, all those hours just to tighten up a seat and put some pointless acoustic insulation into what is still an incredibly loud van?!

well my real goal was to get that "aux battery" compartment dialed in--permanently--so that i could start packing it full of wiring. i'm a rather huge fan of bright headlights, and i was getting quite sick of smelling hot electrical insulation every time i turned on the fog lights with the high beams. (the wire on the steering column from the ignition switch would get hot enough to burn skin--not a good sign!). not content with a relay kit, i wanted to rewire the entirety of the headlight circuits, from the battery to the bulbs.

first, i cut a board to fit the bottom of the compartment and started shuffling around parts and thinking about wire routing. in my previous headlight installation, i used crimp on quick disconnect terminals to connect directly to relays. while this looks ok and is reasonably tidy, i thought that a "relay box" would look a bit more professional. i can't really say it's a better solution from a technical perspective, but it looks neat. the problem is, i quickly realized i'd need way more than 4 relays...
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fortunately these hella relay boxes are gangable, so i ordered up another one and finally started hooking up wires.
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the relay boxes are supplied with a bag of "open barrel" type crimp terminals, but i ordered more so that i could have extras and have the correct size for the larger 12AWG wire that i was using for the headlight circuits.
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i struggled to get the crimp terminals to fit the wire insulation correctly until i realized that needed to trim the portion of the terminal that makes a mechanical connection to the wire insulation.
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using numbered labels to keep track of which wire goes to which relay.
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more progress. the shorter wires will land on terminal strips on this board. the longer ones will run up the side of the compartment to a fuse block.
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assembled and fit into place. i used half inch standoffs under the feet of the relay box to make room for the heavier 12AWG wire. the relay outputs land on the stud terminals to the right. this allows for low resistance connections to the headlight wiring without the space penalty of a bulky high current terminal strip. the two terminal strips on the left are both rated for 20A. i used the high density strip at the top for the relay coil connections where i was unlikely to need multiple wires connected to the same circuit. the strip on the bottom allows bridging adjacent terminals with little jumpers and so was used for the relay coil ground connections.
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how to kill a whole bunch of hours when your ankle is broken and you desperately need something to occupy your mind that keeps wandering back to the snowboard trip you are supposed to be on....
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i added a few new holes and routed all the wiring to the back of the van: rear speakers, subwoofer, power from the aux battery (1AWG), and a couple multiconductor cables that will eventually be used for things like voltage monitoring and ACR control. i agonized long and hard about the intrusion into the passenger compartment of all this wiring, but the only other option was to route it under the van, and i am trying to minimize new holes in the floor. before the van sees any heavy use, i will build a wooden barrier around the wiring. the large wire from the aux battery lands on a terminal post, where it splits to the amplifier and a fuse box.
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another view. the fuse box on the left is supplied by the 4AWG cable from the starting battery. it powers the circuits for the lights and the horn--things that will not be used with the vehicle off. the fuses on the right receive power from the aux battery. they supply power to auxiliary lighting, control circuits, and the stereo head unit. eventually, i will install a large wire from the alternator to charge the aux batteries through an ACR. for now, the jumper between the fuse boxes serves as a link to provide a bit of charge current to the aux batteries and allow the stereo to run off the alternator when the engine is running.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 6:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

at first glance, it looks like (again?) all this work was for naught. nothing is even hooked up to all those relays, right?

not true! once circuit is functioning--the 3rd relay will control ignition switched loads and presently delivers powers to the recaro seats. no more draining the battery by forgetting to turn the seat heater off when i leave the van! (i'm not going to admit how many mornings last winter i was late to early meetings at work because i had to start the van off the charger).

but one still does not seem like enough. let's hook up a few more. i did a bit of measuring and then enlisted some able-bodied help to cut wires for the new harness. 4 lengths of 12AWG for low beam, high beam left, high beam right, and fog lights. 3 of 14AWG for horn, driving lights, and cornering lights. (planning ahead with those last two... they will be LEDs hence the smaller size wire). oh yeah, and a single 18AWG for... well, we'll get to that later.
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i did a lot of pondering about how best to seal up the inevitable hole that i'd need to drill in order for all this wiring to exit the vehicle. my first thought was some sort of boot (similar to what is used under the starting battery from the factory). but after much searching, every solution i could find that would fit my planned wire bundle size required drilling a rather huge hole. here is a part that i was considering, cropped out of a previous photo. it would have accommodated my wire bundle well, but required a 1.25" hole.
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this is the solution that i settled on. a home made "boot" fabricated from a grommet and a section of volks cafe fuel line sleeve sliced open lengthwise, trimmed for reduced diameter, and stuffed into a 0.75" grommet.
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after some practice with my step bit, i found that the 11/16" step resulted in a hole size just over 0.7", and the slightly undersized hole resulted in a nice tight fit on the grommet. the hole was well deburred and painted, and the grommet was lined inside and out with RTV. the sleeve was also coated in RTV before the bundle was set in place and then secured top and bottom with zip ties. after this photo was taken, the wire loom was then zip tied to the sleeve. (this shot is looking up at the underside of the driver's seat "battery box").
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok, on to connecting this new headlight wiring harness...

each 12AWG circuit from the relays splits into 2 14AWG circuits at the lights. my plan was to build the 2 halves of this wiring, put them in place, and then perform the splices between the two in order to get the wire lengths perfect.

i didn't want all my new wiring to terminate on rusty old undersized connectors, and thanks to a recommendation from jay (thatvwbusguy), i found www.headlightplugs.com where i was able to order high temperature 9004 headlight connectors along with crimp terminals.

soldering 14AWG wire to a terminal for the new 9004 connector.
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i removed the terminals from the high beam connector and installed new ones, soldered and then coated in conductive grease. instead of trying to stuff 2 wires into each terminal (as was done in the factory wiring), i used 1 and will do the splice elsewhere. the terminals are standard open barrel quick disconnects with a locking tab to hold them in the connector body.
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the nice PIAA fog lights installed by the PO featured laughable 18AWG wiring, giant, non weather sealed connectors at each light, and a silly proprietary relay that often wouldn't close until i hit a bump. i spliced new wires in right at the lamps and eliminated all of that nonsense.
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the loom full of wires from the relays splits near the front of the van. conductors for fog lights and horn continue to run forwards and are spliced under the van. conductors for the headlights travel above the washer fluid reservoir and up to the left headlight area. here is the splice where the 12 gauge fog light supply splits into 14 gauge conductors for each light. the splice is covered in adhesive lined heat shrink for a weather tight seal.
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everything was stuffed into loom with an extra dead end leg for the lights that don't exist yet (cornering lamps and running lights). the ground point for the fog lights and new horn is visible top right.
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to perform the wire splices, i had purchased "parallel connectors"--basically half of a "butt" style crimp connector. the idea is that all of the conductors are inserted into the same cylinder, which is then crimped down, so that all of the wires are in physical contact with each other. i like this more than the standard butt connectors, in which the conductors on each side are only in contact with the metal of the connector body.

i planned to solder the connections after crimping them, but my weller soldering gun failed on the very first splice. this tool was purchased less than a year ago, and was the D650 high power "professional" grade tool, which i purchased to replace a D550 soldering gun that ALSO burned out in less than a year of use. each of these tools survived for maybe a combined total of 1-2 hours of operation. in conclusion WELLER SOLDERING GUNS ARE JUNK! DO NOT BUY THEM AS THEY WILL BURN OUT VERY QUICKLY EVEN WITH LIGHT, OCCASIONAL USE.
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being a gimp who is presently unable to walk or drive, and not wanting to put this project on hold for a week while i ordered a new soldering tool, i decided to coat each wire with conductive grease to seal out any moisture that makes it through the adhesive lined heat shrink and give up on my redundant plan to solder.
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wiring on one leg is a comical dance that has provided much amusement for everyone but me. hopping sucks.
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new wiring for the right headlight. the grounds are soldered and sealed with "ox gard" conductive grease.
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"high wattage. for off road use only".
these words warm my soul!
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boy do i like zip ties.
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the last step is hooking up the other end of the wiring. the first two relays operate off switched grounds and output power to the terminal strip on the bottom left. these circuits are for the horn and interior lights. the remaining six relays feed power to the studs on the left that connect to the headlight harness.
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Gunldesnapper
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Your electrical work looks top notch.
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gunldesnapper wrote:
Your electrical work looks top notch.


Hear, hear!

Best wishes for your recovery!
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 11:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thanks, guys! i've always had a bit of a fetish for tidy wiring, and working on it has been a good source of catharsis and a great way to keep my mind occupied and off of tragedy.

now, all these cool relays deserve an appropriately novel source of control signals, so back during the better days of the past summer, i put a plan in motion to bring about a scheme that's been brewing in my mind for, well, about as long as i can remember--an overhead console of switches and gauges.

i know that many in this forum consider the destruction of a leaky, non-functional, 28 year old air conditioning system to be the definition of short sighted stupidity. well, that's me. as much as i despise being hot, i have many reasons for doing away with my AC...
it would be an expensive, time consuming project to repair, and i already have enough expensive, time consuming projects with higher priority (engine swap and a full repaint are just the start of the list). i plan to swap in a pop top someday, and that would interfere with the ceiling mounted AC duct, so perhaps someday, after all those other projects are complete, i will install an in-dash AC and have one less reason to dislike summer.

for the time being, however, it's time to remove the AC ductwork and make it into something useful. removing the plastic was the easy part. fishing a bundle of wires through the A pillar was, well, not the easy part.
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hoping that i would never revisit this task, i pulled a pair of 6 conductor 22gauge cables for low current signals and a single 5 conductor 18 gauge for power. the screws on the grab handle were making me nervous around all that wire, so i removed them and cut off the points.
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reinstalling the blunt screws.
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beige just doesn't go with my color scheme.
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but black is more like it!
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i remember seeing idaho doug's thread on repainting the vinyl headliner, so i went out and bought some vinyl paint, hoping to give some new life to my incredibly ugly sun visors.
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looking a little better in grey...
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after a bit of measuring and scheming and a quick cardboard mock up, i decided not to remove any plastic for my new switch panel. i liked the recessed look of the opening for the old air vents, and i was afraid that removing it would reduce the rigidity of the whole structure. so i took my cardboard template to the metal shop and found a scrap of aluminum and started cutting.
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i brought the whole console along so that i could test fit the panel as i ground the rounded corners on a vertical belt sander.
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punching out holes for switches. with 1" center spacing (and a slightly larger gap in the middle), there is room for 5 switches in each vent.
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and finally a test fit! did i mention that i've been dreaming of this for years? i had a stack of data sheets from years ago (before i even had a syncro!) when i spent many hours researching my "holy grail"--a double throw illuminated toggle switch with a center off position and independent control of the light (no terminals in common with the switch). it felt pretty good to finally watch this silly dream come together.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ok... confirmed everything fits. time to take it back apart. primer and a bit of epoxy to fill in a mistake i made with the center punch. eventually the panel was sprayed in blue to match the van's body color.
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starting to build the switch console wiring harness. i used parallel crimp connectors for "permanent" splices (grounds for switch illumination in this case) and ring lugs on machine screws for connections that i might want to reconfigure later.
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some of the splices were made to be accessible with just the switch panel removed. others, like these, were positioned for access through the center opening, where i'll be installing another panel eventually.
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most of the initial switches installed and wired. i removed some of the thin plastic material from the top of the duct in order to make room for the switches, but i left the center intact to add rigidity to the assembly.
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i'm enjoying a project that doesn't require much walking.
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the jacketed 6x22awg cable that i'm using for low current circuits (mostly relay coils, <200mA). it's not always a quick process to remove the jacket without nicking the wire insulation.
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i'd initially planned to use terminal strips to connect the A-pillar wiring to the console wiring, but it seemed much too hard to mount and access through the passenger side vent opening, so i decided to make up my mind for good about what was connecting to what and use molex connectors to join the wiring.
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as i've seen before in this project, the terminals needed trimming in order to properly crimp onto the wire insulation.
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wiring finished and ready for installation. i cut up some thick plastic bags to wrap and insulate the machine screw splices.
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the lower end of the A-pillar wiring terminates beside the glovebox. some wires go into the dash, others run back under the driver's seat to the relay compartment. i must've shot this photo before i finished tidying up!
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i had these LED tubes in my old 2wd van, and this seemed like a good time to move them over. the assemblies are about 16" long, and there's one in each front footwell. they are, of course, blue.
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making the final connections by headlamp...
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and at last, my years old silly dream is a reality! presently, i have switches to control the these circuits from the following signals:
fog lights: ignition switch, off, hi beam
seat power: ignition switch, off, on
footwell LEDs: door switch, off, on
switch illumination: off, on
stereo: off, on

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now if only i could drive to enjoy flipping a few of these!
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jimeg
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Excellent work. Super tidy wiring. Great thread.
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phlogiston
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

it's on

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

what's that mess sitting in the back of the syncro??

never mind... we're going back in time a couple weekends first.

after six weeks in a cast, i was finally switched to an orthopedic boot and allowed to start bearing some weight on my fractured ankle. i celebrated by taking a weekend off from wiring to go camping. there were solar storms in the forecast, so we picked a forest service road to a low mountaintop hoping for a good vantage for aurora borealis viewing. we saw a great sunset and some impressive meteors, but no northern lights.
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morning in camp with my new signature cocktail--the "dewmosa"!
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my first attempt at "hiking"
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something i probably wouldn't have spotted if i'd been walking at a normal speed.
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if i'm allowed to walk, i should be able to drive, right? my gf had been driving until now, but i convinced her to let me take a turn... and promptly drove into some rocks while trying to shuffle my left foot from the clutch to the brake.
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whoops. in my defense, my spotter did give the OK to proceed on that line...
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Last edited by phlogiston on Tue Oct 14, 2014 10:43 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2014 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

there has been a project that has been intimidating me and hanging over my head ever since i made an unsuccessful attempt at it this time last year--resealing the windshield. at that time, i had taken the original pitted, hazy glass out for replacement and to address pinchweld rust and leaks. well, both the rust and the leak returned almost immediately after my botched attempt to fit the glass in place using lots of sealant. i wanted to start from bare metal, so i figured between cleaning, painting, and glass reinstallation, this would be a 2 day project. i wanted to do it in dry weather this year, and i was afriad if i waited until i could walk properly i'd run out of sunny weekends... so on a fine saturday morning a couple weeks ago, out came the glass.
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after one year, the color of rust was showing in the low parts of the pitted metal that i'd treated last year. i'd used eastwood encapsulator, followed by primer and color-matched lacquer paint from paintscratch.com.
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my assistant set to work fastidiously cleaning every last trace of urethane sealant from the glass.
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meanwhile i set to work scraping, grinding, and sanding. the 3m bedding & glazing compound was a little easier to remove from the pinchweld than the VW factory stuff (it took about 1 hour to clean the perimeter vs 3 or 4 last year).
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next the metal was cleaned and treated with the POR regimen (marine clean and metal ready). this ended day 1. early on the morning of day 2, i rinsed off the etching solution and dried everything thoroughly with a heat gun, then applied masking.
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i brushed on a coat of POR 15, and while it was curing in the afternoon sun, i set about with an intricate and fun project that was my "consolation prize" for removing the windshield--the installation of frostfighter.com heating elements to the windshield wiper park and push areas.

first the glass is cleaned and treated with an adhesion promoter, then copper elements are transferred from a backing sheet to the glass and pressed in place. the backing paper is peeled off leaving a bare copper surface exposed on the inside surface of the traces.
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3M double sided adhesive foam is applied over the copper lines, and then brass contacts (which are also treated with adhesion promoter, so the installer is cautioned to wear new gloves and not clean the metal) are pressed onto the foam.
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at this point, there is no electrical connection to the traces. to make the connection, they are carefully peeled up and wrapped over top of the brass.
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cover pieces consist of plastic bonded to one side of adhesive foam. the traces are held in place with tape while the covers are pressed into place, insulating the brass and holding bare copper inner surface of the traces against the metal.
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i did a lot of marking on the outside surface of the glass in order to get everything right where i wanted it. here the top end of the push area defroster is connected. electrically, each set of traces is split into two parallel groups which are then connected in series. in other words, one end has 2 connectors that each bond to half the traces, while the other end has a bus bar that connects them all.
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the heating elements were installed, the sun was setting on the second day of this project, and rain was in the forecast for the morning. i was running out of time.
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one of the problems that had doomed my previous windshield installation was the short work time of the betaseal u418 primerless urethane that i'd chosen to bond the glass to the gasket. after a bit of research, i'd chosen a slower-curing product this time for the glass side while sticking with the gold standard 3M bedding & glazing compound for the metal side.
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by this time, i'd already brushed a layer of POR "tie coat" primer over the exposed portion of my new rust treatment. the instructions claimed it needed at least 24 hours to cure, so my only choice was to finish the paint after putting the glass back in.

i was far too stressed out (and covered in sealant glop) to take any photographs of the glass installation. but this challenging task that gave me nightmares for the last year actually went pretty smoothly. the process used: clean each channel in the seal (brake cleaner worked well and didn't seem to adversely impact the rubber), apply sikaflex 15 LM to the glass (both sides and the edge), fit the seal onto the glass, apply 3M glazing compound onto the pinchweld, fit the string into the outer channel of the seal, and then press the glass into place. in my previous attempt, i'd wasted a lot of time trying to center the glass perfectly before starting to pull on the string. this time, i stood up on the bumper (with my one working leg!) and pushed on the top of the glass pretty hard until it actually appeared (from the outside) to pop into place. it was only then, that my gf, working from the bottom up, began pulling on the pcord while i put all my weight (and a series of glazing compound handprints) on the outside of the glass. in less than an hour, the task that i'd been dreading was complete to my satisfaction, and i was opening a beer.
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looking at my work later in the daylight, it is evident that i could have used less sealant on the glass... if i had to do it again, i think i'd apply the sikaflex to the inside channel of the gasket rather than smear it on the glass where it proceeded to get all over the seal as we tried to stretch it into place.
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a view of the outside showing the still unpainted tie coat primer after trimming some of the excess sealant from the glass. 3M adhesive remover worked fairly well to dissolve my handprints.
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yep, those horribly clogged wiper drive splines got cleaned out, the rusty wiper arms repainted, and new oversized stainless wavy washers and nylock nuts installed.
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ok, now this thread is caught up and it's time to stop procrastinating on my computer and go back down to the garage. maybe someday i'll even hook those defrosters up!


Last edited by phlogiston on Tue Oct 14, 2014 11:13 am; edited 1 time in total
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luVWagn
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PostPosted: Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow! If you want some cash, I need the same job done to my front window! Neutral
Great stuff!
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 08, 2014 7:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm looking into the windshield mod, Very Cool. How hard will it be to run two or three stripes of heater element up the A Pillar? Can you bend a 90 in the element? At what length will the element loose effectiveness? My lower windshield is not so bad in the weather, but those A Pillars are a problem.
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