Monday, July 16, 2012

7 months later . . .

Sort of fell off the map for a couple months.  Got the engine installed, followed immediately by moving, getting married, getting a new job, and summer starting.

First two pictures are after everything was assembled and ready to install.  




While the engine was out I took the opportunity to clean up the engine bay.   It's just a spray-can job, but the color is a pretty good match to the body.  Made a big difference in the overall appearance.


These were taken right before firing the engine up for the first time.  The wiring is a mess, but it started up on the second try (missed a wire to the starter) on the first try.



The last two pictures are more recent, when I was making the overdrive installation a little neater.  I'm using the switch bezel from an early Volvo 1800 overdrive switch and a small blue LED for the dash indicator light.  Makes a nice finishing touch.

I wanted to make the wiring neat and presentable and leave myself some room for future expansion as well.  Ford used some nice small relay boxes in the mid-late 90's.  This one came out of a junkyard Expedition, and has space for two mini relays, and 4 micro relays.  I'm using the Volvo 240 "sequencing" overdrive relay  (the blue one), which conveniently has the same pin out pattern as a standard automotive mini relay, so it plugs right in.  One of the black micro relays is handling the overdrive trigger signal from the stock "pull" function of the indicator stalk.  The other micro relay is triggering the reverse lights.  Cleans up the look under the hood considerably.