Trying to make Junky perhaps just a little bit Funky...

[DD1]

It's been a while since I last posted, but for once instead of meaning that I have not done anything, I actually have been kinda busy but did not get around to posting. It's going to seem like I am all over the place, which I am, but things are slowly getting done.

Battery Tray / Wiring Harness

I want to be able to start the truck and move it in my garage and yard; it would make it easier to get certain things done. To that end, my goals were to modify the battery tray and partly install a wiring harness.

I wanted to modify the battery tray to fit the battery I have rather than buy a new battery to fit the tray. I don't want to spend $100+ for a battery that's going to sit around and go to waste while not being used much.

I took apart the existing battery tray I purchased from Classic Parts and attached the sides to the new tray I got from Summit. I am going to mount it a bit to the left of it's current position, the only downside being that it's using the space that the transmission cooler on the original radiator was using. But I have an aftermarket external cooler, so I am not worried about it. I am waiting for some 5/16 spacers I ordered to complete mounting it. Still have a little welding to do, but want to test fit before I go any further.

I purchased a Universal 22 Circuit Wiring Harness from Speedway Motors which comes with some GM connectors and hooked up just enough to get the engine to crank. I had to order a new Neutral Safety Switch which will be here in a couple days, but I bypassed it and it cranked.

This is what the modified battery tray looks like. It's mounted in the normal position in this pic, and I plan to move it about 1-1/2 to 2" to the left so the holes on the right side line up to the original nuts. The left side will be mounted in the original nuts with spacers. In retrospect, maybe I should have cut off the sides of the new tray and just welded the bottom piece to the original sides.



Wiring Harness


Speedway Harness:


The two challenges with the wiring harness was the ignition switch and the turn signal switch.

Starting with the turn signal switch, I did not want to cut the female plug on the steering wheel harness; I also did not want to reuse the male plug on my original harness as it was not in great shape. I found a harness adapter I got from somewhere which was meant to adapt the newer steering wheel plugs into the original wiring harness, but was still not what I needed. The Speedway harness had the newer style female plug and a male adapter. I did the following:

1. Cut the new style female plug from my adapter leaving only the half circle male plug.
2. Attach the terminal pins provided by Speedway to the adapter wires and push them into the male plug provided by Speedway.
3. Attach the "new" Speedway male plug into the female harness plug. I can now plug the harness into my steering column.



Ignition Switch

I had a hard time finding information on exactly how to wire the ignition switch. There is writing on the switch that is pretty self explanatory, and many of the threads on the board referenced the wiring diagram which helps but was still a bit confusing. I finally found a thread where someone posted a photo of his switch and other people listed what each wire was for. He then posted something similar to the image I created below, but it was not complete.

Here is my photo guide to the ignition switch, which I found to be helpful when attaching it to the wiring harness. I did order a new AC Delco harness plug by the way. If anyone thinks anything is inaccurate, please let me know; I can always update the image.

Note: The second Red Wire does not do anything. The aftermarket plugs come with the wire, but the original wiring diagram shows the plug not being used. Rather than take a pic of my switch, I just used the pic from the other post and added the text.


I have not finished my doors as of yet. One has the skin removed, the other has a 3rd of the skin removed. Will get to it as soon as the projects above are complete. I have a lot of cleaning up on the door to do before I can start welding the panels on.