[Second Series]

It’s been cold and wet out, but I have been doing several small tasks simultaneously. It wasn’t raining one day so I made a bracket for the starter button, and am working on the bracket for the transfercase shifter. Started to paint the cooler brackets. I put in a stronger spring for the starter pedal, now it feels right and functions well. The next day I had time it started to rain so I decided to work on the wiring. I’m eliminating the bulkhead connector. I’ve gone over the wiring diagrams and have a few print outs. I started to cut wires from the connector, one by one. Each wire gets a label covered in clear heatshrink tubing. I wanted to see what it will look like, so I stuffed the wire loom through the original wire hole with new grommet. There are about 4 wires for the windshield wiper that wont be used that are just hanging out in the picture. There were a few unused pins on the connector, so it was taking up more space than needed. I still need to run the wires for the front lights/horn, and the wires for the rear lights/fuel tank. Those might go through another existing hole, it was a tight squeeze to get the wires in the split loom tubing through the grommet. I could get more wires through without the tubing. I’ll pull it out when I connect to the inside wires. My plan is to use crimp connectors, staggered at various positions. I’ll cut the wires at different lengths so all the connectors won’t be next to each other. When I started driving this truck 30 years ago I thought I could solder the wiring to make it better. I soldered a connector for the brake light switch. The brake light switch was sometimes not turning off. One day at work my co-worker told me my rear lights were on at lunch time. I ran out and frantically tried to stop the drain on the battery. I tried to pull the connector off the switch. The current from the brake lights being on for hours had heated and melted the solder. The wire pulled out of the connector. Lesson learned. Since then I have worked on airplane wiring and learned about crimping vs. soldering. My day job is a solder tech, I’ll be crimping the wires on the truck.