I figured you had something big cooking when I saw you were still online after midnight recently.
Niiice.
BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
Hahaha, but we’re not all in the same time zone. I’m MST, mountain standard time, so I’m 2 hours behind the most of the rest of you.
Midnight your time = only 10:00 my time.
While most of you are sleeping, I’m usually still working in The Skunkworks. But conversely, you’re up 2 hours before me in the mornings.
🤷🏼♂️
You’ll be fine soon anyway after Alberta defects and becomes the 51st star on the flag.
🤣
J/K
🤣
J/K
Impressive effort re-working what was already a solid piece visually. Curious though..... Why not utilize flange nuts vs the extra work of welding the nut/washer combos on the attaching hardware?
Fat chance of that ever happening.
Mostly because I wanted to see if I could make fender washers work there. I even picked up some when I got the rest of the hardware, but unfortunately they won’t work unless I cut quite a bit off. They’d have to be more oval than round to fit in behind the flanges. Which isn’t entirely out of the question yet either.
Also, I was going for the largest possible footprint for the nuts to distribute the load as much as possible (hence the fender washers) and while strong, flange nuts typically don’t have that large of a footprint to them. They’re easy enough to get for 1/4” bolts, but much more difficult for the machine screw sizes like the 6-32 I’m using for the upper flanges.
From fabrication to custom wiring, all in one night.
While I had already welded up the large oval hole for the factory wiring grommet on the driver’s side, the passenger’s side was a little smaller so I thought I’d keep it as long as possible and utilize it if I could.
Well, after determining actual hole and grommet sizes for the number of wires required in each area, the stock passenger’s side hole was still too big. So I welded it up last night and made a new, much smaller hole.
Same area, new hole, new smaller grommet. These are just a couple of cut off wiring ends in the required gauge to make sure they all fit through the grommet.
Doing the wiring pass-throughs like a more modern car, there’ll be 4 in total, one behind each taillight, and one behind each reverse light.
Started building the new wiring harness last night as well, damn I do love these Deutsch connectors!
This is going to be so much cleaner and more efficient than what the factory ever did.
While I had already welded up the large oval hole for the factory wiring grommet on the driver’s side, the passenger’s side was a little smaller so I thought I’d keep it as long as possible and utilize it if I could.
Well, after determining actual hole and grommet sizes for the number of wires required in each area, the stock passenger’s side hole was still too big. So I welded it up last night and made a new, much smaller hole.
Same area, new hole, new smaller grommet. These are just a couple of cut off wiring ends in the required gauge to make sure they all fit through the grommet.
Doing the wiring pass-throughs like a more modern car, there’ll be 4 in total, one behind each taillight, and one behind each reverse light.
Started building the new wiring harness last night as well, damn I do love these Deutsch connectors!
This is going to be so much cleaner and more efficient than what the factory ever did.
Nice work Donovan! As usual, very good attention to the details. Are those Deutsch connectors similiar to weatherpack connectors?
I like weatherpack connectors better than deutsch for ease of use, because it seems like deutsch connectors can be hard to get apart sometimes. Although, the deutsch connectors take up a lot less real estate for the same number of wires, and seem to seal up better. I deal with them working on ag equipment, so I deal with all kinds of different types of terminals...
Jeff, they’re similar in that they’re modular so to speak, and despite the name, Weatherpak aren’t as weather tight as the Deutsch in my opinion.
I first had exposure to Deutsch connectors 20 years ago when building natural gas compressors for use in the oil patch, and they left a huge impression on me. Their ease of use, compact size, weather resistance and engineering design make them the hands down best. In my opinion of course. I swore that when it came time for the wiring on the car I’d be using Deutsch connectors.
For a minimal investment in a master kit, some closed barrel connectors, and a good quality closed barrel crimper, there’s virtually nothing you can’t do with them. I picked up this large kit and crimper off the jungle website for a very reasonable cost:
I respectfully disagree, but to each their own I suppose. I’ve found in my experience that Deutsch connectors are very easy to disassemble, you merely pop out the locks, release the pins and pull the wires out. That was one (of many) reasons I chose them.
I do agree however that Deutsch connectors are far more compact than Weatherpak, and these DT series ones that I’m using are their standard size. They also make a DTM series that are even smaller.
