BUILD THREAD “The Juggernaut”
- Thread starter Rktpwrd
- Start date
I'm not talking so much about disassembly on pulling pins, because I agree with you there, but actually hooking and unhooking the connectors when they get dust and dirt in them. Of course like I said, I deal with mainly ag equipment. So they are used on tractors, combines, planters, in the dust, get behind the locks and moisture, and have to dig it out just to unhook. Of course on a vehicle, especially a car such as yours, you SHOULD never have that problem.
Yeah, I can totally see that. When I was using them building natural gas compressors, everything was new so I never really had to deal with that issue. The connectors are designed and made with such close tolerances that it likely wouldn’t take much dirt and crud to make them tough to get apart.
Starting to pick up speed on this project, things are beginning to gel nicely now.
Last weekend, I got the entire taillight harness completed, loomed and heat shrinked the ends. This kids, is how you build a wiring harness.
This is the other part of it, the plate light and sending wire for the fuel level gauge:
Today I received LED bulbs for the taillights, 360 degree red ones so that the lights don’t look washed out and pink.
These have a built in CANBUS resistor chip to eliminate hyper flashing, so they should work fine in our older cars.
Before I could pop them in the sockets, I realized the sockets were really nasty inside, 45 years worth of old electrical grease, dirt, gunk and other unpleasantries. So after soaking and scrubbing them in the sink, I picked up some of this CRC Electrical Parts Cleaner. Essentially contact cleaner:
And man, I’ve gotta say, wow. This stuff is awesome. The amount of crap it loosened up and dislodged was amazing. I sprayed it in and let it sit for a bit, then dumped out the majority and hit the sockets with compressed air. It cleaned out the socket cavities beautifully, and didn’t harm the plastic or the rubber bits.
It will eat the glue that holds the rubber gaskets on though, so just be aware and plan accordingly for it.
Goodbye old junk, time to get into the 21st century.
I’ve still got 2 more coming in white for the reverse lights, but for now the harness, wiring, loom and bulbs are done. I carefully tested the harness once I was done, and am pleased to report everything works flawlessly.
Man are these bulbs bright! There should be no reason not to be seen from behind with these.
I would’ve taken a picture with them lit up, but honestly they were so bright it completely washed out the camera.
Enough about the wiring. Once I had the harness finished, I turned my attention to the mounting hardware for my fabricated piece. Here I’m planning out the mounting locations in preparation for drilling the holes through the body and the piece:
Once I figured out where on the piece I wanted them, I marked out the locations on the body first, then drilled each location with a small pilot hole. I then Cleco’d the piece on one last time and using the pilot holes, back drilled through those holes into my fabricated piece thereby ensuring that the holes in both pieces would be aligned.
Once this was done, I carefully enlarged the holes in both pieces to the final size and deburred them. Time to start welding nuts to washers. I’ll spare y’all the monotony and tediousness of this process, but here’s the end result:
Welding the 1/4” nut and washers on was pretty straightforward, just grind the fender washers down until they cleared the upper bend, install a bolt through the hole into the nut, tighten down and tack weld the edges of the washers on. Then cut/grind the excess washer off the bottom edge.
The much smaller 6-32 nut and washer combinations required a little different procedure though. Because I had no access to the backside of the flanges where these mount, I had to drill two small holes either side of the attaching point, bolt up the nut/washer, then plug weld into the washer edges from the outside.
It looked like this:
Repeated this 5 more times, and the smaller attaching points were done as well.
Continued >>>
Last weekend, I got the entire taillight harness completed, loomed and heat shrinked the ends. This kids, is how you build a wiring harness.
This is the other part of it, the plate light and sending wire for the fuel level gauge:
Today I received LED bulbs for the taillights, 360 degree red ones so that the lights don’t look washed out and pink.
These have a built in CANBUS resistor chip to eliminate hyper flashing, so they should work fine in our older cars.
Before I could pop them in the sockets, I realized the sockets were really nasty inside, 45 years worth of old electrical grease, dirt, gunk and other unpleasantries. So after soaking and scrubbing them in the sink, I picked up some of this CRC Electrical Parts Cleaner. Essentially contact cleaner:
And man, I’ve gotta say, wow. This stuff is awesome. The amount of crap it loosened up and dislodged was amazing. I sprayed it in and let it sit for a bit, then dumped out the majority and hit the sockets with compressed air. It cleaned out the socket cavities beautifully, and didn’t harm the plastic or the rubber bits.
It will eat the glue that holds the rubber gaskets on though, so just be aware and plan accordingly for it.
Goodbye old junk, time to get into the 21st century.
I’ve still got 2 more coming in white for the reverse lights, but for now the harness, wiring, loom and bulbs are done. I carefully tested the harness once I was done, and am pleased to report everything works flawlessly.
Man are these bulbs bright! There should be no reason not to be seen from behind with these.
I would’ve taken a picture with them lit up, but honestly they were so bright it completely washed out the camera.
Enough about the wiring. Once I had the harness finished, I turned my attention to the mounting hardware for my fabricated piece. Here I’m planning out the mounting locations in preparation for drilling the holes through the body and the piece:
Once I figured out where on the piece I wanted them, I marked out the locations on the body first, then drilled each location with a small pilot hole. I then Cleco’d the piece on one last time and using the pilot holes, back drilled through those holes into my fabricated piece thereby ensuring that the holes in both pieces would be aligned.
Once this was done, I carefully enlarged the holes in both pieces to the final size and deburred them. Time to start welding nuts to washers. I’ll spare y’all the monotony and tediousness of this process, but here’s the end result:
Welding the 1/4” nut and washers on was pretty straightforward, just grind the fender washers down until they cleared the upper bend, install a bolt through the hole into the nut, tighten down and tack weld the edges of the washers on. Then cut/grind the excess washer off the bottom edge.
The much smaller 6-32 nut and washer combinations required a little different procedure though. Because I had no access to the backside of the flanges where these mount, I had to drill two small holes either side of the attaching point, bolt up the nut/washer, then plug weld into the washer edges from the outside.
It looked like this:
Repeated this 5 more times, and the smaller attaching points were done as well.
Continued >>>
Naturally I had to bolt it up to verify that everything was still aligned properly, and that I didn’t need to enlarge any of the holes in the body, but mostly I wanted to see how it looked when properly attached, and what the gap between the two would look like.
A look from the inside on the passenger’s side, I’ve got a lot of cleanup and old material removal still to do.
And the gap? Damn bro, what gap???
I honestly couldn’t be happier with this outcome. The two panels fit sooo nicely and tight together, I’m extremely pleased with the result. And strong? It’s unbelievable the amount of strength that this piece has added to the entire back panel of the car. I can literally, without exaggeration, lift up the back end by this piece alone.
You ain’t doing that with the stock plastic one.
Yeah the amount of attaching points and hardware is probably overkill, but hey, I’m an overkill kind of person. I’d much rather have it incredibly strong and solid than flimsy and weak.
It’s almost a shame that this…
…is now all most people will usually see of it.
Since I had the trunk closed, now was a good time to do one final check of the gap and clearance between the panel and the underside of the trunk lid:
Looks great to me, good clearance, uniform along the length, and even from side to side.
Last night I made the gaskets for use between the two panels, they turned out ok, but I might remake new ones again before final assembly.
I booked the day off today, and bright and early I was up and on site at my customer’s to use his large sandblasting cabinet. After an hour, I had it done and was on my way back home again where I seam sealed the backside while it was still all nice and clean.
I don’t normally seam seal over bare metal like this, but in the interest of expediting the progress and its intended use, I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue. It was more so to protect the backside and close up any potential water retaining areas than it was to make it look pretty. I wanted to get this done today, as tomorrow is another big day where I plan on epoxy priming and painting the backside.
Yep that’s right, the next time you see this, it’ll have some color on it! Only the backside, but hey, color is color, and it’ll be nice to see for a change. Then we can finally start some filler work on the frontside and the tail pan on the car.
Stay tuned, I’ll probably want to post pictures tomorrow with color on it.
😅
D.
A look from the inside on the passenger’s side, I’ve got a lot of cleanup and old material removal still to do.
And the gap? Damn bro, what gap???
I honestly couldn’t be happier with this outcome. The two panels fit sooo nicely and tight together, I’m extremely pleased with the result. And strong? It’s unbelievable the amount of strength that this piece has added to the entire back panel of the car. I can literally, without exaggeration, lift up the back end by this piece alone.
You ain’t doing that with the stock plastic one.
Yeah the amount of attaching points and hardware is probably overkill, but hey, I’m an overkill kind of person. I’d much rather have it incredibly strong and solid than flimsy and weak.
It’s almost a shame that this…
…is now all most people will usually see of it.
Since I had the trunk closed, now was a good time to do one final check of the gap and clearance between the panel and the underside of the trunk lid:
Looks great to me, good clearance, uniform along the length, and even from side to side.
Last night I made the gaskets for use between the two panels, they turned out ok, but I might remake new ones again before final assembly.
I booked the day off today, and bright and early I was up and on site at my customer’s to use his large sandblasting cabinet. After an hour, I had it done and was on my way back home again where I seam sealed the backside while it was still all nice and clean.
I don’t normally seam seal over bare metal like this, but in the interest of expediting the progress and its intended use, I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue. It was more so to protect the backside and close up any potential water retaining areas than it was to make it look pretty. I wanted to get this done today, as tomorrow is another big day where I plan on epoxy priming and painting the backside.
Yep that’s right, the next time you see this, it’ll have some color on it! Only the backside, but hey, color is color, and it’ll be nice to see for a change. Then we can finally start some filler work on the frontside and the tail pan on the car.
Stay tuned, I’ll probably want to post pictures tomorrow with color on it.
😅
D.
Last edited:
These newer light duty trucks are the WORST. Hey, let's put breakover connectors in a place that will catch all the mud/dirt from the tires, and then just for fun, we'll add incredibly weak CPA clips.
Beautiful work, as always, on your stuff, though!
Great job, Donovan, that panel looks fantastic as does your wiring harness!
Another showing of something that would make those pro shops wonder why they don't boast work like this.
Thanks guys!
I hope you don’t think I’m boasting in any way because that wasn’t the intention. Just sharing the progress over the last few days. But I caught the implied compliment, so thank you!
I know you're not boasting at all, just a shame a shade tree guy can show some quality work for himself compaired to a shop that does simular work to pay the bills can't show the work that goes into their own cars. I see you as one who can see what the finish product will look like & takes the time to craft it.
