what a weekend, damn.
started off with stripping old junk wiring. the old gauges had a bunch even thought they were all mechanical, the old brake controller, some other random junk under the dash, more random junk from under the hood, 2 switches in the dash that weren't hooked up, plus the old sub amp. that learning and being careful took a while, plus tracing the wires. found the old brake controller didn't work cuz the wires were cut off the plug at the hitch and just taped up.
pulling the amp turned out to be amazing, all cuz i had to pull the seat. it not only got me a cubby under the seat, but if you look there are 6 holes in the bracket, the rear most 2 aren't used. so i drilled 2 new fwd holes and bolted the seat back in 2-1/8" further back!! the bracket is sloped and rounded so it tipped back slightly, got lower, and after a few washers on the front for a touch more recline is awesome. this is WAY more comfortable to drive now.
the new gauge is a 3-in-one and all read the same as the old 3, so that's good to know. but the real win is the viability and cleaning it up. windshield isn't blocked by the a-pillar pods, and my speedo isn't blocked by the column pod. i also only have to look at one place to get all 3 metrics and the tach vs up and down and all over to get em. only thing the new placement blocks is my view of the hood. one funny thing was they gave me a 60psi sender and a 120psi sender. well with 15psi fuel and 60psi boost it was easy to pick what went where. too bad that was backwards of the gauge set up so my fuel read double and the boost half. had to switch the wires at the gauge and since you can't change anything but back color my fuel is now labeled 'BOOST', boost is labeled 'PSI'. whatever, it works.
installing the fuel sender got interesting though. had to install a spacer cuz the sender totally locked out my throttle linkage. even with the tiny spacer it's like 0.5mm from hitting! i had to clock it just right.
so time for a test drive ... dash back lighting doesn't work, radio doesn't come on, no cig lighter to charge the phone, and the heater blower doesn't work. wtf did i break?!?! turns out when i pulled all the fuse taps the previous owners had they were too loose to make contact! had to tighten 3 different fuse receptacles in the block. now i'm down to only the heater blower not working ... it was colt this morning. in the process of trouble shooting i spent a little time with the truck in RUN but not on, as little as possible cuz the buzzer is intense. only to find that the injections pump is leaking fuel pretty bad around the throttle linkage, enough it made a puddle. easy enough fix to just replace the o-ring, fairly common, but more work to do.
next the P3 brake controller gets wired in, new rear shocks to match the new front, and the load bags for the back. gota be ready for towing season soon! even the deer are anxious for me to finish, they checked on me.
