Long time, no update!

Tis the season of vacation, cold weather and of course, car work.

It has been a bit since my last update but there has been work done on the car!   Also, I've been to an auto conference in Las Vegas and then I spent a week in Mexico eating thanksgiving with family.  So excuses are done now.

Let's get to a quick catchup on what I've been doing.

SEMA

First a few pictures of some cool car stuff.

Extreme 3-wheeler drifting.   I honestly think this would be a fun side project.

Ford GT.  I Love this car so much.

Honestly, I can't get enough of the old GT's color scheme.

This was my favorite car here.  They took a Charger and basically turned it into a mean rally car.

Not my style but the attention to detail on this paint job was amazing.

Gotta go FAST

Alright, now for some car updates.  I've been working on getting FAST installed.  Slowly.

Garage dog is watching you work.

First goal was to rip all the old fuel lines out, take the fuel pump out and drop the gas tank.

Why drop the gas tank?  I need to plumb in a return line which is required by the new FAST/efi system.  In theory, this shouldn't be too hard, right?  Well, it is me doing this so of course I will make everything harder than it needs to be.

See that thing right there?  That is the part of the gas tank's filler neck.  This is where I want to plumb in the return line.  

The goal is to cut it in half, then put in the piece above - it has a nice little 3/8's tube perfect for what I need to do.

Anyway, gotta disconnect all the rubber tubes from the fuel line on the side of the car and the gas tank.

Almost forgot to disconnect the vent line.

Here is a look from under the gas tank.  I disconnected the feed line and the fuel level sender.   The big tube thing on the right is one of the exhausts and the bar going across is the panhard bar.  I'll go into more detail in a bit.

Short lived but this little mallory 110 gph pump served its purpose well.  

So now it is time to drop the tank.  Easy, right?  Just pop the two fuel straps off and it should just drop down.  

So......

Guys, it's not going any where.

Is it the panhard bar?  (pictured above)  Is it the exhaust?  Well, we are redoing all of the exhaust so might as well start chopping some exhaust out.

[not pictured, my buddy Graham chopping some exhaust out]

 Ugh - STILL not going anywhere.  Fine, we will take out the damn panhard bar.  Alright, let's break this down in steps.

Removing the gas tank from 1972 Ford LTD Brougham:

1. Remove fuel tank straps.
2. Try to lower tank.
3. Spend 20 minutes screwing with the tank.
4. Have your friend cut parts of the exhaust out.
5. Repeat step 2.
6. Repeat step 3.
7. Remove panhard bar.
8. Repeat step 2.
9. Answer 'less than half full' to your buddy when he asks how full the tank is.
10. Get gas everywhere as you and your buddy get the 3/4 full gas tank out.

Results:

Boom.

Let's take a look at what this panhard bar is...

So first off, for those wondering to what my rear suspension setup is; According to some research, My car is a 3-link rear suspension WITH a center panhard bar.  This means I have two lower rear control arms and one upper control arm.  The panhard bar is connected from the frame to the center of the rear end - to prevent lateral motion.

So here is mine.  What is fun about this is you will literally not find this type of panhard bar or bushings ANYWHERE.  Go ahead, look it up.  I have two options for bushing replacement;  re-fab the frame to take a new type of panhard.......... or just get some strut bar bushings and call it good for a year until I start redoing the entire rear end.

I chose option #2.

Return Line

While I was here,  I decided to run some hardline along the frame for the return line.   I got a coil of 3/8's stainless steel.

So time to straighten out the coil and do some work.

Difficulty:  I don't have a tube straightener tool.
Improvise:  Drill a hole through a piece of wood and pull it through.
Results:

NAILED IT GUYS.   Sigh...Whatever, it is straight enough.

Also, I wanted to do some flaring just so the when I put the EFI rated rubber hose on, the EFI clamps will have something to catch on to.

After several attempts, I realize how tough flaring stainless style is.

Good enough for now.  (Hopefully)  I do plan on testing for leaks before any sort of driving or even starting the engine.  So well see how all this goes.

Badda bing.

Exhausted

And to make sure I got some work done, might as well get rid of the rest of the exhaust.  Again, credit goes to someone else when it comes to metal work;  this time Jim at the helm cutting the back end of the exhaust off.

Slowly but surely.

After all that work, it was time for some RnR...

Okay, hopefully next week will produce some good work.

Until then!

I'm positively charged about this upgrade

Guys, that title is clever as hell.  Why, because I finally got myself a NEW ALTERNATOR.  Time to upgrade my ignition!

The dudes at PA Performance were awesome and actually called me up to verify I got the correct alternator.  Apparently, there can be a 1/4 thickness difference where the bracket touches the alternator.  After making a quick measurement, they actually corrected my order so I received the correct type of alternator.  Great guys, great product and I'm happy. (no this isn't a product placement, I payed good money for this).

So Let's break down what you see in that picture;
New ignition cable (red thing) and new 3G alternator, internally regulated.  (HEY Mike, you dummy, isn't that a new regulator up in the top left?)

Oh, I pulled a fast one on ya. A ruse.  A little trick.  Check this out:

My old, Ford regulator on the top left there and the ...'new' PA performance on the right.   Now, let's just flip them over and....

Check it out, it is basically a regulator 'delete'.  (now pictured at the left)  This makes it so I can keep my normal harness and make wiring changes minimal.  Pretty slick right?

(Spoiler: I don't use this at all.)

So let's yoink the regulator, which is tucked up behind the battery, near the passenger side's headlight.

After loosening the brackets, removing the belt and disconnecting some wires; the old alternator comes out.

Yeah, it looks like it has seen some days.  I don't know if you can see or not, buuuuut basically all the terminals are fried.  The ground terminal stud and bolt are fused together....not sure what was happening there.  The Battery + stud on there was in the same shape.  If you read last week's post, this is where the light show was coming from when Jim was rightfully concerned about a potential fire hazard.

If I'm getting a new alternator, I should probably upgrade all the wiring going to and more importantly, from- AKA, 'the return path'.

I'm covered with the wiring going to the alternator from the battery; It comes with a huge maxi-fuse and a solid 4 gauge wire. (pictured in that first picture).

Let's take a look at the harness.  This is what connected the regulator to the alternator.

At the end of that harness (right side) is a yellow connector that goes into the regulator.  Or in this case, the new, regulator-delete.  First, let's look at a diagram to see what I need to salvage...(spoiler, almost nothing)

Kay - there are literally two wires I care about.  The B+ cable (which came with the new unit) and the "I" wire and that is the wire that runs to what normally would be the "I"/Ignition into the regulator.

After staring at this, it hit me:
I don't need the new "delete" or anything. I just need to connect that stupid I wire to where the split came out of the harness.  In fact, I can throw that entire old harness away.  Rad.

Wiring Fun

Okay, moving on to the return path.  Let's upgrade the negative/positive battery cables while I'm at it as well.

They have seen better days as well!  They say that if you upgrade your charging system, you gotta make sure you upgrade paths in and out of it as well.



Also, let's look at all my accessories hookups in the picture below... good lord! It's like Christmas lights except most of this was my fault.  Tree lights magically tangle up in the box, that isn't anyone's fault.  This is science; everyone knows that.

So, my next step was to clean all that up...as much as I can anyway. I hit up Summit and snagged me a junction box, to organize all those connections.

Boom.

So of course, while I was rewiring everything to use this new post, I snap a "mystery wire's" terminal ring.

It's on a fusible link...so it is probably important....  

A fusible link, in this case, is a segment of wire that is meant to melt away if something in your electrical circuit decides it wants to revive Frankenstein.  When it melts, it will safely cut the circuit and prevent nasty fires in your car.  Think of it like a fuse, but with a bit more...leeway.    Like if the circuit gets a quick spike in amperage, it might pop an ordinary fuse - in the case of a fusible link, it acts like a bit of a buffer.

Anyway, That mystery wire ended being the main power to my ignition harness.  Which ends up powering the accessory post as well.  

I re-crimped the wire and finished wiring everything up.  Alright...nothing is bolted down yet but here is everything kind of wired up....

Below, you see everything in place.   (save for the new battery terminal wires)

Alright, let's start it up!

Hmm...should this thing be putting out 14volts?  I'm barely getting 12v. I must have a ground issue somewhere....

Jim literally pulls the "is it plugged in" card on me.

"We'll there's yer problem!"

Hah - Whoops!  Kind of forgot to hook up the most important part;  the new alternator.

Boom, Got the new battery cables, the alternator and everything else hooked up.  

14 solid volts @ a possible 130 amps are being pumped through the ignition harness now.

Next step:

F.A.S.T.'s EZ-EFI install!!