I thought I'd be best of to post an update of the last 6 months...

spent a lot of time working on my house... and its getting there in terms of its reno... I found some time to work on the car...

I updated to a new head unit and it was of the type that rolled the elctric antenna up even when you weren't listing to the radio... and it started to annoy me so I went about changing it... And this was the result:



It is a completely hidden unit and resides under the front window grill... Reception isn't quite perfect... But for someone who hardly listens to the radio... Its hidden and will do me quite fine...
Info on where to buy and how to install can be found here:

Antenna-less Technical Doc

Other things that have happened are the time off delay power windows which utilised a time off delay relay controlling the 30Amp relay for the power windows... This gave me 1 min to wind up the windows after the car was shut off... Seen here:

Delay Off Power Windows Technical Doc

However my time relay died and locked on... And I still didn't like the fact that if your loading groceries or the sort the passenger can't wind the windows down due to you being in the supermarket for longer than 1 min... So the other day I changed this so that when you unlock the car the windows power up and when you lock it they power down... This was super simple and is achieved by picking up a wire behind the drivers side kick panel that is yellow with a black trace (runs into the door lock actuator) and running it to the trigger of the relay... Much simpler than the time delay version and also more convenient...

I have also had the gear stick re-upholstered due to the usual thing with the BA gear sticks and the cheap nasty vinyl cracking and tearing... Now is much better quality vinyl (thicker and stronger) and while I was doing that shortened and changed the angle of the gear stick so that it sits right in the middle of the console now... Its much neater and much more practical instead of feeling like its a foot long... I'll upload a photo of this tomorrow... I also fitted one of those US ebay short throw shifters for a T5 mustang off ebay that I got at the time for around 120AUD and this made the gear box feel much improved also...

The last little thing I have done is replace the relay holder next to the battery with one off the thermos from an EF... The advantage off this relay box is the easily removable lid... I use to struggle to get that little screw out before and not hit the active terminal of the battery... now I require not tools for the lid removal... While I was doing this I installed a time delay relay into the low beams... The reason being because I run HID's and these have a ballast, a ballast is heaps of turns of copper wire and makes a very large inductor (much like your car's coil). Everytime you turned them off the collapsing magnetic field in the ballast produces a massive voltage spike that really doesn't do the HID bulb any good... This was more evident every-time I went from high to low and low to high beam, they flicked on and off for a split second... greatly reducing the life of them... So i installed this relay and it is trigger by the high beams and low beam output of the combo switch and triggers the low beam relay... I set for 10sec delay so also when I shut the lights down of a night time the headlights stay on for 10sec extra to see obstacles in the dark...

This is much better for the HID's and works good for me of a night too... The only downside is when you flash your highs at passing cars you headlights (low beams) stay on for 10 secs afterwards... I used the same relay for this as pictured in the Time of Delay Power windows doc... Except for the lights you need the low-side switching version...

Other things that are slowly happening is to replace the fusible links with the fuse block out of an EF/EL to unclutter that side of the battery and get rid of the extra fuse holder I have for my amp in the boot, I'll run it of the ALB spot (anti-lock brakes) as my ED does not have this feature and the amp wire is fused at 40amps so it works well... This also gives me the provision for the power fans fuse which will be installed with my J3 EEC-V ECU so that they are triggered as per factory std's... The EEC-V will go in with the cam which goes in very soon...

Other things that are slowly happening is the Lokka to go in the diff and make it feel a bit more positive during spirited driving...

And lastly currently under design is the variable intermittent wipers mod which uses a timer of my design (rather than trying to integrate a EL BEM into the car) and will patch into two looms and is easily removable/reversible if required...

This mod will enable me to run the EL column, clock spring (no more brass pins, yay!) and combo switch (with variable knob) as well as nice AU momo wheel, when I get the funds for one... I will also implement the EL cruise module with give me the advantage of being all in one module and having the "set -" button available... I will be following BenJ's mod for this one... Which can be found in his build thread for those interested...

Some more pics will be added tomorrow... Hopefully this gives inspiration for doing something modern to the box car for those other box car lovers out there...

Some pics to fill the space... For a Christmas present myself and my brothers got together with our ED's and got combined photos for a large multi-picture photo for mum (as she wanted one) so here is some of my favourites from the photo shoot, for those who appreciate some good car photography:






Cheers for now...

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Hey Tim.

The ED is looking good. Reminds me of my old Red EB Sedan.

I really like your idea of using the relay block from the EF/EL thermo fans to replace the crappy EB one. I think I the parts lying around here, and will have to copy your work on that one.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers
BenJ

Cheers for the enthusiasm Ben...

It's all these small things that make the car more enjoyable to drive and work on... I like doing allthis electrical stuff rather than the mechanical stuff as my hobby is electronics and I am an apprentice electrician... So all this stuff comes reasonably easy...

The mechanical stuff I'm not sure on so I generally need my old man to help (as he is a Ford mechanic) so thats why the Lokka and cam and that are still waiting to go in, I need to get him when he isn't busy too...

I'll post pics of the relay block and that this arvo...

Cheers...

As promised...





even broke out the can of brembo red caliper paint on the front calipers on the weekend along with putting a kit in them... I don't mind the look...



Cheers...

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Look's great, almost identical to my old XR6, How long until the Lockright goes in?

Nice tidy ED Tim

Like your mods, and some nice pics of the 3 ED's. Your family must love their boxcars

Cheers

Josh

Hey Tim,

Awesome looking beast. Good thing I have tissues to wipe away the drool.

How much did the Momo Steering wheel set you back? I saw one go off on ebay a couple weeks back for $300. I know sometimes they go for nearly 600 or so.

Hey there buddy... Yeah cheers for all that butchering... I had to get around to getting it in there eventually... You probably notice the fuse block when it goes in too...



Hey Brett...

Like all good things... trying to slot it into my schedule along with renos on my house and also line up my old man as he has a hoist at work so that'll make it a hell of a lot easier...

It'll happen on day... i hope like the cam I own and am getting round to putting in...



Josh, yeah matey its easy all ED's all the same easier to understand and diagnose problems... plus we own a spare parts car cost us 160 bucks from wagga so thats good too...

Funny thing is we all love our Ford's and dad has a 1968 HK holden and mum has a 1999 VT commodore... so quite funny how that worked out... I didn't want no VN or VR looking commodore though... Horrid shaped cars...

We did well I think mine was the dearest at 1600 for a factory manual, the white one was 500 and needed a head gasket change and the silver one was 1200 i think... all straight all with factory cruise...

Cheers for the encouragement...



Hey matey... haha yeah I have those moments too...

The wheel was owned buy someone on here (not sure who now) and he couldn't sell it and it ended up on ebay and I bought off ebay just before I started using this forum and found it on here... It set me back $450 bucks but man do I love it...

Eventually I'll run a full EL/AU column (combo switch clock spring and wheel) so I'll hang onto this fella, might be worth more one day... might not... but for something in pretty good nic its worth the space in the cupboard...

I saw a brand spanker never been on a car on ebay once... I wanted it so bad with didn't have the over 1k it ended up going for...

again cheers for the comments...

Ok...

Update...

Some of you may have seen my latest thread popping up regarding Variable wipers into an ED falcon and I'll tell you it can be done and once you know how its not all that bad...

I'll post up some pics when I get them tomorrow, but this mod has involved an EL combo switch with variable int wipers, and patch harness to plug this into the ED loom (easy reversal), an EL column to mount the combo switch to, EL cruise to get the buttons on the wheel to work (esp set -), and a custom built timer to get the wipers to work... All in all now I look back on what I have done it seems rather simple...

The biggest feats have been:

*Making a custom steering column with an EL top half and an ED bottom half and my thanks go to BenJ for pointing me in the right direction on where to find this and telling it me that dispite looking impossible, that its actually not that hard. This part is now complete...

*Making a custom cruise cable to reach the log manifold and this has turned out much easier than I first imagined, and for what has been $2 in parts so far its relatively cheap to do... I just have to make up the loom to wire into the ED and make up/find a thing to crimp on the end to mount to the butterfly...

*Making the timer from scratch... There has been a lot of learning here and like Thomas Edison, a 1000 ways not to make a variable int timer, and one that works... A lot of idea on how to best get it going has come from Murray who makes the E series diagnostic units... So thanks to him to for the countless email and schematics we have been drawing and sending back and forth... In the end its super simple now and fairly bullet-proof... Its 6 wires, 1 wiper accy power (this comes from elsewhere, not in the column wires), 1 wire which earths out when on Int (gives ground to make the circuit go), 1 park wire, causes the timer to count when parked and reset when running, one output to pulse the BEM and 2 wires from the potentiometer in the column. This is another plug out of my patch harness and should the timer ever fail, I unplug the timer, bridge out the Int wires in the plug and it runs as per factory with no variable int so very failsafe...

All in all its slowly becoming more and more of a success...

Thanks for the people who have had an input into the final outcome of this project and hopefully might help anyone else who wants to do something similar to their cars...

Thats it for now... Pics tomorrow...

Thanks,
Tim

where did you get your white dials from?

Hi there...

A guy on ebay goes under speed graphics...

Speed Graphics Ebay Store

I found him to be pretty good... He added the extra logos for nothing (back a couple of years ago) and did a great job with them... The illuminate great with good multi-directional LED's...

Cheers,
Tim

Bit slack I know but here the pics as promised...

First we have the custom steering column...



This was fairly straight forward once you see how they work... The EL one is easy to get apart... You pop out that cir-clip and use the lower column like a slide hammer to, as gently as possible, tap out the bottom bush (or needle roller maybe?) and the lower section will then come straight out... The ED one is a bit more of a pain... The bottom bush is a pain to get out and we ended up cutting the bottom inch or two off the outer column as it wouldn't budge... the lower section of column will again slide out... Now you will see the upper column section is a solid bar that goes to a male flat type fitting and lower section is a female flat type fitting where they simply slide into each other... All you need to do now is get the bush/needle roller off the EL lower back onto the ED lower...

Everything comes off the bottom end of the EL lower shaft so getting this needle roller off is no worries... Getting it on the ED one is the tricky part... you have to nic the 4 spot welds that hold the tube adaptor on the ED lower (this is a piece of thick wall tube that lives inside the outer column, its been flattened on one end to take the male flat section and left round on the other where its welded to the round section...) Put some witness marks on it before removing... You'll need a cold chisel and hammer to get it off... You'll notice the column section under it has been knurled for a tight fit... Grind off/neaten up old welds... Slide needle roller on... Completely remove ED upper shaft (cir-clip right behind where wheel goes) and this to align the reinforcer (as inner tube is flattened to mate with upper also) this ensures they can't be out of alignment... Tap back to where it lived before... Give it 4 spot welds and it as good as when it come from the factory again...

Unfortunately I didn't think to stop and get photos when I was doing this one night... But as you pull it apart and see what's in there for yourself, it all makes sense...


Next is the custom cruise control module...




Ok this was fairly simple...
Massacre the EL cable to get the end that goes into the side of the cruise module... You sort of have to cut the rubber coating on the cable and then using a pin punch tap the fitting off...

Get your ED cable and in much the same fashion you tap the end fitting off, but you can leave the vinyl/plastic outer coating untouched here... then just clamp a drill bit in the vice which is a similar size to the outside of the ED cable and buy hand screw the EL fitting onto it, doing this by hand ensures you can go past and damage the stopper that limits how far the cable goes into the fitting... Once its a fraction smaller push it into the ED cable and that's the outer cable completed).

For an inner I went to the push bike shop and bought a gear change cable (as it's similar diameter and stiffness to the EL cable (the ED inner is way too thick and way too stiff to go around the cam on the cruise module). $2 this 1.6m long gal cable cost me, and to my added benefit it had two different soldered lugs on the end... I found out which was a better fit in the cam on cruise module, cut the other off... Fed it down the outer, and clipped that fitting back into the side of cruise module... That's pretty much how it stand now... I'll get something made up to crimp/screw onto the end of the cable... I can cut it to length once it's in the car and attach this end...

Again this looks rather factory...

More coming but I can only have 5 attachments here...

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Ok...

Up first we have the patch harness that will make everything work... The EL combo switch/clock spring goes into plugs, other two go into the ED plugs, and the last one is for my timing module for the variable int wipers...



Ok next my custom timer for which I etched the circuit board today... I used a new technique to me to do this, called Press n Peel film... You use a laser printer to transfer the image to the dull side of the film so you get this effect:



You then (after very thoroughly cleaning oxidisation of copper clad board) use and iron to re-heat to toner and cause it to stick to the copper clad board... And you peel the film back off and you get this:



And in theory the toner stays stuck to the board (took me a fair few goes to get it) and the you drop it in Ferric Chloride and let it eat the copper you don't want, you then remove the board, drill the holes (I used a double sided PCB so you have to hope the sides line up which mine just did) and then remove the toner (I used Carbie Cleaner, they recommend Acetone, Carbie Cleaner is what mechanics have though ) and then clean thoroughly again and spray with lacquer to protect from oxidisation...

You're then left with this:



I just have to trim it to the final size and then solder it up and trial it one last time (I think/hope the program transferred all the tracks)... And all should be good then...

So all in all... So Far so Good...

We'll see how the final product turns out though...

Cheers for now...

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And hopefully the completed circuit will resemble something of this nature...



Cheers,
Tim

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Not getting any feedback on this mod... Maybe no one else is interested in this sort of thing? oh anyway... I'll keep going just in case...

I had to re-make the timer coz I damaged the circuit board on the first one... So after re-etching another circuit board and soldering up another one it finally works...

And you then end up with something of this nature:







I just made the circuit board as small as I could and it so happens its a perfect fit in a std UB5 jiffy box... It sits on the vertical board tracks and I stuck a couple of bits of foam to stop any rattles... It will cable tie up on top of the pedal box and you'll never know its there...

Any feedback off anyone would be greatly appreciated... and if anyone is going to do things like this I'm more than happy to provide any extra required help...

Cheers...

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