And also had my end for the cruise cable made up as well... I got the guy to lathe it down (as I don't have a lathe and drill the 2mm hole for the cable and I did the other hole and made some minor adjustments...

Seen here:




Made out of aluminium and looks pretty good I think...

Some measurements are:

Dia where clip is: 9mm
Dia of Barrel is: 10mm
Length Of Barrel: 33mm
Length of clip end: 12mm
Dia of hole for ball on throttle body: 6.5mm
Dia of hole for cable: 2mm
Depth of cable hole: 30mm

and all I will do now it cut the cable to length and take it to work and crimp the end on in the hydraulic crimper we have for crimping lugs to cables...

Thats it for now...

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Very nice work mate.

Looking forward to seeing it all hooked up and working well.

Then, you can make me one LOL.

I like the attention to detail and the quality of your mods.

Cheers
BenJ

Hey cheers...

I don't like dangly wires and dodgy looking s**t... If I do it its gotta look factory and like it put there from Ford... Doesn't add any extra value unfortunately but then I know it looks right and will last...

I can always make up another one... (circuit board I assume you mean)... I'm getting better with press n peel now... more reliable results...

I can always just make the board and leave the rest to however anybody decides to wire it in... I'll list pin outs and people can pick up the wires and make up their own patch harnesses (coz its fiddly and long periods of time to get it neat)

Always happy to assist...

Cheers,
Tim

Well after getting not much interest and support around the joint I assume I've either confused a lot of people and am doing mods that no one else is interested in...

Either way... Big weekend planned for the end of this week... Get this mod all finished off... Since last posting I have the EL cruise all made up and fitted in (only just missed the dual diaphragm booster) and hooked to the throttle body... And I am just extending the loom plug I cut of and EL... This will be heat shrinked up tomorrow when I remember to bring the heat gun home... So this entails, the dash out of my car, the dash out of our spare car... swap the heater boxes over while its out (my fan motor is extremely noisy and a/c is up to s**t) and then to wire this cruise in behind the dash tidy up my wire to bring the power windows on when unlocked and remove the wires for the timer module I used previously... And run a power wire into the column wires to power my timer for the variable int wipers... Lucky I'm not paying someone to do all this So I've allowed two days for this, Sunday and Monday (public holiday) so I don't my car these days (the g/f will be giving me lifts )... So yes I'll get picks and post up once completed with the EL column, combo switch, wheel and cruise... Then just to save for a nice EL wheel and keep my momo one just in case they are ever worth something one day...

Last weekend I spent all Sunday tidying up the power side of the engine bay... This involved the installation of the fuse block out of the EL... I untaped about 2 foot of the main loom beside the battery and a foot under the header tank, pulled out the old alternator wires and then run the power fan wire and also the 8awg wire for my boot power (its the ALB fuse)... And the end of the EEC loom had three wires in it, the EEC earth, and the two wires for the hego fuse, so I cut these three off and installed a waterproof plug and then run them in with the big split loom tube so there is only one that runs from the booster to the battery now instead of two, I tucked the two loom tubes that run down beside the booster in behind the new cruise motor and they almost disappeared... So I now don't have the three massive fusible link plugs and the busbar down the side of the battery... Much tidier...

Its all about as good as its going to get without making a completely custom loom and setting it up like the EL loom (behind the dash)... I managed to fix the loom under the header tank as the weight used to pull on the header tank sensor and break the insulation off the wires... So that's tidied up too now... All in all fairly please with the outcome... only thing that I will redo is to put an Anderson single pole plug in my 8awg wire under the booster and run a slightly smaller wire (the big yellow Ford stuff) back to the ALB fuse as I had trouble and damaged the pin on the end when trying to fit into the fuse block and generally wasn't happy with that...

Oh and now the two small hose from the header tank are too short to go around the fuse block so I'll need to replace them...

So now the thermo fan stuff it ready to go, just gotta run the triggers wires to the EEC on the weekend when the dash is out... So when the cam goes in and the J3'd EEC-V it will control the thermos and bye bye hub fan

I might get some pics of the already done stuff tomorrow for show, if I remember Nothing like tidying up the mess and mass of wires the ED had... Maybe one day I'll run the other stuff in the channel under the grills... If I ever get the motivation...

Cheers for now...

ah cheers then... at least people are reading on then

There generally is s**t everywhere (when you clean up you can never remember where you put stuff) I generally just look for the cleanest spot to take the photo and I do have a few things going atm that are yet to be finished... Lately it has been my goal (as I run out of money for the next big buy for my house) so buying the small things and spending the time to finish some s**t off... Maybe one day my thread will be as big as BenJ's...

Funny you mention the electronics... Its second nature the stuff I've done... and doesn't appear all that hard and the challenge was not that steep... I look at what datamine did with his shift buttons on his transmission in his BA/BF and that's way beyond me... All that digital stuff is another league... I like the ED its mostly analogue signals and that some pulse sensors and that about the most complicated part... The bus signals, and the like, in the modern cars leave me baffled...

Cheers for the input though...

Howdy Onlookers...

Holy Crap what a week...

Don't plan stuff for a long weekend...

Started great on Sunday... Got the dash out and then the heater box out... Split the heater box and discovered that the barely 5 year old heater core was leaking... So due to being a Sunday, no joint was open and Monday was a public holiday so no joint was open then either... So my car is only just back on the road this arvo... Gave me plenty of time to get the wiring right though and add in other things I hadn't thought of the first time...

I got the wiring in for the cruise module and ran into the car through the ABS grommet as my car doesn't have ABS and put your std 8 pin white quick connect plug on the end... ran the mating plug into the dash and wired it in changing the pedal plugs and for the new cruise...

then I ran in my second loom for the Trip Computer wired it in and wired this loom and the cruise loom in at the same time to instrument cluster branch...

I ran the wire to trigger to the power windows when the car is unlocked... And then a piece of twin core to give some plug outs for footwell lighting...

So some pics, I'll let their descriptions do the talking, message me if your confused...





More to come...

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Ok Now...

Working From Driver Side Feet up and Over to Passenger Side Glovebox...







And more to come tomorrow of the completed job...

Cheers for now...

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Hey Tim, your doing bloody good with this one

Form building custom steering columns to making your own circuit boards.

Keep it up mate looks great.

Thanks Josh...

It works good too... See how the test of time takes it though... There is always hope for boxcar owners to have the mod cons of the EF EL cars...

Cheers...

Finally made 3 pages too... Catching you BenJ

First off now with the EL fuse block that phase of wiring tidying is complete so some pics of that... Just going to get some new pipes for the header tank and re-route them a bit neater than thats that finished... (you guys thought the day would never come hey? )

First off my brothers car to show how they looked wiring wise off the factory floor...



Notice the looms over the strut tower... Also this car has had the wrong battery put in it at one stage so no factory busbar shown on this one, but there is that hanging there too with those fusible links crammed in what little gap remains there... The looms also run downin front of the booster and just generally look ugly...

And after a few weekends of work you get this:



The two ford looms plus my 8awg wire all tucked into the one loom tube and run around the inside of the strut tower, all wiring is tucked down beside the booster behind the EL cruise module... Busbar is eliminated and if anything the fuse block actually hides the loom that runs up under it... And you can see my EL thermofan relay box that was added earlier on to make it easy to get to the relays... Now as a made two looms into 1 around the strut tower I added a waterproof connector where they merge so both can easily be removed still by simply unplugging shown here:



So in this plug you have the main EEC earth wire and the two wires for the hego fuse which got redirected into the EL fuse block (as the ED has this fuse down under header tank)... I went waterproof sheerly for the fact its wiring that belongs to the EEC and didn't want corrosion occurring in there anywhere resulting in a dodgy earth or hego power that might cause problems later on... You will also notice the 8awg wire breaks out here too... At a later stage I will add a high current type Anderson connector here so again it has the ability to be easily disconnected for loom removal...

All in all its a bit neater... A couple more of different angles...




More shortly...

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Ok... Next we have the completed part of the dash removal to fit the EL/ED column, the ED trip computer, the EL cruise and EL variable int wipers...

Success in the end

All went well as you've seen above, I made up two looms... We pulled the dash out of our spares car on the sat and then sat arvo I taped up two looms, one for the cruise and the second for the trip computer... So I pulled the dash loom out of the spare car and made my looms to run along the Ford Factory loom with all the take offs in the right places...

The sat we got the dash out and I discovered that damn leaking heater core and did all the dash wiring for the cruise, trip computer, power window trigger off the unlocked doors... Sunday we had visitors so I got the EEC wires run, these being Pin 34 (which was in the exisitng plug so I just added the pin into the dash plug) for the trip computer and possible EL cluster, Pin 36 for a possible El cluster, you will notice this wire is in a negative braid for its length so I ran my wire down inside this braid also to prevent any unwanted noise/inductance on it... and I ran a spare which for the time being is in pin 15 BBM trigger... I though hey this triggers at 3800rpm which is close enough to 4000rpm which is where ED's develop max torque which would make a great shift light trigger... One day... Maybe... Any way if I decide to do it the wire is there...

I also hooked up pin 33 and 53 which are the thermo fan trigger wires out to my already positioned EL thermofan relays... So once the cam is in I can plug an EEC-IV straight in and fit the thermos and its like a factory EL then...

As I was left to have whole week to think of possible future mods and run the wiring now I decided to do a few things... I added wiring to enable the use of footwell lighting (run with the dash loom and neater than the previous wiring)... And also added a kill switch... And for the sake of optimising the antenna button (now as I don't have an elect ariel) I ran it in series with the amp trigger for I can turn the subwoofer on and off as I please, mainly for listening to music with the car off and not wanting to go flat... Otherwise having a switch there with no use is more pointless...

I tidied up some things... Changed a hep of the speed nuts from the a*** type threads to the fine type threads... Got the dash in on Wed night... And then was left to have dramas with the fitment of the EL column... So I left it for the night and as I had Friday off I had a fiddle with it then... The EL column upper was 90 degrees offset from where it was meant to be... No big deal for the wheel fitment... But was a big deal for the clock spring fitment... I was nearlly going to modify the clock spring but then realised if I offset it by 90 degrees then the blinkers would cancel in the wrong place... So the last result was out with the angle grinder and to grind two flats onto the 90 degree offset sides... which worked a treat... The steering wheel still taper locks on the remaining tapers so there is no drama there...

Second drama was the hole centres in the EL column are different to the ED column where it bolts up to the pedal box... So I had to remove it again and pull the bracket off the ED column and swap it out with the EL one... For this I kept the plastic EL handle, the EL spacer, the EL spring and only swapped the over to the ED bracket... Note that the bolts in this thing are reverse thread... To avoid cutting the the EL bracket off (as it wraps right around the column) you can pop the circlip out and slide hammer the bearing out (gently) and separate the two column halves again and slide it off that way...

After this I trained the new barrel and then hit the key and off it went... Tried the kill switch which worked great and proceeded then to re-fit all the trimmings back to everything... Took it for a drive and like (was it Honda's ad on TV?) said "isn't it nice when things just work"... The trip computer worked first time and the cruise worked first time... To confirm something BenJ was unsure about when he fitted his EL cruise module, the EL cruise will work with the ED cluster where you don't have a "speedo out" pin as it says it requires... It works fine with the "speedo in" pin of the cluster...

So enough of the jargon now and some pics hey?




And a couple of other pics, first of the crimp thing on the cruise cable


This one here of the cruise module tucked in beside the booster... These things are a very tight fit when you are running the dual diaphragm booster... Only just makes it, obviously the crappy plastic ones on the EF/EL's were not as fat as this sucker...


And a bit more to come...

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Last bit is this... the EL cruise cable was easy to re-route as it was intended for the BBM manifold... Its a darn shame the accelerator wasn't a few inches longer to follow it perfectly... But this is how a re-routed the pair of them:



Now I hear you saying... Why the hell did I do this? Simple... I'm sick of replacing bloody cables where they clip to the rocker cover is a wank of an idea as the motor vibrates and moves, right where are they are clipped is where they always start to break the outside plastic off... I've replaced 1 cruise cable, and am now due for an accelerator cable... So what I have done is not perfect but it has to better than what it was before... Sick of them braking... As I said if the accelerator cable could be a few inches longer to run exactly parallel to the cruise cable... But it works alright for now...

Please post any ideas, comments or criticism... Bye for now...

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Hello... *Waits for the echo*

Is there anybody out there? I thought there might others interested in sort of thing? Maybe it is a tad too in depth for most people? Nothing like the feeling of knowing you're getting really really carried away and going completely bonkas with a mod haha...

Oh well... It has been done and is possible for any possible onlookers... I proved that it can be done very easily... Variable in wipers, I have discovered can be added without a column change, using the ED combo switch, the arms look like they are interchangeable off the EL combo onto the ED combo... So more boxcar owners could do this more easily... Then all you gotta do is wire the 6 wires for the timer in... There is easier ways of doing it... Only reason I went full hog with the column was to suit the EL cruise better with the set - button...

Cheers,
Tim

Hey Ash,

I had this one just to get the car going...

When I get an au momo wheel I'll get an AU airbag (black one), remove the rubber pad and detonate it and then pop rivet the horn pad back on... That way its not there and can't ever accidently go off from not being connected (although the plug shorts it when you unplug it)

Cheers mate,
Tim

So they still have a square shank?

Are the clock springs different, and if so do I have to mount a BA combo switch (which means I have to remove the headlight switch, or not use one of them), which might mean a BA upper column section? Just to get the covers on and mount the combo switch/clock spring?

Might turn out to be a big mod, and maybe really hard... Advantage with what I've done so far is its cheap and simple... I'd have to find a BA column and see whether the two halves can be merged...

Cheers Ash,
Tim