fbekholden.com

Wouldn’t that muck up your toe out on lock though Harv? My clearance issue was to the top ball joint when running 14x6 HT rims but I just got the centres moved in a few mm so they were stock track plus 25mm. The HT rims are getting quite dear to buy now.


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Errol62 wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:14 am Wouldn’t that muck up your toe out on lock though Harv? My clearance issue was to the top ball joint when running 14x6 HT rims but I just got the centres moved in a few mm so they were stock track plus 25mm. The HT rims are getting quite dear to buy now.


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yeah, my HT rims hit somewhere on the upper control arm/pivot pin area on the original FB-EK kingpin front end, from memory. The spacer method will likely make my situation worse but have seen that used for tie rod issues when mix and matching wheels on HR or HK front ends.
I'm quite interested in moving the centres of my HT rims in a small amount, if that's what will do it. Reckon that will look good too

In the Shed wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:55 pm Good to see the ute getting some daylight. Would have been a short squirt with that fuel bottle!

Sure was! I konked out in front of my neighbour's garage just as she was trying to drive out hehe... she thought she was on the set of The Cars That Ate Paris when the roller door went up!

Back in the shed after the test drive, the LHF fender went back on. LH door hinge (upper) was missing the detent, and the bottom one was flogged out so I prepped & fitted a perfect set from the Peak Hill EK I wrecked previously. That car is the gift that keeps on giving... I’m swapping out all sorts of detail parts as I go.
Adjusted door & fender fit, then hit the door jamb with fresh paint to get it all looking uniform.







My retro digital radio arrived from Phil at my409.com.au in Victoria, along with a ‘twin voice’ single stereo speaker, provided with adaptor plate to go in the dash. The installation is perfect. It fitted the original radio holes (my dash was unmolested, had a cover plate over it) and didn’t foul the glovebox lid striker screws. I spent some time making the wiring tidy, I’m also really happy with the sound of the unit itself. I’ve run the AUX cable up to the ashtray, will create a phone holder bracket under that eventually.







Next up: H4 headlight conversion. I’ll do that post when I get a moment



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thebrotherj wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 3:18 pmMy retro digital radio arrived from Phil at my409.com.au in Victoria, along with a ‘twin voice’ single stereo speaker, provided with adaptor plate to go in the dash. The installation is perfect. It fitted the original radio holes (my dash was unmolested, had a cover plate over it) and didn’t foul the glovebox lid striker screws. I spent some time making the wiring tidy, I’m also really happy with the sound of the unit itself. I’ve run the AUX cable up to the ashtray, will create a phone holder bracket under that eventually.

Phil's radios are pretty damn good, and Phil is a good bloke to work with. I have one of his radios in the wagon, and Grace got one for her birthday for the ute. The wagon runs 6x9's out the back, but I suspect Santa might bring one of Phil's dual-cone in-dash speakers for Grace .

Cheers,
Harv

Adelaide Wheel and Rim Works were good to deal with when I used them on two occasions. Long time ago now and may not be convenient but they are still trading. Legally you need to keep track <25mm> stock if that makes sense.


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Harv wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 4:11 pm
Phil's radios are pretty damn good, and Phil is a good bloke to work with. I have one of his radios in the wagon, and Grace got one for her birthday for the ute. The wagon runs 6x9's out the back, but I suspect Santa might bring one of Phil's dual-cone in-dash speakers for Grace .

Agreed 100% Harv. I saw his ad online then rang him for a chat. I was reassured that he was getting in decent head units and while it's not super cheap, it's still half the price of some others I've seen... I guess you've seen those ones too! The little push buttons rattle a little, but not loudly.
I reckon Grace will be a lucky gal with that speaker tho

Also, I'm sure I don't need to say it but: make sure you get up under the dash and secure everything. Foam in the vent flap. Adjust glovebox lid up against some new rubber bumpers. Tighten cluster screws...Cable tie wiring etc... nothing sounds worse than that dash vibration when you crank the bass

Leroy’s horn contact ring is missing on top of the indicator switch assembly. I’ve also since discovered the indicator assembly is an auto trans unit with two harnesses... this is all traced back to some hasty repairs previous owner Bill had done years back up near Dorrigo, when he had a steering column failure coming down the mountain! Better him than me I say.
Anyway, since then, the horn wire was pulled out of the column and wired up to a dodgy button under the dash.

I’m still gathering some indicator parts (mine’s not real flash) so in the meantime, I decided to make up a housing for a waterproof switch I picked up cheap and retain the under-dash horn button. Even used two of the several hundred Red motor rocker cover load spreaders I somehow have in my stash...









Used some existing holes drilled in the dash to mount it, has an angle on it too, worked out nicely in the end

I also tarted up my glovebox and slotted that in with some marine carpet, and new bumper runners. I glued and heatshrinked the little arm stops on too, a little trick I dreamed up to keep them in place.





I’m getting a bit carried away for such a wobbly old bus


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Last weekend, I installed the LH headlight bucket & globe and established a wiring harness incorporating a seperate relay & resettable 20Amp fusible link for each (high and low beam) circuit. I am really happy with the H4 Halogen glass lens units I found online, they have curved fronts and are patterned not unlike original sealed beam units:



Here’s the box in case anyone is looking for them, I highly recommend:



The only (very minor) issue I found was that once the two halves of the headlight retaining ring were brought together, it was loose, so the lens rattled. I hammered each corner of the three locating slots out to close this gap and then added bits of high temp vacuum hose from a SAAB turbo dump valve, so it all sits nice and snug. Also popped in a grommet where the unused parker light globe was:



The wiring harness I bought was from a mob called something like ‘65 Mustang Restorations’ and I got this one for a couple of reasons: it uses high quality ceramic H4 headlight plugs, the wiring itself is heavy gauge with the chunky insulation, and the whole harness including relays, fuse and power/earth straps worked out to be a pretty reasonable price, compared to buying it all in parts. I knew I was going to modify it, but I’ve used pretty much everything from it and I’m happy with the results.

Plugged it in for a quick test, immediately saw how much better it is





After looking at the way my bought harness was piggybacked to use a single-blow fuse and a single cable for both power and earth across both beams, I decided to unpick it all and re-configure relays so I wound up with the following circuit, with a seperate power wire and auto resetting fuse to each relay:



Here’s the finished harness:



This harness places the relays right next to the positive terminal of the battery, mounted to the back of the battery heat shield, pretty much out of sight when you open the bonnet. Getting photos of it was hard enough... the fuses are staggered right above this and the power leads are only 10cm long for minimal voltage drop. I curved and heat-shrunk the harness to run under the battery tray to the front, where it meets the headlight distribution block, feeds the LH headlight and sends wiring for the RH headlight off through the rad support panel, along with horn/LH Parker & indicator wires. I’ll run the RH headlight cables inside the grille support brace to the other side eventually...

Excuse the poorly lit photos:





with the red plastic fuse covers in place:



It looks kind of messy, but I was hoping to retain the original look of that big old ugly distribution block. I might reconfigure and use a different/better earth point to eliminate a couple of those wires... but it looks pretty good in real life, ie: when you’re not shining an LED trouble light on it all


Anyways, I’m bloody stoked at how well it works. And we’re up to date. Back to work!



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Very nice work Joe. Thanks for the tips. I’ve previously used the flat lens H4s which don’t look quite right.
Cheers
Clay


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Errol62 wrote: Thu Nov 23, 2017 8:26 am Thanks for the tips. I’ve previously used the flat lens H4s which don’t look quite right.

cheers Clay, I was really fussy about that, took a fair bit of scouring to find ones I'd accept. I don't want anything that looks too new on a workhorse ute.

A coupla photos didn't load, I'll try again...

some pics that didn’t load previously...

Battery box that I made now with plastic tray for some extra protection



Let there be light part 2:



close up of headlight relays & fuses mounted:



test fitting my little bespoke horn button housing:




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Hi Joe nice work mate.
What are you using for a handbrake because haven't you mounted your horn button where you handbrake would be

Regards
Neil

FireKraka wrote: Thu Nov 23, 2017 12:22 pm
What are you using for a handbrake because haven't you mounted your horn button where you handbrake would be

hehe nah, it's outta the way. The handbrake, fuse board and switch are all in a row, with space to reach the horn button when the handbrake's in or out. The horn button housing is curved off to one side and angled up so it fits in just right, also had to leave room for a long ratchet extension up to the top RH fender bolt through the hole in the dash. I'm pretty nerdy with all these details

Handbrake will be the last thing to go in, I gotta do some work to the underside of the driver's floor first

I was looking at the horn button, and noticed the PVC tape applied to the bracket under the terminals. This is a smart move - very easy for the button to flex over time, and make one of the terminals ground out on the metal bracket. The tape will help stop that. Its the small details like that that make a difference over the next ten years of driving.

Cheers,
Harv