Project: 76, Orange Special Decor

[gnsteam]

A little more work this evening. A test fitting of the bracket and the harness relay box.

Then some more fiddling with the engine harness. Trying to find a best fit at the back of the intake area. So much wire and not much room.

 

[widowmaker77]

@gnsteam how did you attach the relay box to
The angle iron? The clips on the back
Of mine were broken off so I just have it laying on the inner fender. I’d like to move it out of the way like this.

 

[gnsteam]

@gnsteam how did you attach the relay box to
The angle iron? The clips on the back
Of mine were broken off so I just have it laying on the inner fender. I’d like to move it out of the way like this. View attachment 937932

Hi widowmaker77, I was lucky, the clips are intact on my relay box. So I cut off two tabs from a scrape explorer bracket I had kept. I used the tabs to build the bracket. As for the relay box, there are not many options to mount it without the clip pockets. Good luck to you with your project.

 

[widowmaker77]

Thanks for the reply. Since my clips are broken, I was thinking of epoxying some rare earth magnets to the plastic case then sticking it to the angle iron. Was just trying to see if you had done anything like that with yours.

 

[Oldtimer]

Rare earth magnet may not play well with electromagnetic relay.

 

[widowmaker77]

Rare earth magnet may not play well with electromagnetic relay.

Hmmm you might be right. Guess I’ll figure something else out

 

[Bruners4]

If you use a steel plate between the magnets and the relay box, it will shield the relay soft iron cores from the strong rare-earth magnetic fields. This is what they do inside the computer hard drives before solid-state drives were available. I've harvested quite a few of these magnets in my past. And actually, if you were to get a pair of the Hard Drive magnets, you can use the magnet mounting to epoxy to the relay housing. In this picture they are pointing to the magnets and calling it an actuator.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fig-1-Interior-of-a-typical-HDD_fig1_258540610

 

[gnsteam]

Thanks to my friend David (Bruners4). We opened up the Explorer engine harness, to change its layout a bit. The harness as it was,, did not lay well on the passenger side intake. And interfered with the heater coolant tube. That mounts in the same space. Here is a picture of the reworked harness.

The large bundle going to the ECU plug. Was entering the bank 1, injector harness. Between injector 3 and 4. Thus causing the fitment issues. Adding a short extension to the red power wire for injector 4. Allowed us to switch, the positions of large bundle and injector 4. We also opened up the large bundle all the way to the ECU plug. So we could position the large square harness plug, a little further away from the ECU plug.

To help check the fitment of the harness. We installed the injectors and the fuel rail.

Here are some pics of the harness in place. It fits so much better.

Continuing with the harness install. I mounted the EFIGuy fuse box, the started selinoid and H4 headlight relays on the previously posted passenger side fender bracket.

And a few more pics of the fused link harness, plug into the plug at the rear of the engine. I would like to find some kind of boot to put over this plug, to protect and hide the exposed wires entering the back of the plug. Any suggestion?

 

[svastano]

Looking good!

 

[Bruners4]

That harness looks like it was made just for you! Glad to be of assistance in this.

 

[gnsteam]

Thanks everyone.

 

[gnsteam]

Not a lot of progress over the last six weeks. Thursday night, Bruners4, was over to help push start me along. I worked on more of the electrical wiring on the passenger side. And Dave installed the thermostat housing and bypass hose. He also installed the cam positon sensor.

Today, along with more wiring. I installed the Explorer heater coolant tube. Added the shredders valve and fuel pressure regulator on the fuel rail. Next up was the coil packs. Using the Migs, lowered mounting bracket. Migs, makes some great parts. Sure felt good to get back on the project

 

[svastano]

Great Progress

 

[Teal68]

Looking great!

 

[gnsteam]

I had a great crew of hands over tonight. So we installed the windshield and hard top glass.

 

[gnsteam]

Tonight, I removed the passenger side electrical bracket, for painting.

I also installed the Lokar tranmission dip stick.

A little over a week ago. We started to test fitting the upper phenom with the throttle body and throttle cable bracket. The throttle cable bracket needs a liitle more clearance under it to clear the heater water supply tubes. So today I orderd a 3/8" phenolic heat spacer to raise the upper phenom. The theory was tested by putting a couple nuts under the phenom to verify the fit.

 

[fordguy]

Keep rolling, you will catch up with, stuck waiting on glass and upholstery.

 

[gnsteam]

A few more items installed last night. The fuel filler neck.

The new 200 amp alternator, plug wires and plug wire organizer.

 

[Meddle]

Man, this rebuild is looking fantastic, gnsteam —well done! This is exactly what I need to do someday, maybe as a retirement project. Take my “nice” rig and tear it all down, frame off repaint, reassemble it exactly how I want it, bolt-by-bolt, and turn it into an absolute show stunner of a masterpiece.

 

[gnsteam]

I received the Vintage Air Gen V kit earlier this week.

So tonight I tried installing the compressor. And I quickly ran into a problem. First a little back information. I lowered the coil packs, using Migs, custom bracket. And I am using Wild Horse's, Saginaw power steering pump and Sanden SD7 compressor bracket. With this combination of brackets. The drivers side coil pack, wiring plug, interfers with the compressor bracket. In the next picture. This is the coil packs lifted up 3/4" by placing some nuts under the bracket.

The plug is still very close to the bracket. So tomorrow. I'm going to make a pair of spacers, starting at 1.500". And see how it looks. I will probably shorten them up a bit. Will see. Luckily, I'm starting out with about 2 1/2" of hood clearance , above the plug wires.

I will show you what I end up with. If someone else goes with this combination of brackets.