1969 Ranger - Project Glory Days!

[TexMex67]

Great lookin' pic!

[Alstoyz]

Hey Tyler. I'm quite impressed with the detail and neatness of your project!!! I also take my hat off to ya on the wiring job you have ahead of ya. I was hoping i could put my order in for a harness for my ride when you were done with yours... 1 question for ya. Will you be using older/used connectors from your harness to the , say steering column, and other items that have a plug-in pigtail???


Keep up the nice work!!!
Allen.

[67nukeford]

Making the wiring from scratch. You, my friend, are a madman!!LOL! That's awesome! One thing is for sure, you'll know it's done right!!

[tylerb43]

Hey Tyler. I'm quite impressed with the detail and neatness of your project!!! I also take my hat off to ya on the wiring job you have ahead of ya. I was hoping i could put my order in for a harness for my ride when you were done with yours... 1 question for ya. Will you be using older/used connectors from your harness to the , say steering column, and other items that have a plug-in pigtail???

Thanks Allen! I appreciate the comments. I'm trying to think of anything I'll be using from the original harness. Not much really. On the column I'm replacing the connector with my own male/female. The lighting switch may reuse the old connector, because I'm not sure if I can buy that new, but I'm taking all the power out of that switch and running it through relays, so it'll only see a couple amps just to be safe. I'm using Duetsch AT series and Delphi Weather Pack connectors for the most part.

Making the wiring from scratch. You, my friend, are a madman!!LOL! That's awesome! One thing is for sure, you'll know it's done right!!

HA! Madman is right, Pat, but I'm not sure it's in a good way. Let's see if this thing works when I throw power to it!

[tylerb43]

Hey guys - wanted to show you the a/c vent boxes I made for the truck. I wanted something that looked like it belonged, and I didn't like the plastic boxes I was finding from the suppliers, so I made my own. I made a double one for the center of the dash, and a single that will mount on the passenger side.

The faces were cut with a waterjet out of 14 gauge.



Then I bent the boxes out of 16.



Welded them from the inside.





I powder-coated them semi-gloss black, and I think they came out great. I was originally thinking about painting them blue, but then decided it would disrupt the bottom line of the dash too much, black was definitely the way to go.



These vent louvers are from Vintage Air, a 2.5" flex hose will come in from the back. The bolts had their heads ground down and then welded on the inside of the box, the studs will stick up through the bottom lip of the dash and be secured with nuts, so I can remove it if I ever have to.

[Calfdemon]

Ummm... Can I order a set of those?!?! WOW!!

[tylerb43]

Ha! Thanks Rich! I need to focus my time on finishing this thing at the moment, but if you're serious I'd be glad to send you the faces if you wanted to fab them up, just let me know.

[tylerb43]

I've got the Gen II Mini installed. I made custom lines for the #6 and #10's. I'm using a bulkhead fitting from Classic Auto Air, and the rest is from Vintage Air.

Here are the lines ready for install.



And the hose portion installed in the bulkhead plate, as well as the heater hoses.



Hardlines installed on the unit.



State of things at the moment. Column in, firewall cover in, center vent box installed. This is a test fit of the harness, which looked good!

[Calvin Gunter]

Love your progress Tyler.
I see you have a vent installed on your passenger side, how did you do that?
Inquiring minds want to know, Calvin

[bigtimbo]

That color carpet looks great with the blue!

[tylerb43]

Love your progress Tyler.
I see you have a vent installed on your passenger side, how did you do that?
Inquiring minds want to know, Calvin

Thanks Calvin! The vent is a DS vent flipped over and new holes drilled. #14 oval head SS screws and you're done. Simple as that.

That color carpet looks great with the blue!

Thanks man! I wasn't sure at first, but wanted to do something more creative than the standard grey or black.

[Calfdemon]

Ha! Thanks Rich! I need to focus my time on finishing this thing at the moment, but if you're serious I'd be glad to send you the faces if you wanted to fab them up, just let me know.

Ah, thanks! I appreciate it, but I will make due with what are coming with my kit. Your work is amazing though!!

[67nukeford]

Those vents turned out great Tyler!!

[tylerb43]

Those vents turned out great Tyler!!

Thanks, Pat! I'm happy with them.

I'm sitting here jotting down some notes on what I want to accomplish this weekend on the truck. Seems like I do this quite a bit and the list never gets shorter, and on Monday the list is never complete. But hey, I'm moving forward little by little, so I'll take it.

I've been reduced to weekends lately because the wife is a coach and very busy right now, meaning I'm watching the little man during the week, which is fun too.

I have made some progress on the harness and hope to have it back in the truck for good this weekend.

Here's a photo while I was terminating the receptacles for the new instrument panel I'm designing. As you can see, I crimped and soldered all the pins prior to insertion into the orange sealing grommet of the connector housing, the mating sockets will be assembled the same way in the plug of the instrument panel harness. Neat, clean, and corrosion proof for decades! Overkill? Of course.



And an extra couple of assembling the front sheet metal. The inners and core support were blasted and power-coated semi-gloss black.

[Alstoyz]

Tyler. You my friend do some very nice work!!!! I'm still wondering when you would want 2 start building me one of those fancy wiring harnesses for my ride??? Keep up good work!!!

Allen.