Yesterday, I headed up to Coal Creek Canyon to meet with my good friend,
Verne Carlson to get his help in setting up my chase ride. First of all, a great many thanks to him for his help! We knocked out just about everything on the todo list with ease ('cept for the near disaster).
Photos taken by Verne Carlson
Our prep-work involved getting most of the interior taken apart. We pulled off covers on the apssenger side where I had planned to mount the HAM body. We tore out some carpeting, some plastic covers, and the radio bezel. We made quite the mess.
Our first order of business was to fish the connector wires from the interior of the van into the engine area and to the battery. This proved much easier than we had expected as we ended up routing most of the wiring this way.
Next was to mount the HAM radio. I had found a perfect place for the body under the glove box. The problem was its tight space which made us having to take off a wiring cover and drill the mount into that. Getting it out was the easy part; putting it back in with the radio, not so much. After some trial, error, and some fancy human tricks, I was able to get "nubby" (our short phillips head) into the tight area, push the plastic covering back into place, and secure it back with the radio mounted.
Photo taken by Verne Carlson
We then followed up by mounting the lighter adapter and CB radio. Both were relatively painless installs and we had them connected quickly and easily. Next was the Jotto desk, what I thought would be the easiest. I marked my floor location, cut away the carpet, and began to drill. The screws weren't making contact with the metal floor below. We knew we were drilling through plastic, but figured it to be insulation. So, we took Verne's Sawzall and cut three straight lines in the plastic. It was then we noticed multiple colors glaring back at us. We had just chopped through the van's wiring harness.
Photo taken by Verne Carlson
After kodak moment quality stares, we quickly pulled Verne's soldering gizmo and were able to follow the colors and reconnect all the wires. Our estimate was we completely separated 7 and had to electical tape up another 8. One can't say how lucky we were. Again, many thanks to Verne not only for his expertise, but his cool head and agreeing sense of humor which got us through the next 45 minutes as I held a light for him as he soldered away. I did make it down the canyon and drives pizzas without any electrical issues, so I'm happy to report that I think we got them all.
So here are the before and after shots...
That's all I have for now; some discussion and thoughts on the end of the week coming later today...
