First camping trip a no go..

So today came the realazation that my wiring issues were worse then I thought. Not only did I not have Dash lights but none of the brake,turn, running lights work on the passenger side of van. After trouble shooting I came to the conclusion that even if I got that worked out in the next few days there wouldn't be enough time before going to River Bend. So now the new deadline is the trip to florence oregon. June 17th..

My Dad pulled the right rear brake light after I left and said the wiring looked pretty cooked as if it shorted out. The testing we did pointed to a bad light switch and a bad brake switch. So I'm going to stop and pickup parts tomorrow. I did drive around looking for heavy duty caster swivels for the seats but all homedepot and others had were ones with wheels attached. I'm going to check a few places in Salem tomorrow and see if I can find anything local before ordering online.

Also we changed the oil and put the dog house cover back on and I had an issue where the cup holder was hitting the stereo. We did some triming and it fits but need to revisit if we want to put in cds.

Weekend Update

Well lots of work done this week/Weekend. I did find out that my floor up front had developed a tad bit of a rust problem from the orignal carpet padding and a leak from the water heater lines or the windsheild.

Here's a photo after a lot of wire brush work and cutting out the worst of it.

Here's a picture after painting

Above are the two metal Patch Panels we made

I put down some closed cell foam underlayment before putting the carpet back down.

Carpet going back in

Mason had to make sure everything was going ok.. He approved :)

New Seats in!!!

So now the only two things left to do here is figure out why the dash lights are having issues. and get an oil change done so I can button up the dog house cover.  These should get done tomorrow.

Been doing a alot of thinking about the Table area and after reciving the boat seat I don't think thats the direction I want to go anymore.

I was using the old seats as a test and think they might mount nice there.. Also they fold almost flat.

I like this idea.. If I build boxes about 10inches high and find some sort of lazy susan that will hold up I think it will be the way to go. I could make something to slide between the seats to fill the gap.

Well worth a try anyways.,. So tomorrow morning I head back to homedepot and see if I can find some swivels that can hold the weight.

How much time can one spend under a dash?

I know its been a little while since my last post. Been working under the dash installing gauges and fixing wiring. Of course everything I've been doing has been fighting me and taking way longer then it should. I thought I'd at least get up a few pictures.

Got the new connector on the otherside wired up

 Below is the dash side I did earlier

Below is where I deided to mount the dual gauges. I wasted a lot of time on some radio shack Panel mount Leds that were junk. Also using the hole saw where the washer switch and cig lighter was ended up being a project in itself because the holes were to big for the pilot bit on the hole saw. I bought some flat black to touch up the parts I scuffed up.

I was developing quite the mess in the van over the days/nights working under the dash..

I redid the center Panel with wood and added a DIN stereo and some power points. Downside ended up being the wood I used was too thick for the AC controls so I have some dremel work ahead of me.

Picture of the Gauges lit up.. I had no power on the light switch for any of the gauges. Turns out the PCB board does every thing in this van. Working now after alot of head scratching.

Heres a picture of the gauges installed with the switch and indicator lights.

Here's a video of it in action. The indicator light shows what tank you are taking fuel from.

(Very cool but I wasted alot of time making it work)

Well that's all for now.. Hopefully tomorrow night goes smoother..

Thursday night with the soldering gun

So Tuesday night we took out the gauge cluster to get a better look at the fuel selector switch. Of course the main harness hooks to pins directly on the PCB and with age broke off. (yet another custom fix needed). We set that aside for later and looked at the switch. Simple on-off-on 6 prong. at this point we called it a night. Sometimes you know to call it quits when the flow just isn't going right. Also since the wire harness was busted we could use the stock gauge to test for ohms resistance. I did find a wire diagram for the fuel selector.

Wednesday Night I brought over an extra fuel level gauge I had extra that was for GM 0ohms empty - 90ohms full. The dodge has 73ohms Empty 10ohms Full. So basicly +or- a little it'd read backwards and at least prove the senders were sending back something and not infinate resistance. The Aux tank was working showing about half a tank. The rear was also working showing almost empty(accounting for the incorrect ohms). We also confirmed what was what by disconnecting the rear sender wire and running the tests again. So in the end the stock gauge in the dash was either bad or the bad connections on the main harness was causing the issue. As for the Fuel selector itself the Power wire for the ignition was dead. I am guessing this hasn't worked since we got the motorhome. The good thing was once we suppled power you could hear the switch work. Nice thud sound.  So now I knew I needed to get the main gauge cluster wiring fixed and work out if I can find a correct 73 -0 ohm fuel gauge. That night looking online I found this.

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/EQU0/7361.oap?keyword=gauge+-+fuel+level+%26+fuel+pressure

$16 !! I figured no way .. Stopped by on my way home from work and sure enough they were $16 dollars and had a swap out warrenty. They didn't have them in stock but said they would be there by 8:00am Friday. So I bought 2 of them. Now I can see both fuel levels at the same time.

Tonight I worked on painting the aerostar brackets and fixing up the gauge cluster.

Thats all for now..

TV for the Hall

So I went by Walmart on my lunch to see what local Prices were for a small LCD TV. They had a 19" LED LCD 720P with HDMI,VGA, standard hookups for $118. I couldn't find anything like that online for that price so I picked it up on the way home. In fact in looking at other TVs right next to it.. this one was brighter and had better color.

I started painting the Seat mounts and will stop by home depot tomorrow to get bolts and other odds and ends I need for the Van. Tomorrow night I plan to head out to my Parents and figure out what's going on with the sender units and from there figure out my plan for the fuel system. I did decide to just put the deep cycles from my parents van that were too big in and just clean up the connections. So far our camping trips will have plug ins so I figure I wait to rework the electrical system until next winter.

The Week Ahead

This last Saturday and Sunday didn't see a lot of major progress but things did get done. Turns out the issue with having to rock the key back to run before it would start was caused by the ballast resistor. So now the Van starts up pretty nice. Second we were able to trace out how the fuel system was laid out. I ordered the Boat Seat as the measurements looked good. I removed the Seat mounts and took them home to modify. Sometime this week I'll do a post on the battery system and the fuel system plan.

Above is a picture of the fuel selector unit

Here you can see the areostar seat brackets and the Hall swivel mounts. I need to cut off the protruding parts of the areostar mounts and then I can drill holes and mount the aerostar mounts on. Hopefully Monday night I'll be working on thoes.

Pictures by Request..

Publishing some pictures requested.

The Bed I do not think is stock. Looks like they added a section on plywood over what was the night stand.

Leaky Window...

At some point in this Hall's life the bathroom window must have been broken.

Center Section was replace by plastic

And not done well

The damage inside is not too bad but I need to find a real solution at some point. Since exact replacment windows don't apear to be option.. I am thinking about even seeing if I can replace the whole window with some sort of metal or wood insert then fit a standard RV window in that. At least for this side as it's only the bathroom. I think the other windows can be recondidtioned if we ever find window track material. Most of my windows are stuck closed at this point.

I just maybe need to visit a glass shop and see what they think..

These might work as well.

http://www.rvwindow.com/12.html

Friday the 13th!!!

Well nothing reall spooky happend other then catching Mark yawning while I was taking a Picture.

Went into town to get a ballast resistor on the off chance that is what is causing the strange ignition issue where the engine doen't start until you rock the key back to run. I figure for $8 I at least have a spare sitting around. At some point I'd love to get a different distributor that'd let me bypass the stock ignition and just use the MSD but that's for later down the road. Anyways decided to stop at the local Pick-a-Part and see what they had. I found the above seats out of an Aerostar and figured they'd make a nice upgrade. Ended up going home to get tools and went back for them.

Before Seats (not bad but hate the color)



New Seat

Not so Dated as the other old seats. I need to repaint the pedistal and make a square steel mounting plate as the track mounts are a little wider then the old ones. I think these should spin around better as they are a little narrower. I think I can use part of the metal spacers that came with the seats.

Today we also removed the battery box for the first time. Man these batteries were in sad shape.

I think I'll clean up the battery box and use two of the smaller batteries. This will leave a little room on the box for me to put terminals for the Battery shunt I want to install to see how many amps are charging or being used. I think I want to go the route of having a seporate amp meter and a Battery level gauge (volts). I'd like to hear recomendations if anyone has them. I'm going to post the questing on the Hall forums. I also am crious how other Halls were wired as mine seemed a little messy.

Going back over tomorrow to sort out Fuel gauge and senders.. well the fuel system period. Lots to do

Will post more tomorrow.



Subaru 120K Service

I've spent the last two days working on my Daily Driver a 1997 Subaru Outback Sport.

Had to do the Timing Belt and Water Pump. I ran into an issue where I had an early production car that used the old style tentioner. Also the crank bolt was impact wrench proof. Anyways now its done back to working on the Van.

General Engine Work

So my Dad and I have been going though the Engine compartment doing some General uninstalling and Clean up. Of note was the old CB Radio hiding the hood latch and the mess of wires that fell out from above the CB. While I was trying to figure out what it was for my dad was removing part of the cruze control system as it had been bypassed for the speedo. Anyways it turn out all the wire was part of that system.

I only had my Kodak Playsport with me and for some reason it took video.

Anyways with all that removed it freed up a bunch of clutter and I never use Cruze so into the scrap pile it went. Next I had to mount the MSD 6AL I had left over from a pior car. We moved the ballast resistor so there was room to mount the MSD. There wasn't really any other place.

Connecting it up is pretty simple.

Basicly you have your Battery +/- connections. Then the +/- wires to the MSD Coil. Last is the two wires to the old coil wires +/-.

Running Pretty smooth but a little whistle sound coming from the Carb. I think its from the Fast Idle Shaft that my dad tried to clean up. Looing into upgrade options.

Next up is the whole fuel system and the Generator followed by replacing the rusting battery tray.

Generator

Well I know it runs but looks like the fuel pump is shot. I have a small eletric pump I'm going to try replacing it with. I also need to find out what tank the fuel is being pumped from. I am guessing it is the rear tank but you never know. One of the major tasks is just going around and cleaning up eletrical connections.

I'll update this weekend after I fiddle with it a bit.