jgilbs
Elite Explorer
- Joined
- October 29, 2002
- Messages
- 1,201
- Reaction score
- 1
- City, State
- Naperville, IL(home)/Iowa City, IA(school)
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 92 Eddie Bauer
As some of you may know, I am a firefighter. As such, I have a lot of lights/emergency equipment on my truck, and all that equipment needs power and a means of controlling it. I have had some strobes and wigwags on my truck for quite some. When i got them, I wired them kind of haphazradly by using speaker wire and some switches in my drivers door (Excelent location for switches that need to be controlled very quickly, since my left hand is usually no more than 3" away from where the switches were) But seeing as how the wiring wasn't done very well, after about 2 years my wiring started shorting out last June(actually caused a fire INSIDE my door panel 
- luckily I carry a fire extinguisher with me in my cargo area) This was very concerning, so naturally, I pulled the fuses and decided not to use any lights until the problem got fixed. A few months went by, and finally, this past December, I decided that I should build a center console and utilize the "dead space" that is where a shifter would go if I had a manual tranny. Seeing as how I found a very cheap fuse block (12 fuse locations, and used standard automotive fuses for about $4) and had a scanner and CB that were just sitting around not being used, I thought it would be a great idea to include them as well. My original plans called for a block heater and shoreline and switching circuitry for all of that, but space limitations killed the idea.
Around the beginning of December, I started measuring and making some mockups to test my idea. When I got the mockups in place, I LOVED how it looked and felt, so I decided to go ahead with the idea. I drew some more detailed plans, and set about finding the materials I would require (needed supplies to install a 220v outlet for my welder, 18 gauge sheet metal, angle iron, primer, paint, drill bits and tap, metal cutting wheels, etc)
First phase: Mocking up the console with cardboard
After finding an excelent source of cheap sheet metal (Scott's Wood and Metal in Aurora - EXCELENT people to work with), and installing the outlet for my welder, I got to work. I used a lumbar pencil to mark the shapes of the pieces on the metal, and I used a circular saw with a thin metal cutoff wheel to cut the metal(I used a scrap 2x4, clamped over the metal on both ends of the table as a guide for my saw. It worked great, but be SURE to use eye and face protection when cutting metal. You will probably want to wear heavy clothing and have a fire extinguisher on hand as well, since the sparks thrown off can burn your skin and ignite any material lying nearby) to shape. This was the longest part. Lining up the saw with the pencil lines and making sure it was completley parallel to the lines was a huge PITA, but it worked.
Cutting the individual faceplates
Once the pieces were fitted together, I temporarily assembled them using some magnets, and test fitted the unit into my truck. At first it didnt want to go in, but after I notced the top front corner with my angle grinder equipped with cut-off wheel, it fit very nicely.
Next, I started welding the pieces together. This was pretty difficult, since I have a DC welder, so if you use magnets to hold the pieces together, you will get whats called "arc blow", where the metal from the electrode will fly all over the place. I have burns on my arms to show for this. Lesson learned: Use vice grips. I used a scrap piece of angle iron, where I secured one piece to one side of the angle iron with vice grips, then the other piece to the other side to create a right angle, so I could tack weld it then remove the "jig". Biggest problem here was when I used low current, it was very difficult to strike an arc, but when I upped the current, I was blowing holes in the metal (I ruined a few pieces of metal this way) Also, when I welded the angle iron "lip" to the top of the console, I kept distorting the metal. Members on this board suggested welding small sections at a time and letting it cool before starting again. This was very painstaking, since I am a very impatient person, but it worked. There is only very slight warpage on the passenger's side, but it is not very noticable, and does not affect the mounting of the faceplates.
After everything was welded on, I primed and painted the console using some textured flat black paint. This worked great and feels like it was powder-coated, but it scratches easily(as you can see in the pics) Well, not EASILY - I should have been more careful with my power tools when installing it in my truck.
After the paint had dried, I tapped the holes for the screws on the faceplates, and broke 4 taps in the process. I mounted the radios and switches in the holes I had cut earlier in the faceplates, and test fitted it again. It fit great this time.
Now it was time for the install. Like I said before, I needed all new wiring to all of my warning devices, so now was the time to do it. I took off all interior body panels and replaced speaker wire with 12 gauge, stranded heavy duty wire. The main power cable supplying the fusebox is 4gauge stranded wire. the fusebox is on the 4 gauge wire, wired parallel with the 300w inverter that is behind the rear passenger's quarter panel. The 2 wires that control the flash pattern for the wigwags were only 20 gauge, but these are signal wires, and carry almost no current, since the wigwag unit has its own power lead and fuse connected right at the battery, since it sits about 6 inches from the battery under the hood. I ran 2 wires to the rear wigwag flasher. One controlled ON/OFF, and the other connects directly to the reverse lights, so when I am loading/unloading stuff, I can have some light on the ground behind my truck without having the truck in reverse - If someone has their brights on behind me, or is following too closely, I can also "flash" them - but time will tell if anyone will understand what I am doing if I do that.
A shot of some of the wiring in the console
As part of wiring the switches, I needed to build a relay box. THis is mainly because the leftmost switch is one for "Master Warn", which makes it so I can turn multiple lights on at a time, so I dont have to fumble for switches in the dark when I need all of my emergency lights on. The relay box keeps each individual circuit isolated, so I could keep them fused properly (a lesson learned last june when wiring meant to support a max of 5 amps had 40 amps flowing through it!) In the pictures below, due to the flash of the camera, the labels are blank. They actually read as follows:
MASTER WARN
WIG WAG 1
WIG WAG 2
STROBES
REAR FLASH
A. STICK FLASH
REVERSE LIGHTS
RRB
AIRHORN (big switch)
The REVERSE LIGHTS, RRB, and AIRHORN switches are not controlled by the MASTER WARN switch, but for all other switches, MASTER WARN must be on in order for them to operate. This means that I can have a certain group of lights always on (I always have WIG WAG 2, STROBES, REAR FLASH, A. STICK FLASH on) and just hit MASTER WARN to activate all of them at the same time.
REVERSE LIGHTS illuminate the reverse lights as described above
RRB is Radio Rebroadcast. This means that I can redirect the output of my scanner radio to a PA, so that if I am first on scene, I can hear when help is coming, or if we're playin football or something somewhere, I can hear when Coralville Fire gets paged out.
AIRHORN is a momentary switch that I will connect to an airhorn (might get a siren speaker with power airhorn and hook it to that, but more likely ill get a really cheap/sh!tty one for like $20 at walmart)
All equipment is currently wired so that it is always on, I will be adding a relay so that the radios(CB and scanner) will be powered ON only when the ignition is on. Also, in the pics, on the left side, you can see a speaker on there. This was neccasary since even though the scanner has a pretty loud internal speaker, it is UNDER the scanner, so it is inside the console how it is installed, and with road noise on the highway and a CD player blaring, it can be hard to hear at times. I got the external speaker to combat this problem. I mounted it using some heavy duty double sided adhesive squares, since I couldnt find a location for the bracket it came with that wouldnt look bad. It doesn't interfere with my right leg when sitting there, and I can hear the scanner very well at half volume when on the highway with my radio and heat turned way up.
All in all, I am very satisfied with how this project came out. It was a great learning experience, and I am def gonna start some more ambitious projects in the future. What do you all think? Any comments, questions, criticisms welcome.
Pictures - sorry about the quality, but my nice camera broke over new years (mid way through the project) so I had to borrow my buddy's ****ty one to take some of them.:
Making the mockup
Mocking up
Mocking up the faceplate
Fitting the Mockup
Another view of the mockup
Cutting the faceplate:
Faceplate - Original Design
Trying to bend the sides of the faceplate(didnt work, ended up cutting and welding them on)
Wiring it up
Finished Product
Pics of my truck:
Good Side:
Bad Side (any donations of stock eddie bauer rims greatly appreciated !)
- luckily I carry a fire extinguisher with me in my cargo area) This was very concerning, so naturally, I pulled the fuses and decided not to use any lights until the problem got fixed. A few months went by, and finally, this past December, I decided that I should build a center console and utilize the "dead space" that is where a shifter would go if I had a manual tranny. Seeing as how I found a very cheap fuse block (12 fuse locations, and used standard automotive fuses for about $4) and had a scanner and CB that were just sitting around not being used, I thought it would be a great idea to include them as well. My original plans called for a block heater and shoreline and switching circuitry for all of that, but space limitations killed the idea. Around the beginning of December, I started measuring and making some mockups to test my idea. When I got the mockups in place, I LOVED how it looked and felt, so I decided to go ahead with the idea. I drew some more detailed plans, and set about finding the materials I would require (needed supplies to install a 220v outlet for my welder, 18 gauge sheet metal, angle iron, primer, paint, drill bits and tap, metal cutting wheels, etc)
First phase: Mocking up the console with cardboard
After finding an excelent source of cheap sheet metal (Scott's Wood and Metal in Aurora - EXCELENT people to work with), and installing the outlet for my welder, I got to work. I used a lumbar pencil to mark the shapes of the pieces on the metal, and I used a circular saw with a thin metal cutoff wheel to cut the metal(I used a scrap 2x4, clamped over the metal on both ends of the table as a guide for my saw. It worked great, but be SURE to use eye and face protection when cutting metal. You will probably want to wear heavy clothing and have a fire extinguisher on hand as well, since the sparks thrown off can burn your skin and ignite any material lying nearby) to shape. This was the longest part. Lining up the saw with the pencil lines and making sure it was completley parallel to the lines was a huge PITA, but it worked.
Cutting the individual faceplates
Once the pieces were fitted together, I temporarily assembled them using some magnets, and test fitted the unit into my truck. At first it didnt want to go in, but after I notced the top front corner with my angle grinder equipped with cut-off wheel, it fit very nicely.
Next, I started welding the pieces together. This was pretty difficult, since I have a DC welder, so if you use magnets to hold the pieces together, you will get whats called "arc blow", where the metal from the electrode will fly all over the place. I have burns on my arms to show for this. Lesson learned: Use vice grips. I used a scrap piece of angle iron, where I secured one piece to one side of the angle iron with vice grips, then the other piece to the other side to create a right angle, so I could tack weld it then remove the "jig". Biggest problem here was when I used low current, it was very difficult to strike an arc, but when I upped the current, I was blowing holes in the metal (I ruined a few pieces of metal this way) Also, when I welded the angle iron "lip" to the top of the console, I kept distorting the metal. Members on this board suggested welding small sections at a time and letting it cool before starting again. This was very painstaking, since I am a very impatient person, but it worked. There is only very slight warpage on the passenger's side, but it is not very noticable, and does not affect the mounting of the faceplates.
After everything was welded on, I primed and painted the console using some textured flat black paint. This worked great and feels like it was powder-coated, but it scratches easily(as you can see in the pics) Well, not EASILY - I should have been more careful with my power tools when installing it in my truck.
After the paint had dried, I tapped the holes for the screws on the faceplates, and broke 4 taps in the process. I mounted the radios and switches in the holes I had cut earlier in the faceplates, and test fitted it again. It fit great this time.
Now it was time for the install. Like I said before, I needed all new wiring to all of my warning devices, so now was the time to do it. I took off all interior body panels and replaced speaker wire with 12 gauge, stranded heavy duty wire. The main power cable supplying the fusebox is 4gauge stranded wire. the fusebox is on the 4 gauge wire, wired parallel with the 300w inverter that is behind the rear passenger's quarter panel. The 2 wires that control the flash pattern for the wigwags were only 20 gauge, but these are signal wires, and carry almost no current, since the wigwag unit has its own power lead and fuse connected right at the battery, since it sits about 6 inches from the battery under the hood. I ran 2 wires to the rear wigwag flasher. One controlled ON/OFF, and the other connects directly to the reverse lights, so when I am loading/unloading stuff, I can have some light on the ground behind my truck without having the truck in reverse - If someone has their brights on behind me, or is following too closely, I can also "flash" them - but time will tell if anyone will understand what I am doing if I do that.
A shot of some of the wiring in the console
As part of wiring the switches, I needed to build a relay box. THis is mainly because the leftmost switch is one for "Master Warn", which makes it so I can turn multiple lights on at a time, so I dont have to fumble for switches in the dark when I need all of my emergency lights on. The relay box keeps each individual circuit isolated, so I could keep them fused properly (a lesson learned last june when wiring meant to support a max of 5 amps had 40 amps flowing through it!) In the pictures below, due to the flash of the camera, the labels are blank. They actually read as follows:
MASTER WARN
WIG WAG 1
WIG WAG 2
STROBES
REAR FLASH
A. STICK FLASH
REVERSE LIGHTS
RRB
AIRHORN (big switch)
The REVERSE LIGHTS, RRB, and AIRHORN switches are not controlled by the MASTER WARN switch, but for all other switches, MASTER WARN must be on in order for them to operate. This means that I can have a certain group of lights always on (I always have WIG WAG 2, STROBES, REAR FLASH, A. STICK FLASH on) and just hit MASTER WARN to activate all of them at the same time.
REVERSE LIGHTS illuminate the reverse lights as described above
RRB is Radio Rebroadcast. This means that I can redirect the output of my scanner radio to a PA, so that if I am first on scene, I can hear when help is coming, or if we're playin football or something somewhere, I can hear when Coralville Fire gets paged out.
AIRHORN is a momentary switch that I will connect to an airhorn (might get a siren speaker with power airhorn and hook it to that, but more likely ill get a really cheap/sh!tty one for like $20 at walmart)
All equipment is currently wired so that it is always on, I will be adding a relay so that the radios(CB and scanner) will be powered ON only when the ignition is on. Also, in the pics, on the left side, you can see a speaker on there. This was neccasary since even though the scanner has a pretty loud internal speaker, it is UNDER the scanner, so it is inside the console how it is installed, and with road noise on the highway and a CD player blaring, it can be hard to hear at times. I got the external speaker to combat this problem. I mounted it using some heavy duty double sided adhesive squares, since I couldnt find a location for the bracket it came with that wouldnt look bad. It doesn't interfere with my right leg when sitting there, and I can hear the scanner very well at half volume when on the highway with my radio and heat turned way up.
All in all, I am very satisfied with how this project came out. It was a great learning experience, and I am def gonna start some more ambitious projects in the future. What do you all think? Any comments, questions, criticisms welcome.
Pictures - sorry about the quality, but my nice camera broke over new years (mid way through the project) so I had to borrow my buddy's ****ty one to take some of them.:
Making the mockup
Mocking up
Mocking up the faceplate
Fitting the Mockup
Another view of the mockup
Cutting the faceplate:
Faceplate - Original Design
Trying to bend the sides of the faceplate(didnt work, ended up cutting and welding them on)
Wiring it up
Finished Product
Pics of my truck:
Good Side:
Bad Side (any donations of stock eddie bauer rims greatly appreciated
!)
