The Black Hole

[gmanpaint]

That's a wrap!

Primed

All painted up, and even managed to get the Clamp primed & painted

Bearing buddy repacked with new bearing grease

Another full Monty frontal, no holds barred, no censorship(well, a little,lol), pure unadulterated goodness. Sq tube, meets round tube, and are blissfully joined at the hip.

And then there is the next step... Finding the electrical gremlin in the brake system, and fixing it, so I can wire up this 7 pin plug, and get the high stop neon working again. Now if I could just get some reliable customer service help, for information alone, I can do the labor work myself. They changed the two wire harness to the 5 wire, and messed up a circuit. That circuit is the one that works the trailer brake lights, and the rigs high stop. That circuit is needed by the trailer brake controller. W/o it working, a whole lot of time, labor, and tons of cash has been spent for nothing.

 

[WormsExplorer]

That is beautiful.

 

[Turdle]

Looks good from here. I know the wire wheelies suck but it was probably your best option for cleaning it off. I bet it took about the same amount of time as driving it to a place and picking it back up without the wait time in the middle.

 

[gmanpaint]

It took a while over a couple days here & there to strip it, but was the cheapest option as I work for free on my stuff. Lol

 

[gmanpaint]

The scan gauge in this thing, finally has a Transmission fluid Temp reading....
All thanks to Turdle & wife stopping by, for a few days of R&R.

Jon took the 20 minutes it takes to enter the 4 lines of code properly to install it for me. Thanks Buddy!

Oh, Jon met his big brother while here, and was able to have a face to face convo with him.

 

[traveler]

Glad you got it working right! I may have to get jon to walk me through the process again when I get a scanguage for the Expy.

 

[gmanpaint]

Yep, haven't been too concerned about setting that tft reading right away, as this rig hasn't been ready for anything yet. But.... I'm doing my best to get it there.Still super happy it's installed now.

Been seeing some scanners that have a heads up windshield display. I like them a lot. The expy dash is much larger, and you wouldn't notice it as much, compared the explorer. Something to check out.

 

[Turdle]

I like Turtles



Had an awesome time in St Louis hanging out with MLB and Gman. Tried some new things to eat and had a life changing experience which involves stingrays.

Thanks for putting up with us and the dog.

 

[gmanpaint]

Lol, dog prolly didn't enjoy it as much.

I'm glad you both was able to spend the time here, and are always welcome!

 

[gmanpaint]

I had thought the sun came out and there was light at the end of the tunnel, but nope. Dark clouds remain.

We had customer service for a minute, but a solar flare, tragic life event, or something out of this world, must have knocked out communications on their end..., again. I was able to confirm what was known by all here, (for almost 2 years). It isn't a part failure that's bad, it is just a botched wiring job, and the dash has to come out.

Things needed to investigate are Splice - S212 & Circuit- C212.

S212 is where (so I am told) the 98 dash harness is joined with the 95 body harness. The bad brake circuit is at the C212 leading to this splice.

Anybody able to post up a wiring diagram of C212? Looking for both 1995 & 1998 diagrams to compare them.

Apparently, this is where the brake circuit is mismatched, and grounding out. I need to see where the brake circuits are supposed to go in both directions.

I have no idea whats inside this junction box, but need to understand it, before I dig into it. Hell, I don't even know where it is exactly. Somewhere around the steering column? All I do know, is I was told the dash has to be removed, or pulled out far enough to access it. My luck, because of my size, I will have to remove it completely to have room to work on it.

 

[CDW6212R]

That picture you have is good, the 212 junction is mounted horizontally like that, and inboard of the fuse panel. Here's a picture of my 99 dash before I changed anything;

This is my 99 Limited body harness which I didn't use(has wires cut from it), it shows the 212 connector and the round door connector.

 

[gmanpaint]

Holy balls. No wonder the dash needs to come out to work on that.

Thanks for the ID pic Don. It helps knowing where it is.

 

[CDW6212R]

Here's a couple more from a folder I put all of my 99 pictures into, better views with the fuse panel;

 

[gmanpaint]

On that second pic, what all did you do to get it to that point? Lower the column to pull it back?

It shows that C212 can be reached like that. That looks better than pulling the steering column and removing the dash completely.

 

[CDW6212R]

I'm fuzzy about all the specific bolts, but basically the perimeter mounting bolts, the column shaft bolt, shifter cable, console and connector, front seats etc.

I was gutting the entire truck, so I removed everything and just set the dash in the back until I had things organized.

I think to have the dash move back at all, the whole set of mounting bolts will have to come out. Then only the little things like wiring, steering shaft, and shift cable are stopping it from falling off. So you might as well pull the seats and console quickly to make room for the dash. Then the steering wheel can stay on if you like and work on getting it out enough to reach the back behind the fuse panel.

 

[gmanpaint]

Yeah, seats & console have to come out for sure. I was curious about the steering column. Looks like it has to be lowered to pull the dash back that far?

I will disconnect all wiring, vac lines, etc... as needed, as I find them. lol

Thanks for the help Don.

 

[CDW6212R]

I didn't unbolt the column from the dash, I disconnected the steering shaft and brought it through the firewall. There are two shafts, not counting the upper column itself, and there is a connection(bolt) above the brake pedal you can take loose.

So first remove the middle(intermediate steering) shaft, which has to be out to be able to put the column with dash back in.

My 91 Lincoln has the same kind of column in it, which was the first that Ford made of the now common short columns. Prior to the Mark VII, all Fords had long straight steering columns. I swapped a 99-01 Mustang rack into my Lincoln, which required the matching Mustang intermediate column. So I learned how simple those were to remove, just one bolt at each end.

 

[gmanpaint]

Right on. Sorry if my wording didn't make sense.

I have replaced the intermediate shaft before, and it has been on/off a few times over the years. I figured it had to come off to let it come forward. Easy Peasy there.

I just wasn't sure if you unbolted at the dash to let it drop downwards. Now I know better, and that is actually a relief. Thanks again!

 

[boominXplorer]

Just take the 1 pinch bolt out under the dash to separate the shaft, unplug connectors (some under column cover) and pull the 4 bolts that hold it up. There's also the shift indicator cable, it comes off with a 5.5 mm and then unhook the cable.

Also take the key out and get the column to lock, that way it doesn't go out of rotation on the clock spring.

 

[gmanpaint]

@boominXplorer, Those 4 bolts are the one's I was thinking about. Thanks for all the tips!

Sorry for the late reply, but I'm not getting alert email notifications. Been happening for a few days now.