ctuinstra's City Goblin - 07 SS/SC donor 2.0

ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
Quick update:

Got all of the parts and frame back from powder coating. All the parts, side panels, bottom skin, frame, springs, etc, $800. I didn't need to do the firewall.

I can't wait to get the hoses in the frame and start building. Kaleb is only home for few hours this morning and has to go back so it may end up waiting until next weekend. This could be slow going getting it back together with him being away. Hopefully when he is home, we can assemble it pretty quick now that we have done it once before. Not much left to the season of driving. I just hope I don't have to wait until next spring before it touches the street again.

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ctuinstra

Goblin Guru

ncgoblin

Goblin Guru
I used a boat crank and 2x6 board aimed towards each pipe it made it a breeze I had a thicker inner wall hose so it was nearly impossible by hand apparently they make 2 different style radiator hoses. The crank I bought was $20 at tractor supply 600 pound capacity. Check out my build thread for an example.
 

ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
I needed another item to add to the Amazon cart to get free shipping and I found this. The donor car outlet was in bad shape and part of the mount is broke. It made terrible connections to the plug-in USB charger. This should work out quite well. We use one port to charge the phone and another port to run the spare phone that is connected to the OBDII scanner.

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ncgoblin

Goblin Guru
I used an hour of my life and my hands.
Yea I was so frustrated then found out there are 2 obviously different type hoses that ship.
I needed another item to add to the Amazon cart to get free shipping and I found this. The donor car outlet was in bad shape and part of the mount is broke. It made terrible connections to the plug-in USB charger. This should work out quite well. We use one port to charge the phone and another port to run the spare phone that is connected to the OBDII scanner.

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do you have plans for a mount?
 

ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
I cut a trace for the 'BRAKE' light since it's on all the time with no ABS controller. I also cleaned up the jumper I made in haste a while back for the MIL. I want the MIL to work since I deactivated the codes that no longer apply. I still have codes for things like too rich/lean, etc.

While I was in there I got to looking at the illumination. I've never been impressed with the donor dash lights. They are barely visible at night. Come to find out they use two incandescent lamps at each gauge. So I've been doing a bit of research and found these 3mm LEDs that might just fit nicely. The only issue is that I will have to come up with a clever way to add in current limiting resistors. All of the existing bulbs are wired parallel to pins 8 and 16 of the connector. I assume they used the bulbs to be able to easily dim the lamps without having to add a PWM or something. I don't have to worry about dimming since I jumpered the adjustment.

The LEDs are 3800K, which I wish they were closer to 5000K, but put out 8900mcd (28 lumens)! There aren't many choices in this size.

Anyone want to talk me out of it! Please!

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https://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo/surface-mount-smd/samsung-high-cri-led-natural-white-5630-smd-led-94-cri/3220/6886/
 

ncgoblin

Goblin Guru
I encourage this. At this point I’m thinking about making a bracket and mounting an inexpensive amazon fire with OBD scanner for all my gauges. Easily removable and I can adjust brightness any downsides?
 

ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
I encourage this. At this point I’m thinking about making a bracket and mounting an inexpensive amazon fire with OBD scanner for all my gauges. Easily removable and I can adjust brightness any downsides?
Others might have better experiences, but mine with the OBDII scanners is their communication is very cantankerous after a key cycle. Bluetooth can be a unreliable and slow to connect form of communication. Many times I found myself having to re-connect the device after starting the vehicle. You will never have instant communication at first start up. Would you want to have to go through that every time you get in the car just to have a speedometer?

Like I said, others may have a great setup that works much more reliable but it's hard to beat the reliability of a wired connection.
 

ncgoblin

Goblin Guru
Others might have better experiences, but mine with the OBDII scanners is their communication is very cantankerous after a key cycle. Bluetooth can be a unreliable and slow to connect form of communication. Many times I found myself having to re-connect the device after starting the vehicle. You will never have instant communication at first start up. Would you want to have to go through that every time you get in the car just to have a speedometer?

Like I said, others may have a great setup that works much more reliable but it's hard to beat the reliability of a wired connection.
That is a very valid point. Well let’s see what you got to make that dash awesome!
 

Waterdriver

Goblin Guru
If a tablet is going to be semi-permanently be mounted and used as a dashboard you could use the OBD to USB cable.
Tablet or phone would be powered by the OBD port and always be connected.
Of course there's the car battery drain to consider.
Cable at ScanTool.net: https://www.scantool.net/scan-tools/obdlink-sx/
Using my Bluetooth adapter now but it is a little slow reading the PIDs with my phone now.
The cable I believe has the fastest connection speed and would be more real time like the actual dash.
 

ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
Kaleb was home for the weekend and we were able to spend some time on the car. Today was the dreaded pulling of the hoses. Admittingly, I tried too hard to pull them late last night outside with no light and it didn't turn out so well. We pulled the pull rope out of the hose the first time and then the second attempt, the hose pulled all the way through with just an inch sticking out when the pull rope gave! Ugh! How do you reattach the last inch or two and start a pull. Magically, we were able to grab on to it just long enough to pull a few more inches.

The second side we followed Lonny's new method of attaching the pull rope and it pulled like a dream! It took longer to attach the pull rope then it did to pull it. Now that it's done - on with the build.

Kaleb clearing the holes for the rivets for the bottom pan.
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Car is back upright and assembling more pieces. I will probably work on this on and off through the week.

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ctuinstra

Goblin Guru
do anything different prepping this time around? Like any different brackets or holes?
Not a whole lot. I removed the extra engine cover brackets that I won’t use. Added one for the mounting of the fuel filter, but I did that to the last frame. Also added a ground lug on the driver side engine mount (DF is doing that to all new frames now). I also cut and repositioned the coolant mount bracket for the SS/SC tank (it’s different than the base model tank). I was going to add more brackets for the side panels but ran out of time and it wasn’t really that big of an issue before. On the previous build, we added a driver side left foot test but found it was useless and never got used so I didn’t add it this time. And last but not least, added two tabs for the license plate.
 

Nilbog

Well-Known Member
Chad - do you know what brand/color that powder is? Looking to do some accent pieces in that orange. Right now ive just painted the calipers chevy orange and dont care much for the look.
 
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