V1 Brad's City Goblin - 10 SS/TC Donor, NY Build - FOR SALE

[Karter2026]

I left my engine attached to the subframe to drop it. I think it made it easier than trying to balance the engine on a dolly.

I'm a little jealous I have a similar Snap-On lift. Your twin cylinder one looks to go higher.

 

[bradr]

I'm a little jealous I have a similar Snap-On lift. Your twin cylinder one looks to go higher.

That lift was one of the better investments I made. Mine goes up 48", just enough to sit on a roll-around seat under a vehicle without hitting my head.

 

[JBINTX]

Boy - do I wish I had a lift like that!

 

[bradr]

The donor is now stripped and out of the garage. Now lets hope I can get a junk yard to pick it up quickly so the neighbors don't complain. It is nice to have the garage back (kinda).

 

[bradr]

Currently working on stripping the body harness in the basement. Donor stripped and ready to go to the junkyard.

 

[Murcielago311]

Not going to try to sell your seats, doors, trunk?

 

[JBINTX]

I got $100 for each of my four doors.
That bench in the basement looks like just the place to hang out and avoid some sickly others.

 

[bradr]

Not going to try to sell your seats, doors, trunk?

No, the seats were trashed (burn holes, coming apart, etc), Trunk scratched and the drivers door was damaged. The junkyard paid to take it away, and I did not have to deal with the idiots on Craigslist.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

I made money (about $250) over the total of buying and shipping my donor by selling off most everything from except the carcass, and many of my parts were not in as good shape as your donor appears to be. It may be a hassle but I found the 2 people in Phoenix who almost fought over some of the parts...

 

[bradr]

I decided to try and ditch the factory fuse box. I rewired the inside of my BCM to re-purpose unused relays and fuse locations. This allowed me (assuming this works) to move most of the fuses and relays from the fusebox to the BCM. Outside of the BCM I will need 3 relays and a hand full of fuses. Not worth the effort but fun. We will see if I end up keeping this mod or not.

Details:

• Reused the 3 door lock relays and interior light relay for exterior lighting relays
• Re-purpose the RAP relay
• Re-purpose the HVAC relay
• Added the "AUX" relay (unused relay slot on back of BCM)
• Added fuse posts for many of the blank fuse slots not used by the BCM
• Totally shuffled the fuse locations to consolidate and get things the way I want them

Here is the sheet showing how things are re-purposed.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Brad, I like the idea of ditching the oversized and cumbersome fuse box, since I will have to relocate mine due to engine bay mods. Keep us posted and I will watching this with interest.

 

[bradr]

Here is the fusebox populated for its new configuration. Still have two spare fuse spots left!

 

[JBINTX]

Brad your talents are amazing!

 

[bradr]

Brad your talents are amazing!

Thanks! There are many talented people here, I just like the electronic end of things. I am always learning from other forum members as well.

 

[bradr]

I started working on upgrading the backlighting in my instrument cluster, following ctuinstra's work (details HERE) doing the same thing. Chad's work saved me a lot of time figuring out the details myself. I will be using the same LEDs (info HERE), but attempting to run them all in parallel to reduce the work required to modify the circuit board. So far I have the old bulbs desoldered and the new LEDs soldered in. Some notes if anyone else attempts this:

• The polarity of the center two bulbs behind the fuel gauge are upside down (ground at the top, supply at the bottom).
• The LEDs have a center contact pad used for thermal dissipation is also a 2nd cathode (ground). As a result, I soldered the LEDs as far down on the ground pad so that the center cathode did not touch the supply (anode) pad. Close up picture below.

I am waiting on my power regulator to finish. I used a bench power supply to test the new setup and WOW. The color went from yellow to a almost ice blue color. The lighting is much brighter and more even.

New LEDs installed (two behind each gauge location)

Close up of how I shifted the LEDs as far towards the cathode to avoid a short.

Poor picture of what it looks like (much better in real life)

 

[Karter2026]

The color went from yellow to a almost ice blue color. The lighting is much brighter and more even.

I would like to get the driver information area brighter so I can see it in the daylight

 

[ctuinstra]

How are you running them all in parallel? So you are using a modified power supply to the two input pins?

 

[bradr]

How are you running them all in parallel? So you are using a modified power supply to the two input pins?

My plan is to use a TO-220 voltage regulator and current limiting resistor just like you did. The only difference is I plan to use a 3.3 volt regulator (datasheet HERE) so that my single current limiting resistor can be 1.5 ohms, 1/4w with a target current of 45mA per LED. Why not let the regulator do all the work? The regulator will only need to handle 270mA, yet is rated at 1.5 amps with a max 27 volt input. Heat dissipation and voltage variation/surge should be no issue.

Your method works great and would be my preferred method, but what I am proposing should reduce the circuit board modification to a single trace being cut (if you want the regulator inside the cluster) or no cuts (if you place the regulator outside the cluster). Once the regulator arrives tomorrow Ill work on testing out this plan.

 

[ctuinstra]

I wanted to do the same thing but found that the regulator would cook. In your setup, it will have to dissipate 10.5v (13.8-3.3) at 270ma (2.8W of dissipation). The only way I could keep the temps to a min was to limit the amount of dissipation of the regulator, keep the input as close the output as possible. Although they say they can handle 1.5A, that's assuming you can keep it very cool using large heat sinks or something.

I'm not an electrical engineer so this is in no way an argument. I hope you can find a better way to do it. That was my goal so other could also. I was very disappointed in what I ended up having to do to get it to work and felt that it was no longer a DIY project I could promote.

 

[ctuinstra]

I wonder if a buck converter is a better solution.