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New Holley Sniper2 EFI kit, with new (in-line, but outside the tank) fuel pump, and new GlobalCruise Electric Cruis Control. The old stock valve covers were also leaking a bit, so she also bought me a set of Holley Sniper 2 aluminum valve covers - Nice! The engine will look far nicer with all this installed. | ||
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The first exercise, of course, is to remove all associated equipment. The old fuel pump is being replaced with an in-tank high pressure unit, so the old Holley Red (low pressure) pump is coming out. The Sniper 2 EFI directly provides power to the fuel pump, so the old relay comes out. It was previously placed in the battery box for convenience (upper right in picture). | ||
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The old Edelbrock carburetor - picture showing some of the vacuum hoses. | ||
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More connections to the old carb. | ||
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In particular, the brake booster does NOT connect to the carb. It has a direct connection to the intake manifold. | ||
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Throttle connection and return springs. | ||
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Tranny vacuum connection - rubber hose to hard line at back of engine. | ||
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Tranny vacuum connection at front of carburetor. | ||
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Old fuel filter coming off. | ||
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Old carb ready for removal (passenger side). | ||
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Old carb ready for removal (driver side). | ||
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Edelbrock carburetor removed. | ||
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The old Edelbrock carb. | ||
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Just a few pictures showing the position of the distributor cap and wiring (so I can put it back together). Green = Tach lead. | ||
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More distributor wiring. | ||
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Switch for electric fan #1 (water temp at thermostat). Overall, what we're looking for is a place to connect a water temperature sensor for the Sniper 2 EFI. On the intake manifold, there are currently two water temp switches (for the electric fan relays) and one sending unit for the water temperature gauge. | ||
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Wires pulled from fan #1 switch. | ||
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Switch for electric fan #2 (water temp switch). | ||
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Orange/Yellow wires removed from fan #2 switch. | ||
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Same as above. | ||
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The Holley Sniper 2 EFI needs a water temp sense feed. There are currently three water temp ports/sensors on the front of the intake manifold - with the Sniper 2, there needs to be 4. Hence, there's a need to shift a few things around and create a new tapped hole for the fourth water temp sensor. The Sniper 2 temp sensor was placed where the switch for fan #2 had been. |
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A new location was needed for the fan #2 switch - I considered using a "T" off the hot water hose to the heater, but I'm not sure this flows all the time, so that was discounted. | ||
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Fan #1 is intended to turn on at 180°F, and fan #2 at 190°F. I thought about sharing the fan #2 switch with fan #1, but that would turn both on at 180°; so, again, that was discounted. | ||
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The water temp gauge sending unit is shown here between the new Sniper 2 water temp sensor and the port for the heater - that needs to stay. | ||
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(Distributor removed) Between the water temp gauge sending unit and the port for the heater there is a flat area big enough to drill and tap another hole for the fan #2 switch. | ||
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Here's a top-down view of the area of interest. | ||
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A new hole has been drilled into the water plenum of the intake manifold. | ||
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Tapping the hole to take the fan switch. | ||
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Another view of tapping the hole. | ||
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The completed tapped hole. | ||
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The fan #2 switch has been threaded into the new hole and wires attached. | ||
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Top down view of all the water sense points - just below the pill bottle (helping keep the distributor hole clear of debris) is the sensor for the Sniper 2 EFI kit (not connected). To the right of that is the water temp gauge sending unit. Just above that is the new location of the fan #2 switch. Above that is the tap for hot water to the heater core. Finally, above-left of that is the untouched fan #1 switch. | ||
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Another view of all the water temp sensors and switches. | ||
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The distributor base is back on and the Holley Sniper 2 EFI is being trial fit. | ||
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The next part of the Sniper 2 installation is putting an O2 sensor in the exhaust. The truck has a full dual exhaust with no "X" or crossover pipe. There is only one O2 sensor - the instructions say to pick either side for the O2 sensor, and to place it 6 to 12" after the collector. So, here's a hole for the O2 sensor drilled into the driver's side exhaust between the collector and the exhaust union. This is a 3" exhaust at this point and the Sniper 2 kit came with an O2 flange clamp for a 2 1/2" pipe. A short call to Holley and a 3" flange clamp was on its way (no charge). | ||
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The new 3" O2 sensor flange clamp in place. This provides the bung to screw the O2 sensor into and removes the need to weld such a bung in place. | ||
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The O2 sensor for the Sniper 2 EFI installed and wired. | ||
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Removing the gas tank to install the high-pressure fuel pump and a return line. I actually did this twice. The first fuel pump I bought was an in-line unit. However, these units need to be placed below the fuel tank as they are designed to siphon fuel, not pump it, from the fuel tank. After struggling with this for a while, I threw in the towel and bought an in-tank Holley universal fit EFI fuel pump. | ||
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The old tank fittings - to the left is the vent hose (still used). To the right is the feed to the previous (external) Holley Red low pressure fuel pump. The open port was not connected - an unused return line port most likely - also maybe the source of the gas spills I'd get when filling up the tank. | ||
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The bell/ball/float "thingy" was removed and this port initially connected to the new return line (this was eventually just capped off when the in-tank fuel pump was installed). | ||
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Round 1 of gas tank re-assembly. The upper hose on right is the output to the external in-line fuel pump. The lower hose on right is the return line. | ||
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I had previously installed a fuel filler hose to fix the leak that was initially in the truck when I got it. However, that had quite a "kink" in it that slowed down filling. So, while I was dealing the tank I also fixed the kink - had to cut/fit a pair of 90° bends, but it now seems to work pretty well. | ||
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After much deliberation, I decided I was just asking for trouble if I stuck with the external in-line fuel pump. So I bit the bullet and bought a Holley universal fit in-tank EFI fuel pump. Out came the fuel tank a second time. This required a separate hole to be cut into the tank to mount the new pump. The new pump does not have a sending unit, so all that remains for the old tank-cap to do is to hold the sending unit. | ||
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Here is the new Holley universal in-tank EFI pump upside down on the bench. It has been trimmed to fit into the fuel tank (only 1/2" needed to be taken of the length of the pump mount, though it looks to me I really did not need to shorten it). The fuel filter rides about 1/2" off the bottom of the tank. | ||
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Getting ready to re-install the fuel tank for the second time. The old tank cap still contains the vent hose - all other ports on it have been capped off. The vent port on the new fuel pump cap has also been capped off (why not keep a good working vent). | ||
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Power for the fuel pump is now provided by the Sniper 2 EFI. The wiring harness for the kit includes a fuse and relay for the fuel pump. I mounted these near the starter solenoid on the passenger-side firewall. Relay on top, fuse below. | ||
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A fuel line has been run from the fuel pump in the tank to the Sniper 2 EFI unit. A fine mesh fuel filter has been added just before the Sniper 2. The Sniper 2 has fuel ports at both the front and rear of the unit. Either port can be the inlet, and either can be the return line output. It worked best in this application to bring the fuel in to the rear port (after the fuel filter) and take the return line out the front port. This shows the Earl's VaporLock fittings attached to the return port and a fuel-pressure gauge installed (just above the red coil of wire). | ||
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When installing the fuel tank, I dressed power wires for the fuel pump. I did not realize the Sniper 2 wiring harness had a full-length fuel pump power wire included. Hence, I cut and spliced the wires mid-way (the battery box was convenient). The blue wire is from the Sniper 2 wiring harness; the red wire is to the fuel pump +12V. | ||
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The Sniper 2 wiring harness included a black ground wire that is to be tied directly to battery ground. While doing this I included the black ground wire from the fuel pump. Both are spliced and tied to the battery cable ground "tap". | ||
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The Sniper 2 kit includes a fuel pressure regulator (60 psi) to go in the return line. This was installed inside the frame on the passenger side, in front of the rear axle. In from the left is the return line from the Sniper 2; out the bottom and to the right is to the fuel tank. | ||
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Another view of the fuel pressure regulator. | ||
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A view of the overall Sniper 2 installation mid wiring. | ||
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Fuel source and return lines are visible in this picture. | ||
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Distributor cap and wiring have been re-installed. | ||
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Connecting some of the Sniper 2 wiring. Green wire is the Tach wire. This is the one that gave me trouble later when trying to fire it up. This green wire is spliced to a red wire shortly after entering the wire loom. And the red wire is spliced to a brown wire. Hence, I initially tied the Tach sense of the Sniper 2 to the wrong wire. | ||
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Spark plug wiring on the driver's side. | ||
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Also included in this overall upgrade is replacement of the old throttle pedal. Here it is removed. This was "mounted" to the firewall using three Tapcon screws and a stack of flat washers for spacers. However shaky that was, the real issue I was having is the lack of sensitivity on the throttle. It was difficult to lightly and smoothly accelerate - a slight change of pressure on the pedal would do nothing until it over rode the static friction, at which point it became a throttle mash.I wanted something smoother, so, after looking around, decided to go with the same pedal assembly I have in the Cobra - a Speedway motors throttle pedal. How to mount it became an exercise in creative construction. | ||
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Mounting the new throttle pedal was a bit of a quandary. The firewall is anything but flat - it curves around the bellhousing area; it angles into the cab on its lower section. I decided to build a separate pedal mount that would be flat and vertical inside the cab. However, it would need to mount to the convex shape of the firewall itself. I had some aluminum spacers that I was able to cut, shape, and fit such that the pedal mount would ride appropriately. This shows two of the three spacers used to attach this to the actual firewall (this is not the final shape nor length of the spacers). | ||
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This is the baseplate of the pedal attached to the new pedal mount (a 3/16" of plate steel I had laying around - the three smaller holes are for the standoffs and to mount the plate, the other two larger "outboard" holes are left over from whatever I initially used this piece of metal for. | ||
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Here is the back side of the pedal mount with the spacers fitted to the firewall shape. | ||
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The spacers had to pass through the plastic interior cover and insulation before resting against the firewall. The purple tape is my "target" for the final pedal placement. | ||
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Mating spacers were built for the engine compartment side of the firewall. Essentially these spacers were angled to match the firewall and created a square surface for the nuts to screw down to. A similar approach was taken to pass the throttle cable through the angled firewall - mirrored-matching spacers were placed on either side of the firewall, and the throttle cable "bolt" and nut locked the cable in place reasonably straight front-to-back even though the firewall at this position is angled (the throttle cable is off a little bit). | ||
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Here's the throttle pedal assembled on the pedal mount. | ||
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Throttle pedal complete - I had to build a home-brew "clevis" to attach the throttle cable ball to the lever arm of the pedal. | ||
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The throttle cable came through the firewall a bit high above the throttle plate on the Sniper 2. As there is plenty of room under the hood, I added a 1" spacer below the Sniper 2. This raised the throttle plate such that it is very close to in-line with the cable coming through the firewall. | ||
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Looking for ways to mount and attach the throttle cable and return springs to the throttle plate, I ran across this "C" shaped bracket. This is available from a number of on-line speed shops, but also from Amazon for under $20. | ||
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The "C" bracket mounts to the carburetor studs and provides a termination for the throttle cable and a place to mount the return springs. The "C" kit comes with a number of connection options and pieces, so I just picked through, played with, and modified pieces to get what I think works pretty well - with no binding.
The "C" bracket and the 1" spacer created a bit of an issue trying to find a set of carburetor studs that would work. The body of the Sniper 2 has standard 4150 mounting holes but the body extends out to the studs and doesn't allow a nut to screw past the body. Hence you need a fully threaded stud to put a nut on, screw it to the "bottom", insert the stud through the base of the Sniper 2, unscrew the nut as the stud is screwed into the intake manifold, then screw the nut down securely - quite an operation. In addition, with the spacer and the "C" bracket, "odd" non-standard stud lengths are needed. I ordered a set of studs from ARP but they were not fully threaded, so I could not use them (I tried to cut additional threads on them but they were too hard). I picked up a set of Spectre studs from Autozone and they worked on the non-"C" bracket side but were not long enough for the "C" bracket. Hence, for the "C" bracket side I ended up with a cheap no-name zinc-plated pair of fully threaded studs - not what I wanted, but what worked. |
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A close-up of the "C" bracket, return spring, throttle cable mount - the high rise air cleaner base provides plenty of room for all this mechanism. | ||
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I mounted the Sniper 2 Display and control panel to the dash above the steering column. It is very readable from the driver's natural position. | ||
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All hooked up and wired up - first start - it didn't. The display kept reading "Stall". It would crank, fire, and die. Fuel pressure would come up, then die. | ||
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A little diagnosis showed that I had not correctly connected the Tach cable to the Sniper 2 EFI. Off the distributor, a green wire was connected to the Tach output, and a red wire to "the other" I/O. Further up the wiring harness I found a red and brown wire. Hence I connected the Sniper 2 Tach sense to the brown wire figuring it had been spliced to the green. Well, yes but no. Both the green Tach wire and the red wire had been spliced - however, the green wire was spliced to a red wire and the red wire was splice to the brown wire! So much for color coding. In any event, I changed the Sniper 2 Tach sense to the (spliced) red wire which was spliced to the green Tach sense, and the Sniper 2 fired right up! | ||
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A driver's view of the EFI display. | ||
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The stock valve covers leaked a bit of oil and are difficult to tighten down without distorting the stamped metal. Needing to address this and for a bit of "dress-up" I also bought a pair of Holley Sniper aluminum valve covers. Here's the old valve covers removed from the passenger side. | ||
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One problem with fitment of the new valve covers was the transmision fluid level/fill tube. It had a bend into the valve cover that prevented installation. | ||
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A good 'ol electrical conduit bender was jerry-rigged with a black pipe and used to un-bend the transmission tube. | ||
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The un-bent-enough transmission fluid level/fill tube. | ||
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The new passenger side Holley Sniper aluminum valve cover in place. | ||
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Not sure why I need this picture, but here it is - Sniper valve cover box. | ||
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For the small block Ford, the Holley part number is "890012" for the valve covers. | ||
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Here's the valve cover for the driver's side. The valve covers came with 3 1/2" 1/4-20 cap head screws. However, my kit was short one. I could have called Holley for another set, but I also broke one when tightening them down. I found some stainless and some hardened black ones at McMaster-Carr and ordered a box of each. I had to hold off installing the driver's side valve cover until they came in. | ||
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The valve cover with the PCV Valve installed. | ||
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Trying to get a good picture without glare..... | ||
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No glare, but shiny reflection.... | ||
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The Holley Sniper valve cover installed on the driver's side (the new box of cap screws from McMaster-Carr came in - I chose to use the stainless ones over the black hardened ones - I may change my mind later). | ||
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Part two (three? four?) of this upgrade was to add cruise control. Again, with the longer term interest in cruising the full length of Rt 66, this is highly desirable. For the cruise control I ordered a Rostra 250-1223 Universal Cruise Control Kit with a Rostra 250-3593 Universal Dash Mount Controller and a Rostra 250-4165 Speed Signal Generator. |
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I mounted the Rostra 250-1223 Universal Cruise Control box to the driver's side fender well. | ||
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This is the coil pickup for the cruise control - it is Rostra part number 250-4165 - "Speed Signal Generator". A magnet is attached to the drive shaft and this senses the drive shaft rotation speed. | ||
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I mounted the drive shaft rotation sensor just rear of the front U-joint. The zip-tie strap holds a single permanent magnet in place on the drive shaft. Different types of vehicles, for whatever reason, require different numbers of magnets placed around the drive shaft. Rear wheel drive domestic vehicles require only one. | ||
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Another view of the drive shaft magnet and the pickup coil. | ||
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The placement relative to the front U-joint is easier to see in this picture. | ||
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The cruise control kit essentially provides an alternate parallel "pull" on the throttle plate. A "standard" throttle cable comes out of the main control box and is routed to the throttle plate of the Sniper 2. There are a number of different means provided to attach the cruise control throttle cable to the throttle plate. I chose to use the "ball and chain" such that when the cruise is not being used (most of the time) it won't interfere with normal throttle delivery. | ||
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Here is the Rostra 250-3593 Universal Dash Mount Controller. I placed it just to the right of the ignition switch simply because there was room for it there. | ||
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The wiring harness for the cruise control was long enough to work with a Duesenberg and included several connectors. Rather than trying to cram excess wiring under the dash, I simply cut the middle out of the harness and removed the connectors. This shows the excess removed. | ||
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The current dashboard configuration - a bit busier than a classic '56. | ||
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The last thing remaining is to dress up the spark plug wires - this is an ugly mess. | ||
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The driver's side is a little better, but the plug wires are never the less loose and subject to header heat. | ||
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Here's the wire loom that came off the truck - a bit rusty, but not too bad. With the new valve covers the question is how to mount it. | ||
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An internet search didn't really reveal any ideas - several had asked the question, but nobody gave a real good answer. Here's a sample cap screw holding down the valve cover. The top of the cap sits just below the top deck of the valve cover. | ||
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I thought about welding a pair of cap screws head-to-head to create a stud sticking up above the valve cover to mount something to. | ||
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It then dawned on me to simply use a 1/4-20 (stainless) threaded rod and a fully threaded coupling nut. | ||
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I bought some 1/4-20 coupling nuts, but they had too large of outside diameter to fit into the recessed hole of the valve cover. I put them on the drill press and rounded down the edges on the lower half of the coupling nut such that they fit into the recessed hole and left a "nut" to wrench on. | ||
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The threaded rod was cut to 5 1/4" (still a bit longer than needed). | ||
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Here's a view of the assembly - the rod to the right is threaded into the cylinder head through the hole in the valve cover. A flat washer goes on first, then a lock washer, then the rounded coupling nut. This is fastened down snug. Then a wire loom mount goes on and is held in place with a nylock nut. There should be a flat nylon washer at the bottom of the hole but I'm missing a few - I don't think it should matter - probably an oil seal to the outside world. | ||
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Here's an example of the installation. This is the passenger front outside valve cover bolt hole. The capscrew has been removed | ||
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The stud has been installed. | ||
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On goes the flat washer and lock washer | ||
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On goes the rounded coupling nut. | ||
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The hex sides remain on the coupling nut at the top and are used to snug down the valve cover. | ||
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Finally, the wire loom mount is placed on the stud and held in place with a nylock nut. | ||
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The wire loom has been mounted. | ||
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Finally, the spark plug wires are dressed to the loom (zip tie wire harness). | ||
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Here is the completed passenger side spark plug wire dressing. At some point in the future I may get a new set of plug wires and fit/dress them a bit cleaner, but this looks a lot better than it had before adding the wire loom. | ||
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Here is the driver's side fully dressed on its wire loom. | ||
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