Silverbullets' resto: Interior

[Silverbullet]

Yes another part to my ever-lasting resto project This will be the final part of the resto, and one day these will all be in one place, instead of scattered about as they are now. This thread will be dedicated entirely to the interior section of the project, since I have some big plans and ideas of what I'm going to do with it, there needs to be a dedicated topic

I'm probably starting this a little early since I haven't even got the engine or running gear in properly yet but I'm doing it because I needed to do some interior work before I put the windscreen in, which is one of the next jobs coming up.

So the dash needs to be in before the windscreen, and before the dash can go in the heater/climate control box and ducting needs to be in. I started by taking the heater box apart and found one heater core which had been seeping for years with dry dusty coolant residue filling the bottom of the heater box. And all the shutters for the vents which should be covered in nice low density sealing foam, instead covered in remnants of the foam which fall apart soon as you look at them. Some work required! So I got a better looking heater core from U-pull it but on closer inspection it didn't look 100%. So I dropped them both off at a radiator joint and got one good one back, core flushed out and pipes cleaned, end tank re-soldered and new inlet/outlet pipes. Good as new! I also dropped my A/C evaporator off at the same place since there was fluorescent die and oil inside the A/C box. If it can't be fixed, the guy said he will be able to find a new one and adapt it all to work, nice!

I also bought some low density foam from Clark rubber to re-cover all the shutters. Putting the heater box back together and working out the mechanism for controlling the 4 shutters is a brain twisting puzzle alright, took me a long while to work it out and all I can say is I'm glad I took photos of it before taking it apart! Photos below of it going back together. All the cams and things got lubed up so it's nice and smooth now.

Inside the heater box:

Fixed heater core:

Heater core must be wrapped in foam before installing it:

Heater box assembled, what a head ache!

[Silverbullet]

Then when the heater box goes back in the defroster vents and ducts need to be installed as well before the dash can go in. I found my defroster outlets warped and cracked from 30+ years, and these ones get sunlight on them every now and then which doesn't help. After looking for better ones and finding them to be similar or worse than mine, repairing my old ones was the only option. Luckily with a heat gun it is possible to bend them back into useable shape.

After that was all sorted it was possible to put the dash in properly and connect the upper vent ducting and test it out just with a battery directly to the motor. All my flaps work properly with air coming out all the vents depending on the cable position, phew! No leaks by the looks of it. Not much air pressure though, probably from the 12 month old battery out of the shed! A/C box will be able to slot straight in when I get it back next week.

High tech method for testing air flow:


Next I got a bit carried away and decided to quickly mock up the center console position (using a touring wagon center console/radio box) and see how it's going to be possible to implement one of my plans, I think it should work out real nice, pics below And don't worry about the brown clashing with grey; all the brown parts are going to be re-colored or re-upholstered for a black and charcoal themed interior.

See if you can spot what is wrong with this picture

This one will give it away


That will probably be pretty much it for a while since I won't be doing much on the interior until some of the other major jobs are done. Wiring being the biggest headache of the moment. Don't want to use the old wiring and I don't think I'm up to re-wiring it myself. Talking to an auto elec's now about my options. A complete re-wire was on the cards until I found out it would probably cost more than the paint job! I need something done because of all the extra accessories I plan on having, don't think the old loom is up to supporting it all if I just tacked them onto it.
Now I'm pretty much prepared to put the windscreen in which was the end goal for fixing the heater box etc. All I need is to make sure all my chrome trims are good to go, get a new windscreen rubber and the car will be 90% weather tight

[Bantum]

Ah yes - I was going to do the same on my brumby ...

A couple of things I'm not sure about :

- Angle of screen, would make it difficult to see - as its pointing downwards + not enough depth behind to put in a full deck. You could use a screen that flips out on brackets, but would spoil the look ...

- The existing cable connections to the vent + hot / cold controls may not work in that location.
Converting to a full electric system may solve that ...

- Rust treatment - I'd re-coat all the rusty bits with some form of treatment, while you have access to it ...


Other wise I like the work so far ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Silverbullet]

- Angle of screen, would make it difficult to see - as its pointing downwards + not enough depth behind to put in a full deck.
You could use a screen that flips out on brackets, but would spoil the look ...

It will be a tablet PC, so no full depth deck to worry about. If the screen angle proves to be a problem I will probably make some sort of custom fascia to make it vertical.

- The existing cable connections to the vent + hot / cold controls may not work in that location.
Converting to a full electric system may solve that ...

Waay ahead of ya Full electric control it will be.

- Rust treatment - I'd re-coat all the rusty bits with some form of treatment, while you have access to it ...

Do you mean interior wise or exterior? I've sprayed fish oil inside all the chassis rails and cavities, seam sealed the areas on the exterior that I've worked on previously. The interior, firewall area and floor will get a good covering of dynamat or something similar before the carpet goes in.

*Edit* Oh you mean the bracketry inside the dash/behind the instruments? Yeah it's very visible in those photos. It's very light surface rust only, from being in the shed, maybe I'll just spray with some rust converter if anything.

[Bantum]

Yeah sorry I was referring to the option of putting in a full sound deck, ( an existing one at that ) which unfortunately didn't suit my situation at the time. See here for details : showpost.php?p=210370&postcount=9

I'm reconsidering this though, with the advent of more suitable hardware becoming available. Bearing in mind that size of tablet pc didn't exist 10 years ago when I was first looking at this ...

In your application, what sort of PC tablet are you thinking of using ? as some tablets have the input /output, jacks etc. on the edges, which make it hard to fit ...



Add : Another thing I just noticed, the consul box is not sitting correctly up against the dash - making it an even tighter squeeze for the Screen. You will have to move the fan control panel lower to make it all fit, or get a smaller screen & put it in a surround ...

You will have to report back once its installed & operational to see how it goes ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Silverbullet]

That print out is not 1:1 scale of an actual tablet, I couldn't get a picture if the one I wanted I'm thinking one of the Nexus tablets, 7" or 8". With the input/outputs being on the side/bottom is not so much of an issue, you can get right angle plug cables for these things to point the cables backwards behind the screen.

Here's a quick mock up of the 6 gauge cluster I did just to see how it looks/fits...it looks awesome A tight squeeze to get it in there though, something is pushing on it from behind so I can't get all the screw holes to line up. I think it's the vent ducting behind. Still much to do before I actually install it though.

[Silverbullet]

Fuji HI did some funny things...

There I was fault finding my newly re-foamed heater box and ducting by putting the 2 wires from the fan directly to a battery and finding next to no air flow coming from the vents in any position; face, feet or defroster. Setting it to "hot" halved the flow. I found a few leaks; duct from fan to heater box not on properly, big resistor missing on the other side leaving a big hole, one upper air duct not on properly. I fixed these but still no flow About now I was dreading having to take the dash and heater box out again, pull it apart and re-do the sealing foam on the shutters.

Then I turned my attention to the fan itself, was it actually blowing? Taking the big main duct off and yep, plenty of pressure there. Red wire to positive, blue wire to negative, that must be right...right? Just to make sure I reversed the wires to the battery and bloody hell, could hardly hold my hand in front of the fan unit! Reconnected the ducting, put it on upper vents and nearly got blown out of the car!

I've heard of some strange things in the wiring for these cars but geez, did they really have to make the red wire earth and the blue wire power? More amazing is the fan actually moved any air at all in reverse, being an impeller type arrangement. Oh well, happy now I don't have to take it all out again

[Silverbullet]

I may as well start posting in this thread about the saga which is about to begin; wiring

A bad experience with auto elecs in the past weeks has basically forced me to do this bit myself. So today I've laid out the old front end wiring and plugged a few bits into it, got the new instrument cluster out and the wiring for that which has come from NZ to compare the two systems. And basically, absolutely nothing is even close to being similar between the two. It looks like whatever D/R 4WD wagon the NZ wiring came out of must have been optioned up to the gunnels because there are many more plugs at the fuse box area going to various sections of the car and many many more wires in the fuse box compared to my old setup, the NZ fuse box uses blade fuses (all different amperages to my old accessories) there are 2 silver can relays in the NZ loom behind the instruments which I have no idea what they're for yet, headlights perhaps? And I can't even find where the ignition barrel might have plugged in.

Anyway, compared to my povvo pack early model wiring there is no way I can join the two to make the dash work. All this was not entirely un-expected being the 6 gauge instruments and wiring are from a different country, probably years apart from my old dash.

So what is my best bet for sorting this out? Asking for advice here, to the few wiring gurus here on the forum. I like the idea of getting a huge peg board up on a wall somewhere and laying out new wires bit by bit, copying whats in the FSM but there's alot I don't understand like how the instrument panel dimmer switch can be connected to so many different circuits (and that's a minor issue!)

Am I thinking this is alot harder than it really is?

[Bantum]

Yep - There must be someone from here that is close enough to you that can come assist ? Your layout of all the bits is a start anyway ...

Peg board will do nicely, tag all the plugs with what they go to - strip the covering ( I'd keep it for re-wrapping later ) and find out where the wiring should go ... ( mud maps will help ). There will be some redundant stuff from the NZ dash that can be labelled & put to one side for later.

Now comes the hard bit - Integrating then dash to the rest, like said before - Make a start at one end ( like the fan ) & go through your list of bits to add / subtract, slow & steady will get you there - I'm sure you'll work it out ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Silverbullet]

Time for a little update to this thread...now noticing all my photos no longer work Pretty much every photo I've posted here in the last 12 months is now missing...which is weird because they are still in my bookface albums which is where I linked them from Currently re-uploading them to a different site and will go through and edit every post I can find which has photos missing now.

Anywhoo, I'm just starting to tackle the electrical system for this car after having bought an eariler Lib fuse box with built in relays and 10kg worth of electrical wire. Yes it's going to be a custom full re-wire job for a number of reasons discussed elsewhere, can't be bothered going that now. Basically I'm going to upgrade the system to a modern type system with the fuse box near the battery with relays galore. There will be a smaller sub-fuse box in the stock location which will only power the interior accessory circuits and maybe rear circuits like the tail lights. The Lib box has a few 45A fused outputs which will work nicely for this. I'm going with re-settable circuit breakers instead of fusible links for reliability.

Today I decided to work out the Liberty fuse box and what goes where. I was a little disappointed when I got home from the wreckers, pulled the rear/bottom cover off and didn't see what I was expecting; I was hoping there would be a socket directly under every fuse/relay terminal for individual wires, maybe with a common power bus or two to power the separate circuits. Instead there were about 4 big plugs with multiple wires coming out. I pulled the box apart and found it to be full of pressed copper connecting tracks going from the plugs to various different fuses and circuits. Easily mass produced and alot cheaper than individual wires and terminals me thinks.

Basically I have roughly mapped out what goes where on the top side (where the fuses go) and which wires they are connected to on the bottom side. It should still work out fine the way I have planned but I'm rather confused with how the headlight circuit relays in there work. There are 2 relays for the headlights (L/H and R/H) with their power side coming from the main battery feed to the fuse box (big chunky wire) but the output of their power side is a teeny little wire coming out of one of the plugs. Then their signal side is powered by a separate input into the fuse box (another big chunky wire) with the outputs both going through separate 15A fuses and then out to 1 teeny little wire on the same plug which I can only assume should go to the switch to put the signal to earth. Why on earth would the signal wire have 2 x 15A fuses on it??

The fuse box has 4 "A/C" relays in it which seemed to be an option because the 4 relay holder detaches from the main fuse box and has 2 of its own fuses. This section has the individual wires and connectors underneath like I wanted so it will be easy to use this relays however I want. There is also a couple of spare positions for a 30A and 45A cartridge type fuse, not sure how I will use these yet. I've made a mud map of what's what on paper but I think I will make a computer aided diagram to make it easier I''ll post that up when it's done.

[Bantum]

Where's the like button ...

Yep - FB randomises your photo URL, so it keeps changing address ...

Sorry I wont have the Brumby wiring diagram done for mine just yet, but you're welcome to copy what is there.

As to relays, maybe they're the 5 pole type ? meaning it has more than one trigger / output ? - you'll have to get a wring diagram for it ...

Keep up the good work & post plenty of pictures for us ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Green_eyed_liberty]

sounds like there is a few of us facing this issue.

sounds like you have the later model wiring loom and need the early model wiring loom..

i have the earlier model wiring loom and need the later model wiring loom..


how do you feel of mass producing these new improved wiring looms? hehe i know i will buy one

[Silverbullet]

Okay so I was a bit off on the headlights/fuses thing. Probably a result of spending too long testing wires and fuses Turns out the power out from the relay goes through the fuse, not the signal

Today I finished up testing and labeling the fuse box and have made my CAD drawing. Now I know what every wire coming out does, I can build onto that in Autocad and start designing a few circuits on the computer before I cut and crimp a single wire.

So after an hour in the shed and an hour on the computer this is what I've come up with:



Keep in mind all the circuitry I've drawn in above is all internal in the fuse box, there's no wires going from x to y hanging down underneath. The red side of the F/L seems to be the main feed in from the battery on the Liberty this box came out of, which also powers a few of the fuses directly without going through the F/L. The blue side of the FL is obviously the other side of the fuse, which powers a few different fuses. There are 5 x blade fuses on the right with the headlight relays next to them and 3 spares in the middle. 2 of the fuses are for the headlights, 2 are free and can be used for something else, with the last one getting its power from a separate external power source (not the main feed in or F/L) I might just splice this one into the main feed in to keep it simpler.

The relays and fuses along the top are completely separate from the fuse box with their own wiring underneath. So I can use these 4 for whatever I like. They were originally for A/C. Also the 6 relays in this box are not the typical BOSCH style ones, they seem to be Denso ones specific to Subaru with absolutely no information about them anywhere on the net.

Well now this gives me something to do while I'm waiting for some terminals and relays

[Silverbullet]

Just over a week later and the cars wiring diagram has come along a bit I will have to go through it with an expert to make sure I haven't done anything really stupid, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. Now I'm getting to the more complicated circuits, every now and then I just look at all those lines I've drawn and freak out a little bit before regaining my composure. The more I look at the factory wiring diagrams and some of the convoluted paths the current has to flow through I realize how cheaply they tried to make these things. I'm going to make a big call and say my wiring when it's finished with all the relays I'm using will have about half the number of wires under the dash

Plan is when the drawing is done to print it out half scale in color (maybe laminate it?) so I can pin it up somewhere, follow the lines, tick them off one by one as I lay the wire out.

[TOONGA]

That's Awesome SB, both those pictures remind me of Atari games from my childhood

TOONGA

[Clearwater99]

Are they chromed scorpion rims on your car ?

[Silverbullet]

Are they chromed scorpion rims on your car ?

Hehe, I wish They're alloys that came with a 4 wheel disc brake kit I bought from a member on here. Theyr'e 4x114.3 stud pattern with the hubs modified to suit. I wanted Scorpions, or phil nelis' copies but these look close enough.

[Bantum]

Looking good ...

I'd also add a dual battery system & interior light circuit to make complete.
Going to post up your work on the down loads section ?

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Clearwater99]

Good one. Alloy probably better than the scorps .. nice reduction in weight.

[Silverbullet]

Still adding more and more to my wiring diagram, one circuit at a time. Yes Bantum, I might as well post it in the downloads section when it is done for anyone else who wants to overhaul the wiring for an MY I have shown what I've done so far to an expert to see if I'm on the right track and apart from one or two little changes it seems like I've pretty well got the hang of it.

Today I made my peg up board - template where I will actually construct the loom for the front half of the car hanging on the wall. Using a thick 10mm piece of docking rope (nice and heavy, floppy kind of nylon braided rope) I laid and zip-tied that out in the engine bay and under-dash following the path of the wiring. Added a few labels here and there for roughly where things will go and a few branch points with smaller paracord. This is to give me the correct length of wires I need to lay out on the board so I don't end up with anything 2 inches too short. I zip-tied that to the board and now all I have to do is copy the length and path of the rope with individual wires one by one. I'm thinking this whole idea is easier than poking around under-dash and threading individual wires around the place in-situ one by one.

Time will tell if I'm onto a winner or just completely mad


But there is one big problem at the moment Regarding the NZ 6 gauge cluster I have in my possession, and it's pin-outs at the back being completely different to what is printed in either of the FSMs I have For the two big round plugs mainly, with about 12-14 pins each. In the FSM they are numbered clockwise 1-12 on one set, then 13-24 on the other plug. With 3 additional wired plugs going into where the clock is making up about 50 different pins altogether. That's how it is in the FSM, with the wiring diagram for the "combination meter" having each of its inputs/outputs going to a numbered pin. But, the two big round sets of pins on my cluster are different to what is in the book Different number of pins, in a different layout.

I cannot comprehend why there would be two different pin layouts for the same cluster. Surely they didn't go to the effort of making different internally laid out instrument clusters depending on what country they went to. My FSM has options for "Australia model" and "Saudi Arabia model" so they must have been the same clusters going out to every country (apart from LHD vehicles) The only thing I can think of for why the book is different to what I've got is maybe they changed pin layouts between years. My FSMs being relevant to 80'/81' and 83'/84' models, maybe my instrument cluster is an 82'. I know the 80'/81' 6 guage clusters were different with a completely different gauge layout and analog clock not digital. So the only thing I can do now is hope there is a fragment of an 82' FSM somewhere on the net with the 2 pages in it that I need, or I'm going to have to sit there with a piece of paper, multimeter and test light and trace every individual pin to which light or instrument it goes to This kind of messes up my wiring diagram because I've drawn what was in the book, numbers and all but now that is all wrong!