Wiring Job: KBO

KBO was a sort of motto for Winston Churchill (Keep Plodding On if in the presence of a lady). So maybe I can adapt this to Keep Wiring On. Another favorite Churchill quip: "If you're going through Hell, keep going!" Wiring this car is hardly comparable to an eternity of perdition, but the eternity part sometimes feels apropos. 

Paul the Actual Mechanic Who Actually Knows What He's Doing expresses it thusly: "Wiring is one of those jobs where you work for hours, and when you leave, the car looks exactly the same as when you started."

More Non-Wiring

A major part of the wiring job is all the non-wiring things I keep running in to. After the problems with  clutch disengagement, I went to the trouble of making a longer plunger and replaced the ABS 3d printed spacer with stainless steel.

This was a laser cut part and annoyingly, there was the usual irregular finish inside the holes encountered with laser cutting thicker materials. More annoyingly, it was just irregular enough so the spacer didn't fit over the bosses on the clutch pedal assembly. Even more annoyingly, I impulsively ordered the part in stainless (the cost was basically the same and I thought if it's stainless I won't have to paint it) - and finishing out the irregularities is much more of a chore with stainless. In mild steel, Pops Racer's adjustable ream (above) would have cleaned up these holes in no time. In stainless, it was an hour long job that elicited bitter complaints from my upper back and shoulders. 

I also made a brace for the pedal assemblies. The pedal assemblies mount on the firewall, but in the OEM Miata they also bolt securely at the far end toward the driver. From build pictures I have seen, it looks like most people do brace these so I set about making a brace. My idea was to make what amounted to a piece of C-channel in thick-ish steel in customized dimensions. In retrospect, I could have gotten away with a standard piece of 2x2 inch C-channel but then I would have missed the opportunity to use Pops' awesome hydraulic press brake.

At first I got a piece of 0.125 inch mild steel and promptly made a bending error. In material that thick, there's no going back. Fortunately Pops had some 0.100 laying around and after playing with the 1/8 inch material, it was obvious this was overkill and 0.100 would be plenty stout. So above is a non-erroneous bend in the 0.100

So this is the installed bracket (just below the "V" of the two channel pieces above). I cut a notch out of the upper extension along the V for better access to the bolts below. I wasn't sure how long I needed this to be, thus the longer lower extension. For orientation, in the picture on the left, the firewall is at the bottom. In the picture on the right, the firewall is on the right. The two similar pieces with round and rectangular cutouts are the pedal assemblies. They bolt into my bracket on the side opposite the firewall.

So after the bracket and the new spacer I installed the clutch pedal assembly with my new lengthened clutch master cylinder plunger... and it was too long. Turns out the OEM piece is correct after all, if everything else is secured and positioned properly.

Another not-a-project-car job above: our clothes dryer tried to burn our house down. Instead of tripping, the over heating fuse melted. Which did fortunately avert burning down the house. Replacing the heating element and heat control switches/fuses on an electric dryer isn't a terrible job - but it isn't as fun as a project car.

I Cannot Work Under These Conditions

So among all the wiring and not-wiring jobs, the clutter and disorganization of my workspace became intolerable. Getting the new toolbox, which I have decided to call Big Orange (anathema to a Vanderbilt alum) was the first step in the reorganization and it helped a lot. After some more reorganization and throwing away garbage, the garage is in the state depicted below:

Still not 'tidy' (one of my favorite words), much less immaculate (a word for which I rarely find use), but a huge improvement nonetheless. The big air compressor was a great find by Uncle/Brother/Engineer Ray and the red/gray toolbox to the left is a hand-me-down from Pops Racer. The drill press (hiding behind the compressor) is on loan from Pops. Big Orange (shudder) is in the back corner. The yellow workbench top along the back wall was a kitchen counter top when Ray and I and the sibs were kids.

I've been wanting one of these disc/belt sander combos for a while, finally found one on Facebook Marketplace. Part of an estate sale; the deceased was clearly a multi-talented make-it/mod-it/fix-it guy. It needed a new drive belt and abrasive materials so it was cheap. And... I couldn't make it work. Hunting the internet for an instruction manual, I found more or less the same unit (a couple generations newer, more plastic parts, a few added conveniences) on clearance at Harbor Freight. So I bought one and immediately figured out the problem with the estate-sale one. Long/short: I thought I wasn't adjusting properly for the length of the sanding belt. Actually the belt I bought was about 1/4" longer than spec. Both of them worked great with the Harbor Freight belt; neither with the "36" inch belt from Amazon. So now I have the belt/disc sander I wanted, and also answered the question "What is Uncle/Brother/Engineer Ray getting for Christmas?"

Another intolerable condition of my garage is the lack of a TIG welder. So I am in the process of addressing that. The cool thing about a TIG welder is that not only does it facilitate projects, it creates its own projects. There is a fascinating YouTube channel made by a welder, the vast majority of whose videos are about making tools for welding. I'm not making anything nearly as elaborate as this guy's welding table, but I do plan to borrow a couple of ideas. More details to follow in a separate blog post.

Actual Wiring, Actually

I shot the video above after I'd gotten all the sensors wired in to the harness. 

I have decided not to do the wiring harness sleeves or anchor anything down until I've started the motor and made sure everything works. This is a lesson I had to learn three or four times, each more annoying than the one before, until I finally absorbed it. There's a prayer I like that basically amounts to "Lord please bless me to learn things the easy way, not the hard way."

Here's the fuel injector, temp sensor, and cam angle sensor wiring all done. At least, I think it's done. I won't really know until I try to start the motor.

Next up: wire the ignition coil pack and igniter. Then head out back of the car into the boot, to hook up the battery, fuel pump and main relays, and then finally see if this thing will fire up.