[sdcerreta]

Well, I had a good drive out to the car show. I did not win anything, but I had a good time. As I was leaving the event the car just died. I had the AC on High again and most of the problems seem to occur when the AC is on high. So, I checked the fuses and everything was fine. Then I traced the wire I had problems with last time and it was fine. Then I put my glasses on and checked the fuses and noticed a blow fuse. 🤓 The same 25 amp fuse that I had blown on the Phoenix trip. I replacd it and everythign was good.

Despite these setbacks I have been learning tons of things. It seems like the extra current required to run the AC on High is a real thing. So, I decided to replace the 25 amp fuse with a 30 amp fuse. I made a nice trip from Prescott to Flagstaff today and all was perfect. Only needed the AC on medium though. I will make the drive back to Prescott in the morning, but likely do not need high AC again.

I also decided that when I add in the center console I am going to do some more rewiring. I have many splices and a spaghetti mess of wires under the dash. While I relocated some electronics to the center console now, everything is just tucked under there and not necessarily mounted to any boards or anything super tidy. I think I can get the junctions mounted on some boards and replace some of the splices with soldered connections.

 

[sdcerreta]

I need to verify, but I think the Classic Auto Air instructions also stated to replace the fuse in the panel with a 30amp fuse.

On my drive from work back to Flagstaff, I blew that 30a fuse 4 times. Still struggling anytime I have the AC on High. The tricky thing this time is that these 30a fuses are cheapos from Harbor Freight. They looked perfect in the middle. Not even a heat wrinkle. But, the end near the cap blew. I think this is more of a flaw of the fuse rather than a problem with the system. So, I bought some higher quality fuses and they are on order. I then located some nice 35a fuses from LittleFuse. I have yet to try it out, but I am optimistic that this will cure the problem. Fingers crossed.

Monsoon seaon is here early this year and I have a Cali trip to make this week. So, the El Camino will get to rest for a few days.

I am excited to find the time to install the rear brakes and to finish up the interior. All the parts are finally here. Now, I just need some time.

 

[Hat Trick]

sd, make sure the tabs you are plugging the fuse into are tight. They could have heated up and lost there spring. Sometimes they will turn blue when heated causing a loose connection.
Tom

 

[Old Bear]

@sdcerreta Are you coming to the South Coast of the Golden State?
No monsoons here.

 

[sdcerreta]

Thanks Tom. The tabs are solid.

Old Bear, I am heading out to Sacramento and driving back to Flagstaff.

 

[sdcerreta]

For my records. A shortcut URL for this modz page.

tinyurl.com/70ElkyRestomodz

 

[sdcerreta]

Well, the car has been running perfectly around town without the AC on. I also swapped out the fuses to a high quality 35amp fuse. I need to do some AC on tests, but have not had the time. I really think the fuse quality was the problem since they were not blowing in the middle or showing any signs of heat damage. The ends of the fuse behind the ends caps were blowing. You cannot even see it.

The other symptom I was having that I did not think was related is the PCS shifter display on the steering wheel kept losing signal with the cheap fuses and lower 25amp fuses. The display woudl read TCU not found and it was occuring on every drive after about 10 - 30 minutes of driving. Since changing the fuse to a high qaulity 35a fuse, I have not dropped the signal at all on a half dozen drives.

I have not had the time to work on any big projects, but I went back to VG for some more artwork and some Hero cards. These are business cards for car shows. The hero card is perfect and uses the display board imagery.

The artwork will be printed on canvas in 16x20 and and be hung on the office wall. I wanted a surreal graphic with cold colors. Grays, blues, blacks and ice whites. I saw a brilliant fall tree colors photo in a gallery with train tracks coming out of the scnene and straight towards the viewer. The tracks were void of a train. This sparked my idea for the artwork below. I had to take some special eleveated photos of the Elky to get what the artist wanted. Since I hobby with some high altitude mountaineering I wanted the alpine scene for this surreal artwork.

Here are the first drafts. More work needs to be done, but overall I am impressed with the scene itself. The car should actually be on the tracks as if it were a train. So, the tracks need to be turned or the artist needs to use a head-on photo of the car, which he has. We'll see what the next round brings.

 

[sdcerreta]

approved the second draft of the hero cards today. it is now two sided. front has the image that was on the first proof. all wording moved to the backside of card with the artwork scene. looks good.

artwork also updated and looks great. i'm going to have one more exit done then it should be done.

 

[78 Elk]

It looks great, very nice job.

 

[sdcerreta]

Another update on some smalls.

The artwork was approved. I ordered 3 16x20 canvas prints from Snapfish with 70% off. Stoked about that.

Font side of Hero card.

Backside of Hero card.

Also have an update to share on the Dapper lighting. They custom build there headlamps. I chose the black refelctors for cosmetics and 30w LED projector lamps with the switchback 120mm DD halos and OE glass. Here are a couple build photos.


Black reflector with halo installed on the flat section to hold it nicely.

OE glass. I love this look over the clear glass.

Now the projector is installed.

I love that Dapper includes me in the build process. They even shared a photo when they first cut the halos and I asked them to remove another 5mm from each side. Photos you see above are with the extra bits cutoff. Here is a photo of the first cut.

Hope to share photos of the Halos turned on while mounted inside the lamps tomorrow.

 

[78 Elk]

Very cool. Looking forward to to seeing them.

 

[sdcerreta]

Well, no progress on the headlights as of yet. I may get a video tomorrow. There is a car show coming up this weekend. The car has so much work ready to be done, but that won't stop me from going to the car show. When I was young, I built a car audio SQ system in my Isuzu pickup. I was never satisfied with the state of the truck and refused to take it to shows until I was done. Well, that means I never entered a car show. I do regret that and won't make that mistake again.

I think I have some old photos of Blue Diamonds.



This was a sleeper truck. OEM materials used for all the upgrades and panels.

Floorboards were cut out to countersink woofer encloures with direct fire 7" Dynaudio woofers. The midbass punch on these were incredible.

Kickpanels had 3" soft mids and 1" tweeters. The staging was near perfect.

Standard truck utility box was modified with a lowered panel that you can see sprayed with truck bed liner to hide it. There was a blowthrough and this housed all the amps and processors and the subwoffer enclosure.

Here is the neon lit sub enclosure. That's right kids, no blue LEDs in 1995!

Panels in place with original materials used to cover them. The tweed plate can be romoved to show off the subs. All the neon and the utility box lid with linear actualtors could be opened with the alarm remote. I was never happy and refused to take this to shows. I think I would have won a few.

I could not find any photos of the amp rack and processors. Bummer.

 

[sdcerreta]

I had a nice long drive to visit my parents and attend a car show. The car ran great. In the last 20 miles I tried running the AC on high to see if I would blow more fuses. nope! it was great. Today I drove to the car show and ran the AC on high and no problems at all. I think this one is solved.

Some great cars today. I won nothing.

My dad bought a 57 T-bird late last year and this was his first car show. They had a t-bird class and he took first place. I'm sure it helped that he had the only car in that class. 😊. I was happy to see him win.

 

[78 Elk]

That’s awesome, glad he won!

 

[sdcerreta]

No time for the big projects, but always something to do. I raised the height of the driver seat with some solid steel 2" spacers. This seemed to help a lot and my legs are at a better angle, but I stll have the seat too far back and it hits the subwoofer enclosure. I think a 3" height increase is the right amount. I can't wled but have a welder, so rather than take this to a shop, this seems like a good project to practice on.

I also bought some exhaust pipe shields to deflect some of the heat away from the floorboards. In the summer heat I can really feel the engine heat coming through the firewall and now that I can run the AC on high without blowing fuses, this mod will allow the AC to work even better. This seems like a straight forward install.

I have had a gas tank leak for quite some time. So, I bought some new gaskets for the drop-in fuel pump and sender unit. I also bought a new hose for the filler next with a one way valve. So, this should seal the leak and hopefully stop the gas smell in the garage. This will make the wife happy. I have not had any fuel tank pressure when removing the gas cap in a couple years now. I though my problem was the vent being too low, but I relocated this a few months ago and the leaking still occurs.

Hope to get these modz done in a couple weeks.