This Weekend's Work on the Truck
I started off yesterday thinking I was going to clean out my truck and make it look all nice again. The first thing I started with was sweeping and wiping down the floor panels with a rag to get the dirt off. That went about as far as sweeping under all the wires "hidden" in the back. So - out came the radio along with all the junk and then I started spinning some gears in my brain.
Since it was such a nice day yesterday (and as luck would have it, today also!) I figured I would see what I could do about really hiding all the wires - behind the dash, under the carpet, inside the channels under the floor panels, etc. Well, I got a little bit more than I bargained for on this one.
Unfortunately, I didn't do too good of a job photo documenting my process here. I just kinda ran in to things and worked. One thing led to another and I got it done and never had the idea cross me to take the camera out. All the pictures are taken after all the work.
The first thing I needed to do was figure out how to get the carpet up in the truck. After pondering this idea for a while, and thinking about just fishing the wires through the holes, it became clear the only way to do this was to yank out the whole back seat. So that's just what I did. It actually wasn't real hard, just 2 nuts on each side and one in the center, then a hefty yank up to disconnect it from the bolts and the hooks on the back panel of the cab.
Once I moved the seat out of the truck it was time to get to work on the carpet. The jack and frame had to be unbolted from the floor also, so that was no biggie. Then the carpet came up pretty easy. The two side floor board rails had to be popped off, which also exposed the wiring channels, to get the carpet up totally in the back. It really wasn't all that difficult.
Unfortunately, once the carpet was up I realized that the access hole I had cut (the first week I got the truck four years ago) was letting in water. The insulation under the carpet was SOAKED. It wasn't all that nasty, just wet. The carpet has a thick rubber backing so there was no way for the water to evaporate between the metal floor and the rubber carpet backing. So the insulation was just a sponge.
I held back the carpet hoping the insulation would dry. I squeezed out what I could with my hands. Then I just left it open through the rest of yesterday and last night hoping it would dry out.
Well, today I went out there to find it really didn't dry much. So, I got some towels (which I should have done the first few minutes after the carpet came up) and pressed out what water I could - one towel on the metal floor under the insulation and one between the insulation and the carpet. I managed to get quite a bit of the water out this time. That left the insulation just damp.
I left the back doors open and, with the breeze blowing through and the sun beating down on it for a few hours, got the insulation even drier - though not completely dry. By about 4:00 I figured I couldn't wait any longer, so I closed everything up and put the back seat back in. I need to use the truck all week long and won't have a chance between now and Thursday (when I leave for Hamvention) to get everything back together. I have too much going on this week between school work and preparing for Hamvention to spare any time for monkeying around in the truck. I will open everything back up when I get some time and let it dry the rest of the way.
Now - the wiring! The main objective (after my sweeping under the wires at the start of my work yesterday) was to hide everything as best I could. I originally had a power cable run through the firewall, through the cab next to the drivers seat, and under the floor mat on the drivers side in the back, to the space under the rear seat. My coax for my CB and the control cables for my screwdriver antenna as well as the FT-857D panel and mic were also run under the floor mat to the space between the drivers seat and the center console.
One point I will make is I take the FT-857D out of the truck constantly. It never stays in one place. If I ever go on vacation, a backpacking trip, portable in the back yard, or if I just want to slap the rig in the shack for the night, it comes out. So I can't "install" it in the truck. If I mounted it in there I would literally be mounting and unmounting the radio every time I had to move it - not ideal in the interest of time.
However, I made up a short control cable for the panel a while ago for /PM. I also have never needed the extension cable for the microphone outside of the truck. So, I figured I would "install" the control cable and the mic cable so everything was tidy and in place, ready to go.
Both cables run underneath the carpet in the rear. The control cable runs up the passenger side and out the front left (towards the center console) hole for the passenger seat bolt. The panel is mounted to the lid of the center console, so the cable was best suited to run up that side. The microphone cable runs up the drivers side. I have that one poking through the rear right hole in the carpet. This way the wire extends back between the seat and the center console and I am not left with an extra 5 feet of cable danging around. After all, the mic cable is coiled - I wonder why they made it like that? hehehe.
One important part of all this wiring was a new power cable. This is important because, well, it has to supply ALL the auxiliary power to the cab. My approach today was a little different than I have previously done in any of my other vehicles. Well, I have never taken the time to really do a tidy installation to begin with.
My original power cable in the current truck was a run of two LMR-400 cables (Yep - COAX!) through the engine compartment and in to the cab. Then I had 10 gauge THHN split off of the LMR-400 to run through the cab. The theory behind the LMR-400 is it is shielded - it was intended (at least how I saw it) to keep the RFI under the hood from leaching in to my HF power supply. How well did it work? I don't know. I think the biggest thing I did to decrease my noise level in the truck was the grounding I did last year. Back to the original setup - between the battery and LMR-400 I had about 18" of 10g twinlead to a couple 50 amp circuit breakers. This way I had some safety right up front in case anything happened between the breakers and the rest of the wiring. Depending on what I had hooked up, most of the time I plugged in a 3-way Y connector for splitting to my HF radio, CB, and control box for the screwdriver antenna. Then anything else that needed to be plugged in I ran off the stock front power ports. If I was roving or on vacation with everything hooked up I plugged in my station's 12 port RigRunner instead.
The stock setup worked. I haven't changed it in the four years I have had the truck - until now. I have had to work on the setup a few times. The original ring terminals I had on the LMR-400 had broken off long ago, so I just had the bare center connected to the breakers. One of the breakers also went bad, so now I just have one connected in line on the positive side - which, for all intensive purposes, is plenty. Having two was redundant.
I don't know if this is caused by the lack of good connection in the power cable or if it was just a characteristic of this setup, but I would notice my voltage dropping when I would key up on HF. This was one of the bigger contributing factors to changing out the whole cable from the breakers to the gear.
So I got 15 feet of 10 gauge THHN and a couple ring terminals. I started by pulling out the LMR-400, then feeding in the THHN in place of it. I left the cab side bare, just a little bit of tape to hold the ends together. After I worked that through in to the cab (a difficult task since the THHN has a tough coil memory from the spool) I measured off a little more than I needed under the hood and tied it up so I wouldn't pull it through any further from the cab side. Then I put power poles on the cab side. I use power poles for EVERYTHING.
At this point I had the floor board panels off to expose the wiring channels. I tucked the new power cable back behind the carpet behind the petals, under the bottom of the interior side panel, and down in to the wiring channel. This runs the whole length of the cab to the rear - back behind the rear seat bracket. I had just enough wire to get the power pole connector between the carpet and the rear panel of the cab - and you can't see any of it!
Once all the cables were run, and I got tired of waiting for the insulation to dry, I flipped the carpet back, put the back seat in, popped the floor board panels back on, and plugged all the newly hidden cables in to the radio.
Recently I have been using an old fuse block I had in my first car - it is a 4-buss fuse panel fed with 10g wire. Each of the 4 connections have 20 amp fuses and power poles on them, but the main lead-in was bare. I put a power pole on this side a couple weeks ago when I found it in the basement and figured I could use it in the truck. I actually had enough wire from this fuse block and one of the sections to go between the new cable I just installed and the rig. So, out went the stock power cable for the FT-857D (the first thing I did when I got the rig was chop off the stock Yaesu connector and put a power pole on - there is no reason for such a tiny radio to have such a HUGE power connector).
I also cut in to the new power cable under the dash and tapped it with a 10g pigtail and power pole. I soldered the wires together to ensure a long lasting connection, then wrapped them with electrical tape. This way I could run accessories and my CB off of this connection. I don't have enough wire for the screwdriver control box and the CB to make it under the carpet to the back fuse block so there was no other way with this setup. Thats OK though - having the port under the dash makes things that much easier!
I guess I should address the access hole in the rear of the cab (and the one in the firewall while I'm at it). After I saw and dealt with the wet insulation I sealed up the rear hole - without much thought. I used a sheet of 4 mil rubber sheet (scraps from my dad's pond installation) and some PlastiDip. If you have read my posts before, you may remember I highly recommend PlastiDip. Well, here's another recommendation! The PlastiDip works VERY well with rubber sheet.
Unfortunately, my first can has become much more viscous. I tried to use the old method of dipping in a clipped zip tie and using that to spread the stuff. It was just too thick. So I used an old 2m Cushcraft beam element (1/8" aluminum rod) and mixed up the stuff real well. There was still some wet PlastiDip in there, but it was pretty thick. I cut a rectangular shape out of the rubber big enough to cover my hole, cut a hole in it for the wires, and a slit to get the sheet over the wires. Then I got a nice big gob of PlastiDip on the rod and went to town on it.
I tell you what - if you ever have a heavy duty seal you need to make you will be hard pressed to find a better method. Really. After this stuff cured over night it was like a CV boot. I will say, though, that I scuffed up the rubber before I put the PlastiDip on (like you do repairing a bicycle tube). It worked like a champ.
Now the unfortunate part - I left my small "emergency" dual bander on the roof. I put this one up temporarily because my "good" Diamond SG-7900A's (both of them) don't cover 440. They cover 432, but between that and 440-450 there is about a 13 megahert difference in where they are resonant. That is a problem - high SWR means hot finals, and at some point the magic smoke will come pouring out of my radio's finals. The small antenna is resonant on both bands - right where I need it to be. So that's why it is up instead. However, when I travel, I would much rather have an SG-7900A up there - I have about 5.5 dB in one of those on 2m, compared to a very very small (maybe 0) gain on the little dual bander. And now it is sealed in. At least water isn't getting in anymore. Maybe I will just leave that one up until this summer and then I can see about getting a dual bander that has gain and covers both bands where I need it to resonate. Then I can go in and re-seal everything.
Now the front hole - I still don't have it sealed up. That doesn't seem to be an issue, not like the rear one was. When the truck is sitting no rain can get in - it is under the hood. I checked the insulation and it is fine up under there. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be sealed, but it isn't crucial at the moment. Now that I have the new power cable in (part of my project today) I can seal it. I don't think I will ever need to run anything else up there.
Here are some pictures after on the rest of the installation:
The cable that is coiled back there is the coax for HF. If you go back to my original installation of the FT-857D I talked about the RFI - this coil choke was the only fix for my problem. Ever since I put this in the dashboard hasn't turned in to a christmas tree.
The thick power cable you see there is for the inverter on the other side of the ridge. That is 10g also, it is rated for 30 to 40 amps draw @ 12v.
Here is the wire channel on the drivers side. You can see the stock wiring harness crossing over to the drivers seat there. The 10g power cable is laid right on top, then the control cable for the screwdriver antenna below that.
So that about sums up the truck work. To add to the mix this weekend I yanked my back horsing around the seat while it was out. I left it out of the truck all night so I carried it in to the garage. Luckily, I wasn't too sore today. However, part of my day was interrupted with going to Lowes to pick up three new toilets. So I re-yanked my back horsing those in and out of the truck. I need to relax for a while.
Since it was such a nice day yesterday (and as luck would have it, today also!) I figured I would see what I could do about really hiding all the wires - behind the dash, under the carpet, inside the channels under the floor panels, etc. Well, I got a little bit more than I bargained for on this one.
Unfortunately, I didn't do too good of a job photo documenting my process here. I just kinda ran in to things and worked. One thing led to another and I got it done and never had the idea cross me to take the camera out. All the pictures are taken after all the work.
The first thing I needed to do was figure out how to get the carpet up in the truck. After pondering this idea for a while, and thinking about just fishing the wires through the holes, it became clear the only way to do this was to yank out the whole back seat. So that's just what I did. It actually wasn't real hard, just 2 nuts on each side and one in the center, then a hefty yank up to disconnect it from the bolts and the hooks on the back panel of the cab.
Once I moved the seat out of the truck it was time to get to work on the carpet. The jack and frame had to be unbolted from the floor also, so that was no biggie. Then the carpet came up pretty easy. The two side floor board rails had to be popped off, which also exposed the wiring channels, to get the carpet up totally in the back. It really wasn't all that difficult.
Unfortunately, once the carpet was up I realized that the access hole I had cut (the first week I got the truck four years ago) was letting in water. The insulation under the carpet was SOAKED. It wasn't all that nasty, just wet. The carpet has a thick rubber backing so there was no way for the water to evaporate between the metal floor and the rubber carpet backing. So the insulation was just a sponge.
I held back the carpet hoping the insulation would dry. I squeezed out what I could with my hands. Then I just left it open through the rest of yesterday and last night hoping it would dry out.
Well, today I went out there to find it really didn't dry much. So, I got some towels (which I should have done the first few minutes after the carpet came up) and pressed out what water I could - one towel on the metal floor under the insulation and one between the insulation and the carpet. I managed to get quite a bit of the water out this time. That left the insulation just damp.
I left the back doors open and, with the breeze blowing through and the sun beating down on it for a few hours, got the insulation even drier - though not completely dry. By about 4:00 I figured I couldn't wait any longer, so I closed everything up and put the back seat back in. I need to use the truck all week long and won't have a chance between now and Thursday (when I leave for Hamvention) to get everything back together. I have too much going on this week between school work and preparing for Hamvention to spare any time for monkeying around in the truck. I will open everything back up when I get some time and let it dry the rest of the way.
Now - the wiring! The main objective (after my sweeping under the wires at the start of my work yesterday) was to hide everything as best I could. I originally had a power cable run through the firewall, through the cab next to the drivers seat, and under the floor mat on the drivers side in the back, to the space under the rear seat. My coax for my CB and the control cables for my screwdriver antenna as well as the FT-857D panel and mic were also run under the floor mat to the space between the drivers seat and the center console.
One point I will make is I take the FT-857D out of the truck constantly. It never stays in one place. If I ever go on vacation, a backpacking trip, portable in the back yard, or if I just want to slap the rig in the shack for the night, it comes out. So I can't "install" it in the truck. If I mounted it in there I would literally be mounting and unmounting the radio every time I had to move it - not ideal in the interest of time.
However, I made up a short control cable for the panel a while ago for /PM. I also have never needed the extension cable for the microphone outside of the truck. So, I figured I would "install" the control cable and the mic cable so everything was tidy and in place, ready to go.
Both cables run underneath the carpet in the rear. The control cable runs up the passenger side and out the front left (towards the center console) hole for the passenger seat bolt. The panel is mounted to the lid of the center console, so the cable was best suited to run up that side. The microphone cable runs up the drivers side. I have that one poking through the rear right hole in the carpet. This way the wire extends back between the seat and the center console and I am not left with an extra 5 feet of cable danging around. After all, the mic cable is coiled - I wonder why they made it like that? hehehe.
One important part of all this wiring was a new power cable. This is important because, well, it has to supply ALL the auxiliary power to the cab. My approach today was a little different than I have previously done in any of my other vehicles. Well, I have never taken the time to really do a tidy installation to begin with.
My original power cable in the current truck was a run of two LMR-400 cables (Yep - COAX!) through the engine compartment and in to the cab. Then I had 10 gauge THHN split off of the LMR-400 to run through the cab. The theory behind the LMR-400 is it is shielded - it was intended (at least how I saw it) to keep the RFI under the hood from leaching in to my HF power supply. How well did it work? I don't know. I think the biggest thing I did to decrease my noise level in the truck was the grounding I did last year. Back to the original setup - between the battery and LMR-400 I had about 18" of 10g twinlead to a couple 50 amp circuit breakers. This way I had some safety right up front in case anything happened between the breakers and the rest of the wiring. Depending on what I had hooked up, most of the time I plugged in a 3-way Y connector for splitting to my HF radio, CB, and control box for the screwdriver antenna. Then anything else that needed to be plugged in I ran off the stock front power ports. If I was roving or on vacation with everything hooked up I plugged in my station's 12 port RigRunner instead.
The stock setup worked. I haven't changed it in the four years I have had the truck - until now. I have had to work on the setup a few times. The original ring terminals I had on the LMR-400 had broken off long ago, so I just had the bare center connected to the breakers. One of the breakers also went bad, so now I just have one connected in line on the positive side - which, for all intensive purposes, is plenty. Having two was redundant.
I don't know if this is caused by the lack of good connection in the power cable or if it was just a characteristic of this setup, but I would notice my voltage dropping when I would key up on HF. This was one of the bigger contributing factors to changing out the whole cable from the breakers to the gear.
So I got 15 feet of 10 gauge THHN and a couple ring terminals. I started by pulling out the LMR-400, then feeding in the THHN in place of it. I left the cab side bare, just a little bit of tape to hold the ends together. After I worked that through in to the cab (a difficult task since the THHN has a tough coil memory from the spool) I measured off a little more than I needed under the hood and tied it up so I wouldn't pull it through any further from the cab side. Then I put power poles on the cab side. I use power poles for EVERYTHING.
At this point I had the floor board panels off to expose the wiring channels. I tucked the new power cable back behind the carpet behind the petals, under the bottom of the interior side panel, and down in to the wiring channel. This runs the whole length of the cab to the rear - back behind the rear seat bracket. I had just enough wire to get the power pole connector between the carpet and the rear panel of the cab - and you can't see any of it!
Once all the cables were run, and I got tired of waiting for the insulation to dry, I flipped the carpet back, put the back seat in, popped the floor board panels back on, and plugged all the newly hidden cables in to the radio.
Recently I have been using an old fuse block I had in my first car - it is a 4-buss fuse panel fed with 10g wire. Each of the 4 connections have 20 amp fuses and power poles on them, but the main lead-in was bare. I put a power pole on this side a couple weeks ago when I found it in the basement and figured I could use it in the truck. I actually had enough wire from this fuse block and one of the sections to go between the new cable I just installed and the rig. So, out went the stock power cable for the FT-857D (the first thing I did when I got the rig was chop off the stock Yaesu connector and put a power pole on - there is no reason for such a tiny radio to have such a HUGE power connector).
I also cut in to the new power cable under the dash and tapped it with a 10g pigtail and power pole. I soldered the wires together to ensure a long lasting connection, then wrapped them with electrical tape. This way I could run accessories and my CB off of this connection. I don't have enough wire for the screwdriver control box and the CB to make it under the carpet to the back fuse block so there was no other way with this setup. Thats OK though - having the port under the dash makes things that much easier!
I guess I should address the access hole in the rear of the cab (and the one in the firewall while I'm at it). After I saw and dealt with the wet insulation I sealed up the rear hole - without much thought. I used a sheet of 4 mil rubber sheet (scraps from my dad's pond installation) and some PlastiDip. If you have read my posts before, you may remember I highly recommend PlastiDip. Well, here's another recommendation! The PlastiDip works VERY well with rubber sheet.
Unfortunately, my first can has become much more viscous. I tried to use the old method of dipping in a clipped zip tie and using that to spread the stuff. It was just too thick. So I used an old 2m Cushcraft beam element (1/8" aluminum rod) and mixed up the stuff real well. There was still some wet PlastiDip in there, but it was pretty thick. I cut a rectangular shape out of the rubber big enough to cover my hole, cut a hole in it for the wires, and a slit to get the sheet over the wires. Then I got a nice big gob of PlastiDip on the rod and went to town on it.
I tell you what - if you ever have a heavy duty seal you need to make you will be hard pressed to find a better method. Really. After this stuff cured over night it was like a CV boot. I will say, though, that I scuffed up the rubber before I put the PlastiDip on (like you do repairing a bicycle tube). It worked like a champ.
Now the unfortunate part - I left my small "emergency" dual bander on the roof. I put this one up temporarily because my "good" Diamond SG-7900A's (both of them) don't cover 440. They cover 432, but between that and 440-450 there is about a 13 megahert difference in where they are resonant. That is a problem - high SWR means hot finals, and at some point the magic smoke will come pouring out of my radio's finals. The small antenna is resonant on both bands - right where I need it to be. So that's why it is up instead. However, when I travel, I would much rather have an SG-7900A up there - I have about 5.5 dB in one of those on 2m, compared to a very very small (maybe 0) gain on the little dual bander. And now it is sealed in. At least water isn't getting in anymore. Maybe I will just leave that one up until this summer and then I can see about getting a dual bander that has gain and covers both bands where I need it to resonate. Then I can go in and re-seal everything.
Now the front hole - I still don't have it sealed up. That doesn't seem to be an issue, not like the rear one was. When the truck is sitting no rain can get in - it is under the hood. I checked the insulation and it is fine up under there. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be sealed, but it isn't crucial at the moment. Now that I have the new power cable in (part of my project today) I can seal it. I don't think I will ever need to run anything else up there.
Here are some pictures after on the rest of the installation:
The cable that is coiled back there is the coax for HF. If you go back to my original installation of the FT-857D I talked about the RFI - this coil choke was the only fix for my problem. Ever since I put this in the dashboard hasn't turned in to a christmas tree.
The thick power cable you see there is for the inverter on the other side of the ridge. That is 10g also, it is rated for 30 to 40 amps draw @ 12v.
Here is the wire channel on the drivers side. You can see the stock wiring harness crossing over to the drivers seat there. The 10g power cable is laid right on top, then the control cable for the screwdriver antenna below that.
So that about sums up the truck work. To add to the mix this weekend I yanked my back horsing around the seat while it was out. I left it out of the truck all night so I carried it in to the garage. Luckily, I wasn't too sore today. However, part of my day was interrupted with going to Lowes to pick up three new toilets. So I re-yanked my back horsing those in and out of the truck. I need to relax for a while.
posted by Steve at
9:49 PM
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