Red Baron

I completed this mod over the weekend! I’m happy with how it turned out.

The first step was to run a wire from battery positive to my connectors for the always-powered side. I used a 16 AWG wire for this, which should take 15 amps at the distance of the run. Plenty for what I have planned!

(Follow the white drawn-on line to see the path I took. The circle in the upper right is where the firewall breach is, and the square in the lower right is the only place you can actually see the wire in this photo)

I cut up a firewall plate to get my wires in the cab. I had actually already breached this plate once to run a fog light line, so I widened the hole and made a little wire exit area for ease of access. After the wires are run, throw some silicon on there and call it good.



Now that we’re in the cab, I want to show what I wanted to eliminate with this project:



That’s not all that messy at the moment, but as I add planned devices and gadgets it will get much messier.

In the cab, behind the center panel is my ignition-switched power source, the 12v cig lighter. I spliced into that line with a butt connector and wrapped in heat shrink. I’ll have to remember to be more careful when pulling that panel off so that I don’t pull out a wire.



Placement. As mentioned in the OP, I will be putting this near the shifting mechanisms in the space there.



Instead of wood, I used cardboard as my platform. I didn’t have my spare wood handy, and I could always redo later with minimal effort. I screwed it in to help secure it in place.


We are wired! You can see, I have two circuits-- 4x left side for always-on, and two right side for switched; both circuits are fuse protected. In my planned projects, I have more always-powered devices than switched, so this will work for now. I can always change it up later!


Finally, placed where it will reside. It is secured with two dots of velcro. The only thing hooked up right now is fog lights, because I have to re-do the wiring on the steprail lighting before I hook it up. I will likely put in interior floorboard lighting soon now that I have a central ‘base of operations’.

Had kind of a bad day with the truck today. I couldn't get it to start, so I spent the day troubleshooting. When you turn the ignition, there's a loud click (relay I think), then a sort-of buzzing noise around the starter area. Also, there's a smell when trying to start it. Kind of a metallic heat? Hard to describe.. not overpowering or anything, just noticed it. I think it's the starter motor burning.

Ruled out the battery. After 10 seconds of trying to start, I'm coming up with a voltage of 11.5 or so. I was not able to jump-start it, so I'm sure it isn't the battery. I cleaned the cables as well, so I don't think it's them either.

I went to take out the starter, and ran into problems removing the top mounting bolt. It requires an angled wrench I don't have, so after spending an awfully long time trying to get it out I gave up. I'll try again another day, but it sucks it's down right now because it's my daily driver.

Aaaannnnddd DONE! It's amazing what you can do with the proper tools. I replaced the starter-- had the old one tested and it would spin, but the gear wouldn't extend to engage the starting gear in the engine. Put the new starter in, tightened everything up, and she started right up! I've got to say, maybe the starter has been on it's way out for a while-- I can tell a huge difference in the way it starts now, especially compared to these last two weeks when it's been real slow, but I feel like it's starting a lot faster/stronger now than when I bought it a year ago.

If you have to replace your starter, I highly recommend taking off the passenger side front tire. I got to the point where the starter was dangling but wouldn't come off, and because I removed the tire I could see the ignition wire connection was still holding. I didn't see any instruction to take that tire off when doing the replacement, but for me it helped a lot.

I also went ahead and replaced the passenger side valve cover gasket. The cover was leaking onto the starter which caused the initial failure, so by replacing this my new starter should last me. The old gasket was brittle and cracked in one or two areas, so I'm sure that was the culprit. I replaced the bolt grommets as well because the gasket set I bought came with them. Idled and drove it last night for maybe 15 minutes, I checked this morning and only a single drop of oil was on the ground. I think that's from the leftover oil on the engine block / transmission housing / axle / somewhere. I'll know for sure soon, but previously, it would drip 5-10 drops per trip.

::grin::::grin::::grin::

Now that my issues under the hood are identified and solved, I can finish what I started with the steprail lighting and interior lighting. Previously, I had the two wired directly in to my ECU control; no way to manually control them. I did this mainly as a proof of concept before I put in switches, and the starter started going out before I got around to it. While determining the starting issue, I un-wired everything to eliminate variables.

This is my fog light switch and steprail lighting switch. The steprail lighting is either OFF or Controlled by ECU.



This is the interior lighting. I'ts a three-way switch; Left is ECU Controlled, middle is OFF, and Right is ON.



Here is the wiring diagram for my interior lighting... I had to draw it out because I was getting confused! The light is the LEDs, the switch is the DPDT switch, and the other inline switch is the ECU-controlled ground.

It's been a while since I updated this thread. Let's see...

I plasti-dipped the wheels and painted the calipers/drum:



As well as the front emblem:



Plasti-dipped front fender flares and painted roof rack: