Not a Fitech-Now a Sniper 2 and boat anchor

[Hosalabad]

your cs144 case is from a v-belt style vehicle thats why it dont drop in and run like mine does . but glad its working just fine for you now .

and as soon as i seen that new belt pic i knew it was correct with out even thinking about it .

It actually came with a serpentine pulley. I had to swap a vbelt pulley onto it, and then back to serpentine. Transports were serpentine weren't they?

That's good to know, I'll have to look around for the other case styles so I can get the right case if this one craps out.

side question .

how does the motor feel with no engine driven fan to drag it down ?

I really can't tell the fan isn't there. This motor is such a low performer it feels the same as before.

 

[Hosalabad]

My buddy Jay came down from Virgina and we took a ride to Choccolocco Mountain. Turned out they were having a toy run so we grabbed some Nerfs at Walmart and that paid our entrance fee. He had a JKU that we built with lift, winch, bumpers, and brakes. He traded for a JLU Rubicon. Those things are damn nice.

It had been raining all week and was wet all that day, we got stuck in a v notch and had to pull cable, but after that it was clear sailing all day. Truck ran good all day, had a nose up stall but it fired right back up. Ran 70 back to Atlanta and got a hotel and stayed out all night drinking. Pretty good weekend.



Not may pics but here is what we took.

 

[Hosalabad]

Major performance upgrade today. I got the sticker early on and it got jammed into a drawer when we moved.

 

[Hosalabad]

A few weeks ago I hauled ass to SC one morning before work to snag a straight hood.

Then my Ford got hit and I left it in there until the Ford went to the body shop.

So what year is this because now that I have it out, it doesn't exactly match.

 

[sreidmx]

That could be a 79 I actually have a 79 and that’s how I discovered this. I’m not sure when they made this change or if it was trim level related.

 

[onetonbb74]

Nice build...thats a 79 and 80 hood...

 

[83ChevyK5Blazer]

I didn't know you had a build thread Josh!

 

[Hosalabad]

I didn't know you had a build thread Josh!

Yeah been kicking around the FiTech. Now it's going to be a fix all the dents thread I guess.

 

[Hosalabad]

I just received a new Softopper. My truck came with a STC top, so I don't know anything about the original top it came with. Sounds like either 3/8" or 5/16" hardware.

What's the deal with the bolts for the top? Is there a nut on the underside of the rail, or will I have to get in there and hold one while I tighten the new gear down?
Softtopper's instructions say to re-use the original hardware.

Here is a before:

 

[Hosalabad]

And done, looks about the same but maybe the rain stays out.

I think the horizontal attachment of the back window is weird. It's velcro instead of a zipper. STC's huge zipper was definitely easier to line up.

 

[Hosalabad]

I've been trying to score a truck tailgate with hardware for a few months now. I Facebooked a guy who was parting a truck out. The gate was gone, but he said he'd sell the hardware off the bed, which is the hardest part to get around here. When I got to his place, he had a second gate from a CUCV that was pretty mashed. In the end he let me have it for free. Then he sold me 4 wheels, and a set of hubcaps. Then threw the spare for free. I got cleaned out.

I decided to put an honest hour into pulling the gate out. It moved about a 1/2-3/8" on the slide hammer, and then I couldn't make any progress. I'm going to ride with it until something better comes up.



The plan is to run the 16" wheels with caps after I wear down my Grabbers. I had actually just bought a set of hubcaps at lunch. I'm planning a small teardrop build, and I'm going to match the wheels+caps on it as well. I had a set of the 16s already as rollers, so I can run 8 on the whole setup, 5 on the Blazer and 3 on the trailer and either match tire size and have two spares, or run smaller on the trailer and still have a match.

 

[Hosalabad]

Big update for the truck this weekend. Cruise Control!

If you didn't know, I don't want a trailer queen. I still drive this thing to work sometimes. Being that I'm in Athens, there is no wheeling nearby. (I need to get to Gulches though)
Roadtripping a TH350 with 4.56 is a drag, soon to be improved with cruise.

First off, this is the doodad that connects to the NP205 output to get speedo values to the computer in the Cruise.





The first two pictures are the speed sensor it self. This picture is the parts bag THAT WAS NOT IN THE BOX. So instead of putting this crap on on a Saturday morning, I drove to Summit to exchange it, so I could at least salvage Sunday.

The brains is a box with the controller in it and the throttle control cable coming out. Wiring breaks up in the middle to pass through the firewall.


This should be the mount bracket. I went with Left Fender.





This is the FAST Cable mount kit that I originally used with my FiTech. I kept the box and all the parts, which has paid off nicely.

 

[Hosalabad]

So for reference it is a FAST 304147 Cable Mount Kit for EZ-EFI. Fits your basic carb patterns. In the below picture you can see the black bracket with the factory throttle attached. The factory cable consumes the one square adapter in the kit which comes into play later. There is a larger one, which wasn't much help.



Here's the view where you can see the cable connection to the FiTech, just a recap


Switch examples, this system was set this way, also comes into play later.

I'm going with this round adapter to fit the passenger side rail on the FAST kit. It has two sets of tracks and comes with a few choices. You thread the outer housing with a nut to set the length. I'll be putting one nut on each side of the fast bracket to set the cable position.


This is my cable buildout. I am using the loop adapter to catch my throttle stud, and 4 beads of exposed chain, to set the length correctly.
I love these crackers. Lance, I would consider an endorsement deal.

This is the cable threaded with the nuts and adapter installed. This let's you set the end of the cable the right distance from the throttle, then you correct the cable travel distance with the bead chain and loop adapter.

Installed view with cable attached.

Sorry it's dark but the FAST adapter is installed in the passenger rail. This is the final installation position.


View attachment 318808
Starting the dash mockup for the switch. I didn't have anything on my turn signal stalk so I figured I'd got with the little button pad.

The harness on it is 4 wires, that you install into a molex plug, 4 wires you terminate elsewhere, then a 2 pin plug that isn't used in my application.


These are dupes, computers are stupid.

 

[Hosalabad]

HND-2 switch instructions:
http://www.dakotadigital.com/pdf/hnd-x.pdf

**note** DIP switch 12 OFF. Yeah mine was on when I took it out of the box, and at a glance it matched the example paperwork, so I left it. That makes the Set button not work. So don't be me, read ALL of the instructions.

Control switch install in the dash bezel. They tell you to drill a 9/32"for the two posts and the wiring. They are dumbasses because the wiring isn't a consistent thickness make the center hole at least 5/16, or go to 11/32 if you have one handy. It'll be hidden.

These are the four wires that you install in the molex, so do that after you run the wire through any holes.


Installed view


Rear View


I did some ugly dremel work to knock down that flange to make some room for the mounting stud.
The wiring runs through a natural gap in the dash.

Final Position

Transfer Case from below. There is a large nut against the case. Then a center nut with reverse threads on one end, that mates to the signal pickup, which is also reverse threaded. You install the nut against the transfer case. Then thread the middle nut and pickup at the same time. I had to take it apart a few times to find the right combination. I had to thread the center nut on a few threads before connecting the pickup, in order to get the final tight posotion where there is a 1/8-3/16 gap between the nut on the case and the center nut.

Under dash spaghetti.

Installed control box on fender.

 

[Hosalabad]

Payoff picture.



At the end of this I am already super happy. I had a pair of switched wires, and the incorrect dip switch. The troubleshooting in the instructions led me to the dip switch, so that was easy to fix. The switched wires I discovered when I was comparing the included wiring diagram to my work. There are wires on hot and cold side of the brake switch, I managed to flip them. It's hard going from factory colors to third party wiring harness colors, when parts stores barely have red and black in stock.

 

[Kain]

nice

 

[Hosalabad]

Hey why won't my fan work?



Ok I'll fix that.

 

[Kain]

mine did that and melted the relay, how it didn't catch fire ill never know

 

[nvrenuf]

I was just looking through your cruise control pics and saw the soft top stuff, I missed that before, nice! Do you still have the STC top?

That cruise control is cool, btw!

 

[Hosalabad]

I was just looking through your cruise control pics and saw the soft top stuff, I missed that before, nice! Do you still have the STC top?

That cruise control is cool, btw!

Tossed the top, it was pretty much rotten. I did keep all of the hardware though.