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Rebuild of Blue85 post fire

Rebuild of Blue85
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I'm probably 2 decades delinquent in making a build thread for my K5, which I will probably do at some point. For now, that is TBD and I will link it here. This thread is about fixing my rig after it caught on fire. :mad1:

The event occurred in August 2023, as I was prepping the rig for the Upper Peninsula Overland event. I had scouted and planned this event for some time and was the only person with the routes/schedule/sites and this rig was leading the pack. This is my "keeper" truck I bought from an Arizona seller in 2000 and have been working on ever since. I posted about it here https://ck5.com/forums/threads/fixing-fire-damage.348942/#post-4355080. The next day, I had it winch itself into my barn, pulled the seats and carpet out to dry, then let it sit for the entire winter (n). Just so sad...

https://ck5.com/forums/threads/80s-hvac-ducting-cowl-blower-housing-etc-fire-damage.348502/

Fire came up through the PS fender (via the sticky grease undercoating), through the recirculation flapper, into the glovebox and through the blower motor to the cowl area. The windshield was broken as I sprayed the truck with the garden hose. After the fire started, I started the truck to back it out of the garage (to save the house), but just after that, the fire must have made its way through the harness to the ECU, mounted right above the glove box.

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Here's my pile of damaged parts.

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(Look at my custom tach conversion cluster on this brand new 20k mile truck...)

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To my surprise, the ECU was only "kind of" broken and it is now running the truck.

My order of operation has been:
  1. Rip out all the burned up junk and cut the factory dash out of the way.
  2. Make it run, so I can move it around to do sandblasting and painting outside as needed.
    1. New harnesses to replace all the melted HVAC, ECU and PS door wiring, plus all the melted vacuum lines
    2. Repair the ECU harness I originally built in 2006, as the fire wiped a whole section of it out.
    3. Repair wiring to the underhood electrical center that supports the EFI conversion.
    4. Replace the missing vacuum lines to the ECU and other stuff.
  3. Repair other melted harnesses so the windows (and door locks, which I never use) work so it can be parked outside if needed.
  4. Replace damaged dash with DIY4x aluminum dash and create a digital dash using rPi and an LCD screen
  5. Replace burned up HVAC with factory parts and make everything look legit so I can get insurance on a totaled vehicle
  6. Update under-dash wiring
    1. Remove any old weird wiring
    2. Install physical (aftermarket) oil pressure and fuel level gauges
    3. Create power supply for new dash screen, computer, etc.
  7. Fix the tuning issues
  8. Sandblast and repaint the cowl, which is all crispy.
  9. Replace the burned up headliner, sun-visor and other stuff
  10. Put in interior such that it's a legit vehicle and can get insurance.
The wild card is at what point I junk the shattered 1985 windshield and get a new seal and glass installed. Drive to a shop, have them come to me or what? I'm crossing my fingers I can get a windshield wire antenna so I don't have to drill the fender.
 
I'm around step 3/5. The thing I did get done over the winter was to repair the ECU harness. I also had to do some repairs to the circuit board where some traces had gone open circuit. I was honestly surprised that it responded after I peeled the melted plastic off the Megasquirt 2. I also acquired a high-brightness LCD and fitted a different inverter to it that supports dimming based on a phototransistor. I may adapt that circuit to interface with the headlight circuit to dim it. I have a Raspberry Pi set up to boot into dash mode and it is communicating with the ECU. I need to figure out a location to mount the LCD remote sensor and daylight sensor, plus where the GPS antenna should mount (the USB GPS is for the speedometer). I'm debating keeping the physical speedometer (hidden) for the time being, to let the cruise control work.

So I'm currently super fancy:
  • Power windows
  • Power locks
  • Stereo works
  • Interior lights work
  • Engine runs
Something I just learned is that '85 HVAC has metal vacuum pots with small nipples (cue Beavis and Butthead laughter), while the 90/91 donor has plastic pots with larger nipples. I was stoked to have a complete vacuum harness, but I ended up making a couple of splices to the cut later model version I have. Otherwise, I would have had to find these older vacuum cans.

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What program on the pi are you running? I’ve got a spare one laying around needs something to do.
 
For interior repairs, I was able to clean the melted plastic out using a needle scaler and wire brush wheels. The rust that had formed I cleaned off with abrasives and navel jelly, which saved me the mess of sandblasting the interior. Then it was on to self-etching primer and random mis-colored paint products on-hand. All of this will be covered up by the dash and trim panels.

Next up is cleaning and sealing the cowl area.
 
Glad to see progress back on your truck. Can't wait to see it resurrected
 
In the last picture above, you can see the stainless strap wrapped over the blend door clip. I did that fix years ago and it worked fine, so it moved right over to this new box. I stripped the donor box down to clean out the mouse nest and swap one flapper from the old box that had been nibbled on. The donor heater core had green streaking all over it and the donor evap had the inlet tube broken off, so my originals are going back into service. Took the opportunity to flush both and clean the orifice tube. I also cleaned and painted the metal doors and what-not, sort of MAW.

I have an orange tube, though. I must have swapped to a small one when I put the small compressor in (https://ck5.com/forums/threads/spec...-for-ac-components.349648/page-2#post-4363771)

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Out of all the melted wires, only 1 from the main harness was damaged - the PS door switch. The HVAC harness and vacuum lines were basically severed in the middle and all connections to the passenger door were lost, but those are auxiliary harnesses, as they are optional features on these trucks. The other wires that were melted into the mess were for radios - 1 of which had only been installed for 2 days :doah:
 
Square windshields are easy to do. let the new seal sit in the sun for bit, installed on the new windshield as you remove old and prep the truck for new.
 
76zimmer said:
Pro-tip….Make sure you put some gas in the tank!
Click to expand...
I have no recollection of any related event :whistle:

Since my original ECM tray was a ESC module tray that became a puddle... I built a new ECM tray yesterday. Since all signals from the ECM were working, I did a finish-up of the engine harness today, combining some grounds from years of mods/upgrades. That let me put the ECM back in it's home.

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Good grief, there's no way to install the lower blower housing bolt without removing the inner fender?
 
Blue85 said:
Good grief, there's no way to install the lower blower housing bolt without removing the inner fender?
Click to expand...
I’ve done it. Once. And I’ll always drop the wheel well now. Worth the extra twenty minutes for sure!
 
I was able to get it by partly unbolting the inner fender and dropping it about 1.5". Honestly, these should all have nuts welded on the back. Sheet metal screws are pretty marginal.
 
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