The old dash went away




OK, it's been a while, and as Fastford71 (my brother, it's his car) said above, I have lots of updates.

LOTS of pictures.



This all evolved as a series of small projects over the second half of the summer. First half was spent locating a CCRM with an M on it (SHO Source rocks, those guys are great!!!) and making it pass the Emissions test.

As such, I will describe an iteration over time as things evolved, not a true HOWTO where the final destination is known ahead of time.

I have some friends on the truck forum who are interested in how I did this, so this is somewhat detailed....

Factory JBL Sound System

Earlier this past summer, I came across a factory JBL sound system from a 94-95 Taurus in the JY and thought it'd be cool to have.

We already have decent aftermarket replacement speakers in this thing, so I didn't get those.

But, our head unit was just stuck in the hole and it wasn't fastened down, and the wiring was laughable. Wish I had taken before pictures.

These factory JBL things sound pretty dang good, and they don't invite theft.

Perhaps someday I'll come across a later head unit with a CD player instead of a cassette.

But, for now....

Premium Sound System head unit








Factory power antenna system




View from inside of car, back seat removed



The factory installation used honeycomb holes in the rear shelf that were covered by that felt-like stuff. No way I'd be able to replicate that.





View from inside of trunk
This system has two amps - one for subwoofer, one for other speakers



The wire nuts were installed by a PO during speaker replacement, I left them in place

 

We're gonna take this car from Denver to Chicago in about 3 weeks, and we wanted to plug in the GPS, radar detector, laptop computer, etc. etc. etc.

I was originally going to install aftermarket power ports on brackets under the dash, then thought of 2-3 factory lighted power ports in the console below/behind the gear shifter.

I noticed the cassette-tape holder box had markings on the back showing where a port would/could be installed there, so I made it so.




Initial test installation







Decided to use a lighted port with a cap



With that cap installed, the outer shell wasn't able to be tightened enough turns to my liking, so I ground it down some.











A support tab in the back interferes, though

This tells me those boxes were used in other cars, too.





Rear tab made smaller





Splice factory pigtail into existing wiring

I solder & shrink-wrap 99.998% of my wiring

 

I came across a flip-top power port in the JY, I think from a '90s truck or Bronco. Originally intended to put it in my own truck somewhere, figure I'll nab another one for that, though.

Flip-top power port installed inside of console box



I must have deleted the in-progress pictures as the memory card filled up so I don't have many.

Basically, all I did is measure the bezel mounting area, then cut a hole to match in the console tub.

Most of my time was spent measuring & figuring out where to locate it so it doesn't interfere with the console cover on the other side.



Rear view of flip-top power port

Splice into the factory wiring can be seen later

 

The Quest for Power, Part IIIa

or

Can you spell: Scope Creep?

While at the parts store getting bracket-mounted ports (my original idea), I came across this thing, it even has a USB charger port!





My brain started percolating, and I thought about custom-mounting it inside the console, and that's what I ended up doing.I ended up painting the flashy aluminum face plate black, it looked gaudy & out of place in its original finish.



OK, let's begin...

Determine where to drill mounting holes
Basically, locate the bezel on the back side of console cover, drill holes from there. The tabs holding the clippy things need to be ground a bit, though





It will fit with some minor removal of material

NOTICE: On the first console cover to which I did this stuff, everything went beautifully!
On the second cover, though, those tabs (supposed to be used to locate the leather shifter boot, one (actually, three of four) is broken off here) are NOT exactly parallel to the shifter opening like they were on the first!
Don't be confused by the grinding stone against that tab, it's the clippy-thing mounts that need to be ground down, not those shifter-boot tabs

This made my initial installation on the second cover a bit crooked because I didn't check things before I drilled holes it went so well on the first run, I didn't see anticipate the need so I had to realign the bezel and drill a second set of two holes on one end.




Holes have been drilled from other side

I got some slightly-longer screws from the hardware store to use, the originals are too short to also hold the box underneath.



Remove from the box, too, as it presses out a bit on the console cover, making it hard to clip into place
Bezel screws hold the box on




Test fit





Remove material from actual console (cover mounting tabs), that box is just a bit too wide





Install bezel on top





Scribe marks (I used a dental pick) for holes







Hot knife, hole saw to cut holes





Test fit




Fnished




Test operation used supplied plug to plug into power port

 

The Quest for Power, Part IIIb

I want to hard-wire this device into the car's factory wiring, but I don't want that damn blue LED lit up all the time.

So, I interrupted the LED's power circuit and connected it to a factory horn relay that I wired to be activated when the parking lights come on.

To add to that, the power-port supply wiring on this Chinese-made device was suboptimal IMO, so I replaced it with thicker-gauge wire.

That all took some time....



The innards of that power port thing (I call it the blue LED thing)







Horn relay schematic





The EVTM shows it's really very simple
One incoming power wire - Circuit 40, Light Blue/White Stripe - splices into a Y and feeds power to two locations...
... One that powers the relay's electromagnet this circuit is ultimately closed by the horn switches,
... the other powers the horn when the relay is closed




So, time for some surgery...


Cut the black LED lead





Lengthen its wires

Also spliced in a Ford-factory connector, so it can be disconnected and the console cover removed




I didn't like the supplied 18 Ga wire

Just doesn't seem heavy enough to me, it's on a 20A circuit breaker




So I replaced it with 16 Ga





The horn relay





Which I connect as so





Finished box

Added a connector fo the LED wires




The under-console wiring harness at this point





Now, tap into the parking lights - Circuit 14, brown wire


I did this at the headlamp relay location - between the glove compartment and radio

Once again, solder & heat-shrink. Radio Shack didn't have brown, 18 Ga wire (I'd prefer to use factory colors, it's easier to know what any particular wire is used for) so I chose red




Factory headlamp relay, spliced & re-wrapped





Protect with conduit, fasten to dash frame as I don't like stray, unprotected wires





Emerges beneath the radio





Test operation before reassembly





Ruh-Rohhhhh, the shifter boot flange is interfering

A hacksaw and rotary tool took care of that, though




Reconnect, verify operation, no fuses are blowing

 

Console storage compartment lighting

While looking for parts in the junkyard, I came across a late-'80s Thunderbird that had a lamp in its console storage box, thought that'd be cool to have, too.

So, I made it so....


Lamp and switch assembly





The switch is slightly too thick





So, I ground it down a bit on one side









Drilling holes in the console cover

I once again must have deleted the pictures so I'll merely describe with words. Perhaps I'll go to the JY and replicate my actions and take pictures, I can edit this post later and insert them, I suppose.

To find where to drill holes....

I installed the console cover, it has two rubber bump stops on it. I smeared petroleum jelly onto the ends of those things and closed the lid, this left jelly on the console base exactly where they came to rest.

Measured the switch prong thinger with a caliper to drill the big hole;
installed the switch into the hole from the top and marked on the base where to drill the second hole.

The end result looks like this:

Holes drilled in console cover





Add poor-man's countersink bevel to screw hole





Installed switch looks like so:





Underside of installed switch








Where to put the lamp?

It can't go in the front where I'd like it, the console cover on the other side of the tub is adjacent to it.

Can't put lamp here

Tub in the front prevents that




But it *will* fit in one location in the rear!

The tail of the lamp socket will fit in a recessed area where an end-cap clippy-thing retainer is installed




I eyeballed the location, poked a hole in the tub with a hot dental pick, and drilled a pilot hole from the other side.


Tub with pilot hole






Cut a larger hole with a hole saw, snapped in the lens

Lens installed

Looks good! No CDs here anymore, though.




It fits together so nicely!







All back together







Now, to add even more wiring...

By this point, I'm getting pretty sick of this.

I sometimes wish I weren't so **** and not so concerned about using factory-like installations.

There isn't a Light-Green/Yellow-Stripe, always-on, Circuit 54 wire here in this area, it would have been MUCH faster to merely tap into the power-port (lighter/horn) circuit. I mean, it's just a dang, single-bulb lamp... it has a hot wire, to a switch, to the lamp, to a ground, that's it. Very simple, very easy.

But nooooooooooo, my ****-ness insists on supplying such a circuit extension to this location, even using factory-original color-coded wire.

If I had thought of this lamp earlier, I would have used a different connector at the head of the console beneath the radio, and used a single connector for both this wire as well as the brown-wire parking-lamp circuit.

C'est la vie, I guess.





The easiest place to tap into the LG/Y circuit is at the radio connector....


Tap into wire harness at radio connector





Emerges beneath the radio at the head of the console





Connected the ground to the unused factory PRND2L-lamp connector

I'm glad I have lots of donor harness wires & connectors in my garage, and I didn't have to add to that dang harness again!



The end result is pretty useful, though!

 

Still have some seat-switch stuff to finish, want to better install the trunk panel that hides/protects the stereo amps, get the A/C system charged, minor stuff like that that I should be able to finish this week.

Next year (or "later") I'll paint the rear door panels & the B-pillar plastic, hopefully find a nicer headliner at the JY sometime.

Paint, bodywork, weatherstripping, etc. will come next year. My brother bought a bunch of parts from a guy near my mom in the Chicago area we'll go pick up while we're there next month.



For now, the outside looks like so: