Project: Midnight Panic

mobil1syn said:
https://www.hotheadheater.com/ i have seen these used in other forms or racing. so you are just taking that style of warmer and making it all self contained on the truck. nice
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Basically doing the same function, I would bet that unit is much faster at heating/cycling the coolant, probably be up to temp ready to go in a matter of minutes, where I will have to have mine plugged in hours ahead of time,


WaterH said:
I know nothing about this, so this might be a stupid question. Is there any possibility of starting the truck with gasoline and let it idle and then switch it to meth after its warm? It seems like it would be beneficial to really warm up everything. I've seen this with diesels up north.

Edit, side question. I know this is a competition machine, but will it not be capable of driving for an hour straight?
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The tuning between methanol & gasoline is considerably different, even at idle it would be so rich that it would probably kill spark plugs in short order, plus you'd have to consider what you're going to put the gas in, second fuel system, etc.

Side answer, depends on what you mean by "driving" for an hour, driving up & down main street on cruise night, yeah maybe, flogging around the sand dunes or in the local mud hole, no, Outside of a moderate cruise I don't think there's enough fuel to go an hour,
 
Add a little propylene oxide to the mix, that will warm things right up.
 
Even though this weeks progress isn't even really worth a post, I suppose I will ad the few pics I took,
While I do still have a little plumbing left to do, wiring is the next big part of the build, & I spent a ridiculous amount of time laying this out in my head over the last week,
Over two full days just staring at the thing, deciding where I need power, how much power/capacity, how that is going to effect, or get in the way of other systems sharing the same space, (harnesses, plumbing etc.) jotting down notes, & even a little bench testing of a couple components, (Ford wiper motors from the late 70's have some interesting stuff going on in them)

Before I got wrapped up in electrical, I did get the transmission plumbed to the cooler, & the water side plumbed to the engine, But no pics of that,
I also finally got a tab cut out, welded to the chassis, & a small turn buckle built for adjusting the alternator,
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I guess that's what kind of inspired going the electrical direction, but before running any wiring I need to get as many of the electrical components mounted as possible,

Anything inside the cab will be about the worst to work on/install (since I never think to install door bars way later in these projects) So I started there, the rear steer pump & valve are already mounted, I just have to get a power wire capable of handling the current requirements of the pump to that location. Fortunately when building the floor gussets, & skins I made both sides symmetrical, so where there are two holes on the passenger side of the pump for the solenoid valve bulkhead fitting, there are the same two holes on the driver side, I figured one would be used for the pump vent, & the second for an electrical pass through, I did have to drill the hole a little bigger, then add a couple drill/tapped mounting holes to hole the pass through in place,

I also settle on the mounting locations of both the ARB compressor for the diff locks, & the MSD 10 ignition box, both will be behind the seats, the compressor behind the driver seat, & ignition on the passenger side,

Here you can see the compressor with the solenoids installed, (Also seen in the pic is the electrical passthrough installed)
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As you can see I did play with the locker plumbing a little bit since the compressor was in place, the short line going to the bulkhead fitting will continue on to the front diff, the longer hose loops back over to the passenger side, where it will exit through the floor with another BH fitting, then it will be paired up with the rear steer sensing cable, & continue down to the rear link bar,
The compressor fits really nice behind the seat (when it is installed) & leaves the pocked in the floor open for other options later,

On the passenger side the ignition box will actually be mounted in the pocket, I was going to put it under the dash, but this location is better for mounting (The box will actually be setting on the mounts, rather than hanging from them) also put's it closer to the coil & distributor, where the majority of the wiring coming out of the box goes anyway.

No pictures of the box mounted yet, but I did snap a pic after getting the bulk head plug for the wiring installed,
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There are several more pieces that need built/installed, like a switch panel for the rear steer mode switch, & locker switches, these three will be mounted close to the shifter so they can easily be reached on the fly.


As I mentioned I also made a few notes on the wiring as I though about stuff, A good example of that is the rear steer & locker wiring, all of this will be independent from the rest of the wiring in the truck, & this RTC setup is going to be different than those I sell,
This kit will have 2 modes, the standard mode like the rest I sell, (returning to center requires pushing/holding a button until the steering is centered where is stops & you can then let off the button) then the second mode will be auto center, I'll be able to turn left or right & have the rear steer automatically return to center as soon as I let go of the steering button/switch,

I drew the schematic out for this system quite a while ago, & even wired a couple for people for testing, (I don't normally sell RTC kits with the auto center feature)
Even though a schematic is great for figuring out the circuit & what has to hook where, It does nothing for actual wire routing,
So I sat down & drew a couple wiring guides, based on where parts of the system are mounted in this truck, & what electrical components I'm using to build the harness,
Here is an example
257.jpg


Now a guy could use this as a way to figure out how the system works, but it's really just a map of how I want to route the wiring out of the back of the relay box when I get that far, this should save a little time when I start crimping pins & routing wires,
I also added the pin numbers for the plug at the shifter (steering control) & labeled or color coded other parts like the solenoids & sensing unit plugs, just to simplify stuff later,


If people are interested I'll go into more detail on what parts I use & how the harnesses are built when that time comes,

But for now I have 5 days at the paying job before I get back to staring at this thing.
...
 
cool drawing, but knowing you are doing it in MS paint is even more impressive :laughing:

I don't know how you draw a straight line that long in paint.



I am absolutely interested in what you are using for building the harness off the truck, little things like connector/pin types and stupid basic stuff like type of loom or string vs tape :)
 
i use paint all the time, everytime i use the line tool, it's a pain trying to get it to not be 1 square shifted somewhere :laughing:

is that a tool that only makes straight lines? never noticed it before.
 
Yeah it's MS paint :laughing:
Other than typing, & the OG "Oregon Trail" Paint is probably the first program I ever played with on a computer, I used to be way more proficient with it (or thought I was), but after using the Plasma-cam program I do find Paint to be testing some times, especially like Provience noted, getting that line one there with no shift,
I'm sure there is probably a free schematic program somewhere that would be much better/faster, just insert components like relays, switches, fuses, etc.
But this works, easy to see & print off in color,

I know on my dads current project he has done all his schematics on Plasma-cam, The schematics just look like lines & electrical parts, but if you zoom in he actually has wire colors & functions typed in for each circuit, it's pretty neat, but a lot of work. I like to just glance at the colors on the screen, or paper if I print it out,
 
Provience said:
i use paint all the time, everytime i use the line tool, it's a pain trying to get it to not be 1 square shifted somewhere :laughing:

is that a tool that only makes straight lines? never noticed it before.
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Just hold shift while drawing lines and it'll snap at 45 degree increments.

Holding shift will also give you perfect squares and circles.
 
In between other projects I've been working on electrical component mounting, along with figuring out ways to tie up harnesses & battery cables, Not the most exciting part of any build for sure, & there's really no good way to hide those things on a tube chassis rig, so clean routing is pretty important.
Starting with the main power routing I knew I would have two main cables, one going to the pass through in the floor by the rear steer pump, & one at the front firewall, I decided to route the cables along the rear steer hard lines to get them up to the bottom of the floorboard,
But first, to get the cables from the main power relays to the hard lines a simple piece of 1/4" rod was used, a 45* angle was bent on each end, then the ends were machined flat so the rod would set parallel to the tube it will be welded to,
263.jpg

This just provides a good place to use zip ties rather that all the way around the tube, (or in this case where a tie cannot be routed all the way around a chassis tube due to link mounts & gussets,
Here it is tacked in place,
264.jpg
Two of these were built & the second was tacked on the opposite side of the chassis for starter & alternator wiring,

From this point the pair of cables will follow the hard lines up to the the bottom of the floor, to tie them up clean I decided clamps would be best, that way they could also fasten the rear steer hard lines to the chassis,
258.5.jpg

258.55.jpg

While coping the back side to fit nicely on the chassis tube I also put a smaller cope/notch to hopefully nestle the main chassis harness in this mess when I get that far along,

Once the cables reach the bottom of the floor they head off in different directions, first is the main power feed to the pass through at the rear steer pump. To get there the cable has to turn back & run along the X-brace under the floor, I considered clamps, but honestly for one cable they are a bit bulky, & with any luck the cable will only need installed twice, first for mockup, & last for final assembly, so something simple to zip tie to would be plenty good, & since the floor sits directly on the X-brace tubing I could not just wrap around the whole tube, I though about another couple 1/4" rods bent & welded on, but with the cable running horizontal I figured no matter how tight it's tied up, eventually the cable & zip ties would just be hanging from the rod or tabs rather than staying nice & tight to the tube work,
So naturally a couple of half round zip tabs were needed, fortunately I had a couple steel sleeves I believe came from some urethane bushings I used on another project, These sleeves had the perfect inside diameter to fit the cable I plan on using, good wall thickness, & after a little creative machine work I was able to cut each one in half, (both ways) to end up with 6 tabs out of 2 sleeves,
265.jpg


After the parting & splitting a .250 slot was milled through the back side for a place to slide a zip tie through after the tab is tacked to the chassis,
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For now I only need a few, so three of the tabs got a shallow slot machined perpendicular to the first,
268.jpg

This slot just made it easier to clamp to the chassis & know it is strait with the tube.

Those 3 tabs were than tacked to the chassis,
269.jpg


You can also see above the hardline/battery cable clamps tacked in place,
 
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The second of the two power cables continues forward under the floor board, directly under the passengers feet it will be held in place with an aluminum bracket similar to what I built for the throttle & fuel shut off control cables under the drivers floor,

From that point I had to come up with something I could zip tie to, clamps or custom zip tabs were out because I'm not 100% sure what all is going to end up getting routed through this area, The things I do know is the power cable, main chassis/engine harness, data logger harness, & possible oil pressure & boost pressure signal lines,

So I went back to the 1/4" round rod, only this time I tried tucking it in even tighter to the chassis tube it follows,

3 lengths were cut, then each was setup on the mill, the 1/4" rod had half the diameter milled off, every 4" I would skip a half inch leaving the rod round,
258.jpg


Interesting what stress relieving one side of the material does,
259.jpg


Two of the pieces were welded together to match the chassis before installation,
260.jpg


Then it was simply tacked on with the flats toward the chassis,

262.jpg

261.jpg


The 3rd piece just continues in front of the radiator the last couple feet to the front of the chassis,
Right above the angled tube & rod in the pic is where the firewall passthrough is located, along with harness bulkhead plugs, & gauge plumbing bulkhead fittings,
That's about all I've really accomplished the last couple weeks, Keep plugging away at it & keep getting components mounted, eventually I would get to start stringing wire,

With Mountain Havoc coming up the first part of June I'm not sure how much there will be for updates for a while, I have quite a bit of stuff to get ready for that this year,
But once Havoc is done it'll be full bore back on this one.
 
Turns out I was able to sneak a few more days in on the project before putting it on hold,

Last days off I had put together the last couple return to center kits I had on hand,
1.25.jpg


So this days off I needed to get another batch of parts machined up & ready to go, that way if someone wanted to order a kit, I would have the stuff here to put it together,
270.jpg

Having all the material & parts on hand I can do a run of 10 RTC kits in about a day, (pretty long day)

Since I started the week off with a mess in the machine room, & had a couple ideas for this project that required machine work, I just continued on making the mess bigger,

One of those ideas was a passthrough at the front firewall for the oil pressure, & boost pressure signal lines,
A couple bulkhead fittings would have done the job, if I only needed to hook up the lines to the gauges, however I also need a pressure sensor on each one of these lines for the digital dash/data logger, so some sort way to tee each fitting or a manifold was needed,
I decided to make an all in one unit to do the job,

Starting with a chunk of 1"x2" aluminum cut to length & squared up, On one side a 1/4" flange was machined down & a pair of mounting holes were drilled & tapped,
In the center raised area 2 holes were drilled/tapped for 1/8" pipe,


272.jpg
With the block mounted inside the cab the raised portion will pass through a rectangular hole cut in the firewall, Obviously the mounting holes will hold it in place, & the two pipe thread holes will be used for fittings to attach the lines coming from the engine,

The other side of the block was whittled down a bit, & the other end of the pipe thread passages were drilled/tapped to 16mmx1.5 thread for the pressure sensors,
Each passage got an intersecting hole drilled/tapped, again to 1/8" pipe,
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A pair of 1/8" pipe to #3 AN fittings will hook to the boost & oil pressure gauges via braided stainless lines once everything is installed,
273.jpg



Along with boost/oil pressure signal, I needed to get 12+ power, & a couple harnesses through the firewall,

Main cab power is easy, a pass through just like the one by the rear steer pump was used,

For the wiring harnesses a couple 12 pin Deutsch DT series bulkhead connectors will be used, Unlike the 6 pin connector I installed for the ignition (posted earlier) the 12 pin connectors do not have threaded mounting holes, (requires both bolts & nuts to hold them in place)
Fortunately they do have metal sleeves in the mounting holes to keep from crushing/breaking the mounting flange if over torqued, & these sleeves were fairly easy to remove, so I just pulled the sleeves out, & spun up some flanged nuts to fit in their place,
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Before chopping all the holes through the firewall another handful of harness zip tie hangers were bent up,
276.jpg

These were tacked in various places under the dash to hold wiring in place,

After a little measuring, drilling, & cutting a few odd shaped holes, everything was bolted in place & the project is one step closer to pulling wire,
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On the top side of the dash I started figuring out where I wanted to mount the tachometer, while doing this I realized there are a couple things that I've never cared for with Autometer's tach mounting setup, in short they are just annoying to assemble, & while it is good they are fairly "universal" & fit anywhere, they just look out of place everywhere,

So a small leftover scrap from the passthrough project was used to build a new single piece mounting base to replace the Autometer two part deal,

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I have not got the tach mounted yet, but just putting all the parts together was well worth the effort put into this piece,


There were a few other things I worked on that was not worth getting pics of, including a couple more lines & fittings installed for the air lockers, & getting more tabs & brackets sorted for battery cables,
It won't be to much longer & I can jump into actually wiring the thing up.
 
Skipped_Link said:
The second of the two power cables continues forward under the floor board, directly under the passengers feet it will be held in place with an aluminum bracket similar to what I built for the throttle & fuel shut off control cables under the drivers floor,

From that point I had to come up with something I could zip tie to, clamps or custom zip tabs were out because I'm not 100% sure what all is going to end up getting routed through this area, The things I do know is the power cable, main chassis/engine harness, data logger harness, & possible oil pressure & boost pressure signal lines,

So I went back to the 1/4" round rod, only this time I tried tucking it in even tighter to the chassis tube it follows,

3 lengths were cut, then each was setup on the mill, the 1/4" rod had half the diameter milled off, every 4" I would skip a half inch leaving the rod round,
258.jpg


Interesting what stress relieving one side of the material does,
259.jpg


Two of the pieces were welded together to match the chassis before installation,
260.jpg


Then it was simply tacked on with the flats toward the chassis,

262.jpg

261.jpg


The 3rd piece just continues in front of the radiator the last couple feet to the front of the chassis,
Right above the angled tube & rod in the pic is where the firewall passthrough is located, along with harness bulkhead plugs, & gauge plumbing bulkhead fittings,
That's about all I've really accomplished the last couple weeks, Keep plugging away at it & keep getting components mounted, eventually I would get to start stringing wire,

With Mountain Havoc coming up the first part of June I'm not sure how much there will be for updates for a while, I have quite a bit of stuff to get ready for that this year,
But once Havoc is done it'll be full bore back on this one.
Click to expand...
alright, this just seems excessive :flipoff2:

good luck at mountain havoc :smokin: would be a blast to go see in person, but i'm really glad they've been doing the filiming for the last few years in an easy to view way
 
I had put this project on hold so I could prep for the Mountain Havoc event, then a couple weeks before heading out I came across a good deal on a new trailer/hauler project, I bought it with the hopes I could have it ready for the event,
Getting the trailer required a trip to Tacoma WA
IMG_2932.jpg


While still a good deal it turns out the trailer is a bit more project than I had anticipated, So we used the same hauler setup that we've had for several years now, With the intentions of getting home & back on this trailer project before resuming work on Midnight Panic,
Then, on the second course at the event the transmission in the buggy decided to lunch itself, (pretty sure it ate the pump in the C6)
Not a huge deal as I have a new trans built & ready to go, but I was waiting to complete the new engine & swap both in one shot. I am still waiting on some machine work on that project,

Needless to say MP is still on the back burner for a little bit. Hopefully I can get back to it late summer/early fall.

I did get a little bit of time to build a set of transport wheels/tires so the buggy, or the new project can be loaded in the new trailer, but even that will be a little bit before I actually get to test them.
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Skipped_Link said:
I had put this project on hold so I could prep for the Mountain Havoc event, then a couple weeks before heading out I came across a good deal on a new trailer/hauler project, I bought it with the hopes I could have it ready for the event,
Getting the trailer required a trip to Tacoma WA
IMG_2932.jpg


While still a good deal it turns out the trailer is a bit more project than I had anticipated,
Click to expand...

Damn that is sick looking.

Be sure to do a build thread for that trailer :smokin:
 
what the specs on the trailer? That looks awesome. Did it start out as a moving van trailer and get converted to RV?
 
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