Now I finally get to start installing the electrical and water systems in the body. Of course I started with the engine bay as the floors are done. I had to think about where the best place would be to install the electrical boxes. I ended up deciding on the firewall as this area would allow for the heater to distribute the heat evenly from back to front. The light fixture would go next to the outlet box along with its switch. The light fixture is good on the firewall for the same reasons as the outlet box for the heater.
I started with the outlet box. Using the self tapping screws I secured the box to the firewall then went ahead and got the outlet ready for installation. Using a length of 3 conductor cable salvaged from an old cord, I hooked up the outlet and routed the cable through the fitting in the box before securing the outlet in the box. A cover finished off the whole outlet setup. Moving on to the light fixture and its box..... I went ahead and repeated everything with the box for the light fixture. Securing the box with the screws, I then routed the cable from the outlet box over to the light box, trimming it down before wiring one side to the terminal. I had to keep the other side open since it has to go to the switch box. The light box was also installed at a spot where a hole already existed going into the cab. This will allow me to route a cable to the inside to hook up to the outlet box. I stripped the cable that I routed through the firewall and hooked the grounds from the outlet box and the cab cable together. The neutral/white wire from the outlet cable and the cab cable were hooked to one side of the light fixture so the fixture would be in a parallel circuit in the chain, leaving the hot/black wire, to be hooked up to the switch. I installed the switch box on the firewall next to the light box and installed a 2 conductor cable between the switch and light boxes. I hooked the black wire from the switch cable to the hot/black wire that was still open. The white wire in the switch cable went to the open terminal on the light fixture. With that done I hooked the other end of the switch cable to the switch and secured everything in place with its associated cover. With that, I moved on to the cab. Inside the cab I utilized an outlet box that has tabs for nailing to a stud in a wall. These tabs allowed me to screw the box to the underside of the inner dash area which remained after pulling the dash panel and HVAC box out. With the box hanging in place, I installed the associated plugs in the box and routed the cable from the firewall to the box to prepare it for the switch and outlet that I'll install in the box to kill two birds with one stone. Rather than install two separate boxes (which I didn't have now), I installed one large box (which I did have plenty of). Since I needed to get more outlets and switches, the electrical part of this project was concluded for the day. Now for the plumbing. I had to figure out where the water fixtures will go. These fixtures are little plastic bowl shaped things with hose nipples and a single mounting point. The little valve inside the unit will automatically come on until the bowl fills with water and the weight of the water in the bowl makes the bowl lower enough to turn off the valve. I will have to test later on what pressure will be needed to keep the whole thing from just blowing open and failing. I ended up settling on installing two fixtures on the inner fender between the front of the shock tower and the radiator support panel on the left side. Reason for this was because there are a couple of large holes on the driver's side that would allow for the PVC pipe to be used to be routed between the mounting point of the water fixtures and said holes in the firewall. Using some 45 degree couplings and some short cuts of 1/2" PVC I did a short run from the shock tower over to the firewall and into the cab. At the cab there is about 2' of pipe going inside. At the shock tower I added a 90 degree coupling with a threaded end to screw in a short threaded nipple with a brass hose barb screwed to the other side. Conduit straps secured the pipe to the shock tower. From here plastic hose will be connected from the nipple to the nipple of the first water fixture. Another short piece of hose will link the two water fixtures together. I will have to put a final short piece of hose to the nipple on the last water fixture and plug it with a bolt to terminate the water line run.
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