denverpilot
Tied Down
Why... why do they always have to go so wrong?
Today was, "Hey it warmed up to 50F, let's swap the dead halogen auxiliary backup and trailer hitching lights on the back bumper of the dually for those nifty LED light bars I caught on huge sale at Amazon on Black Friday..."
Knowns:
The halogens worked when I bought the truck but one died than then the other.
The former owner wanted a nice installation so he bought a fancy remote switch that is mounted above the gearshift in the flat up there and has a red/green LED and toggles the voltage to a relay in the engine compartment that actually switches those lights. The switch works, and the relay thumps. All good there.
The former owner did wiring harnesses right and they're all wire loomed everywhere, in the engine compartment, all under the truck, and all the way back to the lights, but he had lots of "other" stuff on this truck that was removed and those wire looms are also under there and some are very neatly looped up and tie wrapped off. Very neat but also very tough to tell what's what and all weatherproofed and tied up tightly to the frame.
The job:
Swap the halogens for the LEDs. Simple.
The reality:
Karen's truck is in garage. Notice she's collected a huge pile of leaves in the back forward of the board that segments her truck bed. Remove her stuff, remove board, get electric leaf blower, blow wet leaves out of truck bed. Put other stuff back. Back her truck outside.
Back my truck into garage. Garage floor is wet and muddy from Karen's truck. Sweep out mud from Karen's truck. Get blue tarp to lie on. Okay.
Grab some wrenches and sockets. Go to take the existing lights off. Nut seems to turn but not loosening. Lots of corrosion. Wait a second. This feels like the other end is spinning.
Look over the existing mounts. Realize that if there's a bolt head in there, there's no way to get to it. Think about it for a minute and then realize these lights are being thrown out anyway.
Kick light. Hard. Mount breaks off cleanly and perfectly to reveal a rusty carriage bolt with a flat head. Nothing to grip.
Cuss the dumbass who used this bolt while kicking the other light harder just because I'm mad now. It pops off cleanly and same thing.
Fine. Go get Dremel and set it up with a cutting wheel. Pry remaining plastic from the old mount off of under the bolt so it drops down a bit and start cutting. Bolts cut off. Thrown out. Lights thrown out. Wiring snipped.
Okay let's mount these new ones. Brain says "Better measure and see if they'll go where you want them." They have two-bolt mounts not one but maybe I can adjust the mounts on top of them to put them where I want them. Fiddle with them. "No that looks stupid."
Notice two smaller holes already drilled in bumper inboard of previous light mounts. Not big enough but in the right place. Well that helps.
Measure. They're even. Okay we will use those and make them bigger and drill two more outboard.
Fine. Go get grandpa's old badass drill. The one with the lost chuck. Go find drill bits for steel. Do the stick a bit in the hole and pry with a flat head screwdriver trick to get the bit set because I always forget to buy a universal chuck. And who cares? This works.
Realize the bit will wander on the new holes. Go find punch and hammer to dimple bumper. Measuring tape again. Mark where I want dimple. Wale on punch.
Forgot two tons of dried mud will now rain down on face. Close eyes and wait. All good. Okay we know that for the next one. Oh yeah, it's steel. Hardly a dimple at all but it'll work. Do the second one. Okay fine.
Grab drill. Drill out inside holes. Drill new outside holes.
Fiddle with brackets and mounting hardware for twenty minutes while walking back and forth to get different sized sockets because you know, using the same sized bolts on all of those little parts to mount the LEDs would make life easier and they don't want that. Even have to get the Allen keys for one of the adjustments. Sheesh.
Okay lights mounted. Looks halfway decent like I actually knew what I was doing. Cool. Only took four decades to get that right.
Strip old wires back a little. Decide this hasn't been going well, I had better test. Go get mutimeter and wife. Tell wife to flip switch in cab while I measure. Nothing. No voltage on either pair of wires.
Cuss. Loudly. So THATs why halogen number two went "dead". It wasn't dead, it wasn't getting power. Oh well. Hated how they looked anyway.
Tell wife thanks. She goes inside.
Try to trace wiring back. Wire looms are everywhere and tie wrapped together. I KNOW what I'm really going to have to do is cut all of these down, remove all the unused wiring, and then trace these light wires all the way to that friggin relay under the hood and find the break. Or just run new wiring for the lights altogether.
Do some more poking around under the hood where the relay is. Find more coiled up and terminated wire looms blocking access to the relay socket. Realize that all needs to come out, too.
Remember that while I'm in there, because I see it sitting there, taped off, that the Dodge dealership also disconnected my wiring to the Bosch fuel pump from the aftermarket computer for tuning fuel injection. Add that to the growing "wiring day" list of things to fix.
Also remember that my fuel pressure gauge was accidentally disconnected somewhere during the head gasket job and wasn't reconnected. Yeah, add that to the "wiring fix" list.
Sun is now setting. Temps are going to drop 30 degrees.
Wrap wires up around light brackets and call it a day. This is going to take many more hours some other day. I created the "truck electrical day from hell" to-do list item.
And all I wanted to do was swap two lamps for two others. Ha. I knew I should have just gone flying instead.
Today was, "Hey it warmed up to 50F, let's swap the dead halogen auxiliary backup and trailer hitching lights on the back bumper of the dually for those nifty LED light bars I caught on huge sale at Amazon on Black Friday..."
Knowns:
The halogens worked when I bought the truck but one died than then the other.
The former owner wanted a nice installation so he bought a fancy remote switch that is mounted above the gearshift in the flat up there and has a red/green LED and toggles the voltage to a relay in the engine compartment that actually switches those lights. The switch works, and the relay thumps. All good there.
The former owner did wiring harnesses right and they're all wire loomed everywhere, in the engine compartment, all under the truck, and all the way back to the lights, but he had lots of "other" stuff on this truck that was removed and those wire looms are also under there and some are very neatly looped up and tie wrapped off. Very neat but also very tough to tell what's what and all weatherproofed and tied up tightly to the frame.
The job:
Swap the halogens for the LEDs. Simple.
The reality:
Karen's truck is in garage. Notice she's collected a huge pile of leaves in the back forward of the board that segments her truck bed. Remove her stuff, remove board, get electric leaf blower, blow wet leaves out of truck bed. Put other stuff back. Back her truck outside.
Back my truck into garage. Garage floor is wet and muddy from Karen's truck. Sweep out mud from Karen's truck. Get blue tarp to lie on. Okay.
Grab some wrenches and sockets. Go to take the existing lights off. Nut seems to turn but not loosening. Lots of corrosion. Wait a second. This feels like the other end is spinning.
Look over the existing mounts. Realize that if there's a bolt head in there, there's no way to get to it. Think about it for a minute and then realize these lights are being thrown out anyway.
Kick light. Hard. Mount breaks off cleanly and perfectly to reveal a rusty carriage bolt with a flat head. Nothing to grip.
Cuss the dumbass who used this bolt while kicking the other light harder just because I'm mad now. It pops off cleanly and same thing.
Fine. Go get Dremel and set it up with a cutting wheel. Pry remaining plastic from the old mount off of under the bolt so it drops down a bit and start cutting. Bolts cut off. Thrown out. Lights thrown out. Wiring snipped.
Okay let's mount these new ones. Brain says "Better measure and see if they'll go where you want them." They have two-bolt mounts not one but maybe I can adjust the mounts on top of them to put them where I want them. Fiddle with them. "No that looks stupid."
Notice two smaller holes already drilled in bumper inboard of previous light mounts. Not big enough but in the right place. Well that helps.
Measure. They're even. Okay we will use those and make them bigger and drill two more outboard.
Fine. Go get grandpa's old badass drill. The one with the lost chuck. Go find drill bits for steel. Do the stick a bit in the hole and pry with a flat head screwdriver trick to get the bit set because I always forget to buy a universal chuck. And who cares? This works.
Realize the bit will wander on the new holes. Go find punch and hammer to dimple bumper. Measuring tape again. Mark where I want dimple. Wale on punch.
Forgot two tons of dried mud will now rain down on face. Close eyes and wait. All good. Okay we know that for the next one. Oh yeah, it's steel. Hardly a dimple at all but it'll work. Do the second one. Okay fine.
Grab drill. Drill out inside holes. Drill new outside holes.
Fiddle with brackets and mounting hardware for twenty minutes while walking back and forth to get different sized sockets because you know, using the same sized bolts on all of those little parts to mount the LEDs would make life easier and they don't want that. Even have to get the Allen keys for one of the adjustments. Sheesh.
Okay lights mounted. Looks halfway decent like I actually knew what I was doing. Cool. Only took four decades to get that right.
Strip old wires back a little. Decide this hasn't been going well, I had better test. Go get mutimeter and wife. Tell wife to flip switch in cab while I measure. Nothing. No voltage on either pair of wires.
Cuss. Loudly. So THATs why halogen number two went "dead". It wasn't dead, it wasn't getting power. Oh well. Hated how they looked anyway.
Tell wife thanks. She goes inside.
Try to trace wiring back. Wire looms are everywhere and tie wrapped together. I KNOW what I'm really going to have to do is cut all of these down, remove all the unused wiring, and then trace these light wires all the way to that friggin relay under the hood and find the break. Or just run new wiring for the lights altogether.
Do some more poking around under the hood where the relay is. Find more coiled up and terminated wire looms blocking access to the relay socket. Realize that all needs to come out, too.
Remember that while I'm in there, because I see it sitting there, taped off, that the Dodge dealership also disconnected my wiring to the Bosch fuel pump from the aftermarket computer for tuning fuel injection. Add that to the growing "wiring day" list of things to fix.
Also remember that my fuel pressure gauge was accidentally disconnected somewhere during the head gasket job and wasn't reconnected. Yeah, add that to the "wiring fix" list.
Sun is now setting. Temps are going to drop 30 degrees.
Wrap wires up around light brackets and call it a day. This is going to take many more hours some other day. I created the "truck electrical day from hell" to-do list item.
And all I wanted to do was swap two lamps for two others. Ha. I knew I should have just gone flying instead.
