Loud & Low 8th Gen Civic - UBL #3 - The Final Chapter - Up to date

[scooter99]

Time for the front. Found about the only decent spot for entrance. It's right next to the brake line, and there's plenty of space back there. So I drilled it out.

Cut the flex where I needed.

Got the cable slid in there and we're ready to flex and shrink it and be done.

Threw some brackets on it to secure it down.

See how it comes through. Good spot. SO much under there that is mechanical and turns and moves I was afraid to bring it up from the bottom.

Then painted it all black.

Next it's time to get the fuse holders all ready to mount. God damn those are sexy!!

First of the brackets getting prepped and ready to go in.

Color matched. Doesn't have clear on it, so it's not as shiny as the car, but it matches.

You can see it's hooked up and ready for the power feed.

Mounted up and tight. . I added a third rivet on the bottom of the bracket. That did the trick. It was a little loosey goosey before!

Ground down the paint under the bracket, and put the ground on, and tightened the oem tray down.

Added the new tray. This thing is nice and stout and flat now. Very happy with how this came out. Only thing that might have been better would've been if I knew how to weld and welded it together instead of riveted it together. But it came out beautifully in my opinion considering what I had to work with.

Now the battery is in. Ready to get wired up tomorrow.

So I had a pretty productive day all in all. I'm happy with progress for half a day.

Tomorrow, I'll have to remake a cable, not a problem, and then put the pieces back together up front here. I'm going to also see about doing the grounds while I have her up in the air, although I forgot to do the passenger side yesterday. But I'm down to about a foot of 2/0 left. So I can either do the driver side, while it's in the air, and order 10 - 15 more feet, or I can just use double 1/0 instead. I'll have to decide that. If I have to wait to do them, I'll just order 2/0. Jon usually gets it to me pretty fast.

That's it for now folks thanks for tuning in. After tomorrow, I'll be back on the trunk and the enclosure. But tomorrow is my last day of vacation. Thursday I go start the new job, and things are going to slow way down. I think. I'm going to try and get an hour here and an hour there in every day, but it's just going to depend on the house needs.

MORE TO COME!!!

[scooter99]

Good progress today. Finished up the front of the car. Feeling pretty good.

Let's get onto some pics.

Time to get this cross member piece in. Remember those holes?

This is what they're for. Make sense yet?

I picked up some of this weather stripping, so I could put on the edges of the aluminum where the cables come in contact. They have the techflex on them, but I just don't want to take any chances.

This one goes over the radiator hose.

Screwed it down in place.

Time to address the fuse holder bracket.

I removed the inner plexi of the holders. I couldn't get to the inner fuse screws with them on. The holders are too close together.

More stripping.

Then after putting it in, realized that it was almost sitting on the cables, so I thought I'd just put some on the bottom of the bracket too.

Boom! I kind of like this picture. It's like those cables under there are kind of like Peek-a-boooo!!!

Fuse holder for the run to the back.

Installed the front holder. This on is for the run to the front battery.

[scooter99]

Cables installed. Looks good to me!

Then I put the covers on. This bracket is done! Those things are soooo sexy! I love them!

Now you see what the zip ties on the cross member were for!

Look from the side.

Then I got the other cable run to the rear holder installed and the cover put on.

Connected the battery up and we're all good! We have power!

Painted ECU cover on.

Fuse panel cover on.

Then an overall view with the front cowl on and the cables finished up. Also the wire cover on the top of the engine that was painted is on too. Finished look!

See the cables on the bottom still peaking through the plexi! Looks soo much better in person!

Finished look of the battery area.

THIS PART OF THE PROJECT IS OFFICIALLY DONE!!! Well I need to clean the engine, which I did but didn't take pics yet. I'll do that tomorrow.

[scooter99]

Like an infomercial thought, "But wait there's more!"

While I was cleaning up I did a little bit to the rear deck trim piece. Check it out.

I didn't really like how the trim was starting out. So I had a different idea to go about it.

I decided to cut the radius out where the speaker grills go, and the area in between.

Like so

traced that area on some 1/4" mdf.

And cut it out.

Obviously this was the mdf that I used for painting my aluminum brackets. LOL But this is basically what I was looking for.

I put it back in the car, and traced out the port from under it. That was all I had time for tonight.

I'll continue on another day. Tomorrow I'm going to work on cleaning up the shop. It's an absolute disaster right now. I can't work under these conditions!!!

The idea for the panel though, is that I'll make a panel for the rear deck to go in there. Cut out the port area and leave it back from the port opening a bit. Then I can put some walls up around it, and make a separate panel, that I can put grill cloth over. This will hide the port, while not obstructing it, and then if I need to pull it out to show it, Then I just lift the grill piece. More to come on this!

[scooter99]

Ok so I have not been completely stopped here, only too busy to post pictures. So here we go. The latest update.

I had to fix the trunk with my new job, as you can see by the post here from my build log: "I did get scolded yesterday though cause of how heavy my trunk is. I took the springs out, recall, so I could do the enclosure and port. Well I haven't gotten the actuator up and running yet with switches. So I get searched when I leave work, it's a prison, and I park inside. Well they said if I don't get it fixed I can't park in there anymore until I do, because the trunk is too heavy to lift daily. Pussies!! Anyway, so tonight and tomorrow I'm going to work on that. Cause it's a 15-20 minute walk to where i work from outside the gate." So here's what I did to correct that.

First thing I had to do was do some testing.

Got some pieces together to try out the relays and get things to work. Some did and some didn't but we'll go through that. Got my battery, actuator, piece of plywood for a temp mount, soldering iron and things, a drill, some screws, a heat gun and a soda

Then some wire, heat shrink, relays, barrier strips, connectors, and a slew of other things. The Pink towel adds flavor!

Ok first lets get the relays out and get them attached to the board.

Next the barrier strip was added.

Got some wiring done, yes even my test equipment is soldered. Power to the "ignition switch, ground, and the two leads to the "30" pins on the relays. This will be the up and down connections.

Ignition switch test.

It works! I wired it up so that the led comes on when the switch comes on. These are normally closed type switches. There are 5 pins on the back. The outer pins are + and - for the led halo. Then there's a "C1" (common), an "NC1" (Normally Closed), and an "NO" (Normally open). With the switch in the up or resting position, it's in the NC position. When the button is pressed to the on position (or in), it's in the Normally Open position. For those of you who are thinking of getting these switches, it's not a two pin product. There's some thought that has to go into these. Well for me there was anyway.

So next I added the power for the momentary switches.

Next from the switches, it gets a lead out from the N/O pin to the 86 pin for one direction, and the 85 pin for the other direction. The other 85 and 86 pins, as well as both 87a pins get grounded while both 87 pins get 12v constant (or as I did a switched power to only operate while on). Here's the link for the diagram: http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relaydiagram49.html

Pushing one momentary button, I didn't hook up the led halos on these, the actuator extends.

Pushing the other one, it retracts. NOW, the other 4 relays. I was going to try and turn the momentary switch in to a constant, by using relays (2 per direction). But I don't think the actuators have a cut off on the power when they get to their limit, as well as, I don't think I want to push them to that limit. So I decided to nix that idea.

[scooter99]

Now it's time to put this together in a neat little box! Couple of relays.

Some CA glue

And we have an instant bond!

Let's get to soldering. Started off with the power wire. The green piece is half of a 2 part wiring system for screw down terminals. You'll see it later on.

Got a fuse in there. 15a, should be fine for one, but not sure if two actuators will work with that. I'm going to have to see. I'm planning to run two actuators off this one box. If it doesn't work, I'll obviously have to make a second box.

Got the power and ground runs done now.

Then the up and down wires. One orange one purple. These are from the switches into the relays.

Then I did the switched out of the relays which will go to the actuators. Again there are 4 terminals, 2 up's, and 2 down's. In case you're not able to follow it.

Then I got the dremel out and cut a nice little slot for the terminal.

And this is how it'll sit. Fits nice and snug. SNUG is the operative word here. It's a good tight fit!!

But never the less, let's get some ca glue in there to hold it in place.

Then CA glue on the terminal to hold it in place. There is the other side that plugs into it. Now I can wire this up, off the box, and then plug it in if I want to. Depending on space. It clips right on nice and tight.

Also did the inside. It's not going anywhere. Overkill much?!?!

[scooter99]

There is the terminal on. Ready to be wired up!

Nice little package.

Let's get to work on the switches. This is the existing radio dash kit. You see that wasted pocket under the head unit? Yeah we're gonna make good use of that space.

First I had to strip the dash apart, this is always fun.

Then get the pocket out. Seemed like a lot of work just to remove that thing. But it had to be done for the wiring too.

Now tape up where i want to cut so I could draw a straight line. Then go to work with the air saw.

Viola!!! Half the pocket it used to be!

Next it was time to use the jig saw and mdf.

Made a drawing of the inside frame of the pocket.

and cut it out.

I used the air sander to sand down the rough edges a bit. It fit pretty good for not much effort.

I marked out my button placement.

and drilled it out.

[scooter99]

I'm already liking what i see. 5 switches, from left to right, on/off Main, momentary trunk pop, momentary up button, momentary down button, and then on/off eld bypass.

Mixed a couple rounds of body filler. I only took pics of the first one though. OOPS.

Some sanding. and now it's time to prime it.

Rust-oleum filler primer. Love this stuff!!!

First coat on.

While that dried I got the wires cut and ready for prepping the switches.

I soldered each wire to the proper pin.

Then used heat shrink to protect each one.

After a second coat of primer, it was time to get some black on it. This is primer plus paint flat black.

2nd coat of primer ready for the black.

Coat 1. It's actually inside because it was cold outside, and I set up a little heater, which you can't really see in the top of the pic, and I set it like this so the heat would go around it and not directly beat on it to help dry. Worked out nicely!

Got all my switches soldered up and ready to wire when the panel is done.

I also made a couple of wire harnesses. This one is for the front to back run for the trunk actuator.

Twisted it up with the drill. In case you don't know how to do this, it's pretty simple and cleans things up nicely. If you have a vise, like in the previous pic, (if not you can use anything to hold the wires in one place and tight, i've had my daughter hold it before) put the wires in there, and then the other end in the drill and tighten the chuck down. Walk back till the wires are taught, and pull the trigger. Don't think it matters the direction of the drill (forward or reverse). It makes this.

But I wanted more, so I flexed and heat shrinked it too.

[scooter99]

Then I made the harness for the eld bypass.

Harnesses, switches, and panel are ready to go.

Switches just sitting in there. I really liked how the black come out, but I decided to clear coat it with some matte clear coat, and effed it up.

So, carbon fiber vinyl it is!

Not as clean as the black to me, but I like it still. And it's a little rough in this picture, but in the end it'll clean up well.

I used a 19mm deep socket to get the switch nuts tight.

With all the switches in, it's time to wire them up.

Bypass with molex connector on the harness.

All the other wires were soldered together and ready for a second molex connector.

Time to install it.

For the actuator, I decided to use some 1/4x20 threaded rod and some nuts and washers and nylon locking nuts.

On the arm

[scooter99]

Nut on both sides tightened up.

Then washer, actuator arm, another washer, and a nylon locking nut. This allows for the arm to move without moving the rod or the nuts and not loosen things up.

For the mount to the fender well, I needed something stronger. I used a piece of 1/2" thick by 1" aluminum stock.

marked and drilled out a few holes

Then tapped the center hole with a 1/4x20 tap.

Using threaded rivnuts I screwed it in place.

Not a great picture, but it was basically the same process as the trunk arm. Nut to lock it in place to the aluminum stock, then another nut, for spacing, then a washer, the actuator, another washer, and then a nylon locking nut.

Then I got the relay box in place and wired it up.

Put the dash back together, and fired it up. It's alive!!!! That's not really the time and date btw. I just plugged it back in and I still needed to set it.

I couldn't find the trunk popping wire for the alarm, so for now I'll have to do it this way, with the trunk pop lever.

Pushing the up button

It goes up

Pushing the down button, and it goes down. Forgot the down pic but you get the idea.