I wanted to replace the accelerator rod setup on my 64 Econoline with a cable one so I built this very simple adapter to use the existing pedal assembly, since these photos I have changed the washer and spring setup to look a little neater but it works incredibly well.
I fitted a pair of Rivnuts to the front valence and bolted the bracket to them, the original pedal arm on the assembly rests on the bracket and I used a bolt to attach the cable end and spring to the original assembly arm.
This is the bracket, its very simple but effective!
This post is about my personal experience with fitting the D&D brake and master cylinder conversion kits on an early ford Econoline, it is not a guide and I take no responsibility for anything you learn here. I fitted this with a mate and couldn’t have done it alone.
Overall I am very pleased with the kits, my van now stops straight and perfectly everytime I feel so much safer driving it however the instructions are somewhat lacking and miss a few key points.
General Notes:
I chose to powder coat my brackets, they are well made items but unpainted and personally I don’t want mine rusting away under the van.
DO NOT USE A PRESS for any of the installation, it isn’t needed and will do more damage than good.
Disk conversion kit:
1. If you press the studs out of the drums you risk destroying the hubs, so remove the drums you will need to cut the “Swage” from around the studs, to do this I used a bench drill with a 5/8″ hole cutter and the pilot drill removed, I ran the stud inside the hole saw and it cut the studs out perfectly. But make sure you don’t go too far as you will either damage the hubs or shatter the hole saw.
Once these are drilled out tap the hub from the drum with a hammer.
2. It is imperative that the holes in the Jeep disks are 5/8″ unfortunately due to manufacturing tollerances this cannot be assumed so ream or drill out these holes to 5/8″ (16mm) mine were close but not all uniformed. The kit would not assemble correctly without drilling these out.
3. Do not press the new studs in, tap them in with a hammer, in fact you don’t need a press for this kit at all! If you press them in you risk damaging the hubs and shattering the new disks.
I would suggest laying a wheel on the bench, assembling the components (studs, disks and hubs) tapping the studs through and tightening them up with wheel nuts, this will make sure that the whole lot goes together true.
4. While you have your van in the air and in pieces clean your suspension components and grease your kingpins, it will significantly improve the ride.
5. The recommended brake hoses do not fit they are too short, we simply relocated the the brackets to the chassis and welded them in however I am told that the 4WD S10 Blazer flexi’s are longer and may work.
The completed disk conversion with relocated flexi hose bracket:
Master cylinder kit:
1. With the supplied cylinder the larger port goes to the rear brakes this at the rear of the vehicle when fitted and the smaller to the front (the one at the pushrod end). D&D supply a short adapter hose for the rear brakes which we put a proportioning valve on and ran straight to the rears but in theory you don’t need this and could just use a straight coupler.
If I were to do this again though I’d use a T-piece sending one line to the rears and one to a brake pressure switch binning the mechanical switch supplied.
The front outlet comes with an adapter to make it work with a standard inverted flare 3/8 fitting which I ran to a T-piece sending one line left and one right.
2. The aluminium turned caps just need pushing into the master cylinder gently until you feel resistance, they don’t need to be pushed all the way in as it’s a low pressure feed, try to source angled hose barbs for these. I cut down straight ones.
3. I fitted my resorvoir in the cab, I drilled a couple of holes in the cab floor and ran the hoses up to a resorvoir behind the front panel.
You need brake feeder pipe between the reservoir and the master cylinder, do not use fuel hose or anything else it will perish. I bought aircooled vw beetle hoses as they are readily available but summit do sell it.
Make sure there are no kinks or tight bends in the hose so the fluid can fall down to the master cylinder.
4. My pedal free play was massive, I understand there should be around 1mm free play at the master cylinder but even with the eccentric nut this was too much giving a very floppy pedal, We added 5mm to the pushrod by welding a section of M8 bolt shaft in which solved it. Obviously you may not have this issue and if you do you’d need to calculate the correct length yourself.
5. Bleeding, bleeding bloody bleeding! when fitting these kits I replaced everything front and back, shoes, pipes, cylinders, flexi’s the lot which meant lots of air and bleeding was an absolute ass, we ended up backfeeding fluid with a syring into the front lines to get it to start bleeding so I’d suggest following the advice and bench bleeding the MC beforehand.
Completed master cylinder kit:
I hope this post helps someone as this is a great way to add some stopping power to your 1961-67 Econoline.
After successfully running for 18 months my SD card failed probably due to the amount of mysql data read/writes. Luckily it failed read only so I didn’t loose too much data however I decided to start fresh using rasbian stretch and an external mysql table on a traditional drive (Not an SD Card) so here is a little guide of what I did again it assumes you have no mouse, keyboard or monitor attached and is correct as of December 2017
Prepare the Pi:
1. Download the latest Raspbean Stretch Image and Using your favourite method, prepare your SD card using the downloaded image for the Pi (I used Etcher on my laptop).
2. Add an empty file to the boot folder called “SSH”
3. Plug an ethernet cable into the Pi and connect to a router serving DHCP and Boot your Pi using the newly prepared SD card.
4. Using a network scanner (or login to your router) to determine the IP address of your Pi, I use fing on my smartphone.
5. Log into the pi using SSH in OSX type
SSH pi@IP Address
and use the password “raspberry”
6. type
sudo raspi-config
Change User Password – Follow Prompts to set a new password
Localisation Options – set your timezone and wifi country which will be assigned depending on the IP address jiofi.local.html service provides you.
Interfacing options > Serial – Turn OFF serial prompt but turn ON Serial Hardware
Interfacing options > VNC – Disable VNC Server as using tightVNC
Exit raspi-config and reboot when prompted.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade -y
Configure VNC:
1. to Install VNC Viewer type
sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
2. If you want to change the VNC port type
sudo nano /usr/bin/vncserver
find the line
$vncPort = 5900 + $displayNumber;
and change 5900 to the port you want to use, I use 59000 which equated to 59001 in real life. Press Ctrl>X, Y, Enter to save and exit nano
3. To make VNC run from boot you need to create a script, type
save and exit nano, reboot and VNC should now run from startup!
4. You can now connect to your Pi using VNC! so VNC into your Pi and set a static IP using the network settings GUI in the top right of the screen and reboot, the next few steps can be done through SSH or terminal in VNC its up to you.
Configure Webserver and PhpMyadmin:
As I am initially only using the RPi to collect sensor data and write it to an external mysql table and web server I have skipped this step but left its heading in.
I used my Synology NAS and installed MariaDB and web station (Apache)
Setup Shares:
1. we are going to setup samba shares to make moving scripts etc easier, so install samba
sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin -y
2. once installed type
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
scroll down and make sure you have the correct workgroup (I just use WORKGROUP) and that Wins Support is enabled.
3. to be safe you should only add your pi user so type
smbpasswd -a
and enter your desired password, if you do want to add the root user type
5. You should now be able to connect to these shares using standard UNC paths from your windows or macintosh computers
Setup the “Slice of Radio” (Wireless message bridge)
Because of a change to the way the Pi 3 uses Uart, we need a workaround to get the Slice of radio working.
1. type
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
and add
# Change device tree to enable slice of radio
dtoverlay=pi3-miniuart-bt
to the end of the file then reboot
sudo reboot
If you haven’t installed your slice of radio yet, shut down your Pi and fit it
sudo shutdown 0 otherwise reboot the Pi sudo reboot
3. next we need to setup your radios, If you’ve already done this skip to step 5 otherwise dowload launchpad from github and copy it to your pi, this is a collection of gui python scripts used to configure your wireless sensors. I have put mine in home/pi/launchpad using vnc in terminal run
gksudo python LaunchPad.py
to fire it up. (using gksudo rather than sudo fixes display 0.0 errors caused by running X programs on VNC, you may not need this if using a monitor.)
4. In LaunchPad, Click on message bridge and hit start wait a minute, then click on Configuration wizard (If this is a rebuild rather than fresh install you can skip configuration and just install minicom to check the sensors are responding)then select “serial” in the next window you can configure your sensors, press the configure button on a sensor for one second, wait for it to communicate with wireless bridge and follow the on screen setup, repeat for each sensor. Once you are finished exit LaunchPad
5. next we install minicom to test communication with your sensors is working correctly so type
sudo apt-get install minicom -y
once installed we need to run
minicom -b 9600 -o -D /dev/ttyAMA0
This will open minicom and if all is well you will see your sensors responding, remember they will only report as often as you have told them to so you may need to be patient! Exit minicom when you are happy that the sensors are responding.
Ctrl A, X
BACKUP your SD Card:
At this point I’d recommend backing up your SD card image and archiving it, also I would suggest a Cron job to backup any scripts you write to an external destination.
Summary
That is kind of it for configuration, you now have a Pi 3 running the latest Raspbian, you have sensors attached and reporting,.
Originally I followed this project to get me going http://www.lourenco.eu/temperature/instructions.html but I have since ditched it in place of my own version.
I recently discovered the Synology community which contains some excellent packages to enhance the capability of a Synology NAS however although listed the “beets” package doesn’t appear on my DS215j so after doing some digging and figuring out an easy way to install it I thought I’d share that knowledge.
I take no responsibility for damage to your system I am just sharing what I have learned.
First using package centre ensure python is installed on your NAS (I am using “python” from the community repo but “python3” should work aswell) and that telnet (not recommended) or SSH access is enabled.
Once this is done you can install beets by typing sudo pip install beets then install requests (for fetchart to work) by typing sudo pip install requests
beets is now installed, to check its working type beet version this will return the beets and python version numbers and any active plugins (There won’t be any yet!)
Next we need to edit the beets config type beet config -p this will tell you the location of the config file you’ll need to copy this and edit it off the synology to edit it.
type cp /var/services/homes/admin/.config/beets/config.yaml /volume1/music/config.yaml to copy the blank file into the music folder, using my PC I edited the file to contain this: (You will need to edit this to reflect your folder structure and where you want the files to live!)
Once edited save the file on the NAS in “music” and run the following cp /volume1/music/config.yaml /var/services/homes/admin/.config/beets/config.yaml this will overwrite the blank config file with the one in “music”.
You can now import your files, I have around 100GB of music in /volume1/music/old so I ran beet import /volume1/music/old -qg this automatic import took a long time (Several hours) and imported around 45GB of files, running beet import /volume1/music/old -qg imported another 10GB relatively quickly (A couple of hours)
Unfortunately once the Autotagging has run you’ll need to do a manual import and search to import the rest of the files using the command beet import /volume1/music/old once this starts you will be prompted to import media, unfortunately this process in laborious but its the price you’ll pay for an organised media collection. The one really useful feature missing from beets would be for an option to automatically skip duplicates but prompt for everything else!
Here is my latest acquisition (RCA 323B), I sold the Cortina and bought this 64 Econoline, its the second I’ve owned and was originally a 240ci straight six with a 9″ rear but is now a 302 V8 with C4 automatic from a Mach 1 Mustang.
I have been working to finish it, make safe and do a good job of. It’s taken a hell of a lot longer than I expected for a “running road legal vehicle” but there was so much that needed doing/redoing to make it safe, I’ve pretty much finished the engine mechanical side but it still needs allot of work and at some point an interior and paint.
Here are a few pictures, it’s pretty bare atm with little to no interior but it goes like a rocket and is noisy as all hell it came in on its US plate (58 129 T).
After all the issues migrating Wheezy over I decided to start from scratch with the Pi 3 and my wirelessthings sensors. This guide is pretty poorly written but is step by step everything I did. it assumes you have no mouse, keyboard or monitor attached.
This post is correct as of the 9th of april 2016
Prepare the Pi:
1. Download the latest Raspbean Jessie Image and Using your favourite method, prepare your SD card using the downloaded image for the Pi (I used Apple Pi Baker other GUIs are available).
2. Plug an ethernet cable into the Pi and connect to a router serving DHCP and Boot your Pi using the newly prepared SD card.
3. Using a network scanner (or login to your router) to determine the IP address of your Pi, I use fing on my smartphone.
4. Log into the pi using SSH in OSX type
SSH pi@IP Address
and use the password “raspberry”
5. type
sudo raspi-config
select Internationalisation Options and set your timezone then go into Advanced options and turn ON serial! Exit raspi-config and reboot your Pi when prompted
It is good practice to expand your filesystem at this point however I haven’t found raspi-config GUI very good at this so run:
raspi-config --expand-rootfs and reboot when finished
6. SSH back into your pi run:
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade -y
7. Change the default password! type
passwd
and enter your old password followed by your new one as prompted!
Configure VNC:
1. to Install VNC Viewer type
sudo apt-get install tightvncserver
2. If you want to change the VNC port type
sudo nano /usr/bin/vncserver
find the line
$vncPort = 5900 + $displayNumber;
and change 5900 to the port you want to use, I use 59000 which equated to 59001 in real life. Press Ctrl>X, Y, Enter to save and exit nano
3. To make VNC run from boot you need to create a script, type
save and exit nano, reboot and VNC should now run from startup!
4. You can now connect to your Pi using VNC! so VNC into your Pi and set a static IP using the network settings GUI in the top right of the screen and reboot, the next few steps can be done through SSH or terminal in VNC its up to you.
If you haven’t installed your slice of radio yet, shut down your Pi and fit it
sudo shutdown 0 otherwise reboot the Pi sudo reboot
3. next we need to setup your radios, If you’ve already done this skip to step 5 otherwise dowload launchpad from wirelessthings and copy it to your pi, this is a collection of gui python scripts used to configure your wireless sensors. I have put mine in home/pi/launchpad using vnc in terminal run
gksudo python LaunchPad.py
to fire it up. (using gksudo rather than sudo fixes display 0.0 errors caused by running X programs on VNC, you may not need this if using a monitor.)
4. In LaunchPad, Click on message bridge and hit start wait a second, then click on Configuration wizard (ignore the message stating “Message bridge not found”) then select “serial” in the next window you can configure your sensors, press the configure button on a sensor for one second, wait for it to communicate with wireless bridge and follow the on screen setup, repeat for each sensor. Once you are finished exit LaunchPad
5. next we install minicom to test communication with your sensors is working correctly so type
sudo apt-get install minicom -y
once installed we need to run
minicom -b 9600 -o -D /dev/ttyAMA0
This will open minicom and if all is well you will see your sensors responding, remember they will only report as often as you have told them to so you may need to be patient! Exit minicom when you are happy that the sensors are responding.
Ctrl A, X
BACKUP your SD Card:
At this point I’d recommend backing up your SD card image and archiving it:
Apache2 optimisation:
you can disable unused modules to speed up apache2, I disabled these but it’s made no difference.
Thats kind of it for configuration, you now have a Pi 3 running the latest Raspbian, you have sensors attached and reporting, you have a webserver installed, mysql, php and python so you can do with it what you like!
Originally I followed this project to get me going http://www.lourenco.eu/temperature/instructions.html but I have since ditched it in place of my own version.
Originally a 1600L this car had a 2ltr Sierra engine and type 9 gearbox professionally fitted around 10 years ago. Its a nippy car that Runs perfectly with a progresive webber and stainless exhaust.
Its stock height and besides the inertia seatbelts its the Original Interior, they are also the original wheels.
The suspension has been poly bushed and it has adjustable tension Gas Shocks fitted giving it great road handling compared to the standard cortina, however its still really comfortable for day to day driving.
It is in great condition generally and has been resprayed at some point in its life, it does need a small repair to a wing, one sill and rear arches (not MOT fails) but it comes with brand new sills and rear arch repair panels, I had planned on getting these done but never got round to it as they really aren’t that bad.
I wanted to add hot water temperature to my raspberry pi powered “Pimometer” but wirelessthings dont make a suitable XRF sensor.
I decided to buy a standard wirelessthings temperature sensor, unsoldered the thermistor and added a flying lead resoldering the thermistor to this, making sure to insulate the legs of the thermistor.
Luckily (or not) our hot water cylinder has no insulation around the immersion heater at the top of the tank, using some thermal paste i attached it to the bare metal and taped it in place with some foil tape. I then added it to my pi and left it to get some readings.
The final step was making sure the readings are relatively accurate, using a thermometer under the hot water I compared the real life temperature to the readings on the pi and to my surprise they are are only a couple of degrees out so definitely accurate enough for what I need.
After seven days of data logging I lagged the hot water cylinder to see if there was any significant improvement in heat retention.
NOTE: When first testing this setup I didn’t use thermal paste, the readings were around 30% out which was nowhere near accurate enough, by adding the thermal paste and angling the bead of the thermistor it has improved this considerably.
This is not an exhaustive tutorial but it should explain roughly how I interfaced some “wirelessthings” wireless XRF temperature sensors and a “slice of radio” to my Raspberry Pi and logged data from them.
I will eventually get round to writing it properly.
To begin with I downloaded the lastest Raspian Wheezy, I know there are newer distributions available but I would stick with wheezy as they have changed the way to access the serial port.
Using Apple Pi Baker (a GUI SD card preparation application) I made the SD card ready for my Pi, put it in the Pi and booted with an ethernet cable plugged into my router.
SSH is installed by default on wheezy so I used fing to determine the Pi’s address on my network then used SSH with the user “pi” and password “raspberry”
I then updated the system and changed my password: Sudo apt-get update
Sudo apt-get upgrade
And installed VNC Server, The instructions here https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/vnc/ explain how to setup and install Tight VNC Server
Finally you need to get the sensors logging I approximately followed the instructions here http://www.lourenco.eu/temperature/instructions.html just editing the python script to accept the message format of the wirelessthings sensors.
btw you can make your script executable using chmod +x monitor.py and in the VNC instructions above it shows how to get a script to run at startup.
In theory your sensor data should now be appearing in the SQLITE DB from boot.
What you do with it all is now down to you, you can use SQL Lite Database Browser for GUI access to your DB, I installed apache2 with php and wrote a very simple page to pull data from the SQL.
The backlight on my Hog 1000 died, this is not surprising considering its age and the fact that backlights do eventually die! Sadly the inverter and cold cathode tube for this console are no longer available so I decided to replace it with some LED strip!
I first removed the main PCB then the LCD, I de-soldered the inverter and took the cold cathode tube out of the casing.
I removed the foil that covered the tube and slid a strip of daylight LED tape into the aluminum holder (covering the terminals on the tape and the cable where it exits) with some PVC tape.
Finally I found a12vdc supply from the rear PCB and I put the console back together!
It works a treat and is very bright, you can’t control how bright it is from the console anymore and it doesn’t automatically switch off when the console is inactive but beggars cannot be choosers and it works brilliantly!
To get around the dimming issue I have ordered a 12v LED dimmer switch online and plan to fit it just under one of the wooden side panels. I did consider taking a feed from the other LCD backlights so that they dimmed and turned off together in the end I decided it was safer to leave them as they were and not fiddle too much!
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