Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

The front badge is a NOS unit so came already painted but the red was a bit patchy and faded from many years in storage.

Mrs Flash gave it a fresh coat and it now looks minty.

[Flash]

Late last week we did a town run and I was able to source the stainless steel nuts, bolts and washers that I needed to complete the a/c condenser installation.

Chucked the freshly painted brackets back on and took one last photo of the condenser in the light of day.

Managed to wriggle under the van and wrestle the works into position.

Not easy to photograph, but you get the idea.

Next up is the mounting of the receiver/drier bottle.

 

 

[Flash]

Well, strap yourselves in for an absolutely epic comedy of errors.

Yesterday just after lunch we got a call to say that something that we had ordered was ready for pickup in town. It being a relatively coolish day with a slight breeze we decided to take the Thames rather than the air-conditioned Mustang. So, Mrs Flash, our we dog and I headed off. On the way back from picking up our parcel we were navigating through the back streets of town when the Thames cut out. I managed to coast into a handy parking bay. Lifted the engine lid and checked the glass fuel bowl on the fuel filter - plenty of gas so I knew it wasn't that. Pulled the dizzy cap off and gave her a crank over. Sure enough no spark at the points. Okay I thought it's either a dodgy condenser or coil. Luckily, I was only a block away from the local Toyota aftermarket parts specialist so I figured I was in with a good chance of sourcing a new condenser. And yet .... nyett ... none in stock the bloke says - WTF. "Try Repco around the corner mate" he says.

So off to Repco I go and, yes, they have a condenser in stock .... winner.

Okay, now all I need is a stubby Philips screwdriver and a pair of pliers and I'm home and hosed.

Repco had a stubby so I grabbed that.

But they wanted moonbeams for a set of pliers, so I passed on those. Went back to the Toyota place as I had spotted a pair of pliers on sale there. Grabbed these puppies and headed on back to the van.

So now comes the easy part. Loosen the condenser off the dizzy body with the stubby screwdriver ... tick. Loosen the nut off the dizzy through bolt with the pliers .... tick. Make sure I don't drop the nut and spring washer as I remove them ... tick. 

In my haste I forgot that the outer part of the little plastic isolator is loose once the nut is off, so ..... yes ..... you've guessed it in one .... numpty here manages to drop the little isolator down into the bowels of the engine bay ....... but not just anywhere .... no, no that would have been too easy. It manages to hit the sweet spot right between the a/c compressor bracket and the engine block. Like right down where the red arrow is pointing in the following photo:

Now that bracket has three sides to it so there is no way that you can get to the dropped part except from above. The gap is probably about 15mm wide and about 50mm deep. I could clearly see the part, but do you think I could get to it. To make matters worse the engine is nice and toasty so that just added to my overall feelings of happiness and joy.

Okay so off to Repco I go and I figure a magnetic pickup isn't going to help me as the part is plastic, but maybe one of those claw-like grabbers will work. 

 

Back to the van with my claw thingy and guess what ....... the thing is too wide to fit in the gap. Jeeez !

Okay, so after a bit of head scratching, I go across the road to one of those small convenience stores and luckily they sell a pack of blu-tac. Back to the van with my blu-tac. Stick it on the end of my new claw thingy. Poke it down into the gap and ........ the end of the thingy where the claw lives is too big to go in the gap and I'm about 30mm short of my target.

Time for Plan B, I think. So what if I plug the gap where the plastic isolator is supposed to go with some blu-tac. Maybe that will stop the wire from earthing on the dizzy body just long enough for us to limp home. Shoved some blu-tac about the place. Closed up the dizzy and gave it a whirl. She fired straight up. Winner!

Started to pull off and she was running like a bag of dicks then she cut out. Obviously my blu-tac band aid wasn't cutting the mustard. By this stage it's dusk and the homeless types are starting to hit the streets and a few start giving us the eye, so Mrs Flash and I call it quits and I give Steve the towie a buzz.

Luckily he wasn't far away and nek minnit ....  

What an undignified end to the day for the poor ol Thames.

Fast forward to this morning and armed with a thin rod and a piece of blu-tac I make quick work of retrieving this puppy:

Who was very chuffed to be re-united with his mate:

Put it all back together and she fired straight up.

So, I'm left wondering whether it is actually the condenser or perhaps my coil is on its way out and is okay now that it has cooled down. Time will tell I guess, but needless to say I've now put together a pack of basic tools that will live in the van together with a few rags and some wet wipes. I've also added a spare dizzy cap and coil to my emergency pack, and I think I'll invest in a spare condenser and maybe some points. Long term plan is to convert to electronic distributor, but hopefully I can keep things going until then.

And so endeth my tale of woe.

Thanks for reading. 

 

[Flash]

I'm back on the a/c install.

Today's task was to build a mounting bracket for my receiver/drier bottle, which is all done now, and I'll show you it in all its glory once the paint has dried, but in between coats I thought I'd tackle the a/c compressor inlet and outlet swaps.

So, when I grabbed the compressor from my local wreckers I nabbed the inlet and outlet hoses at the same time.

 

There are two issues with these hoses.

First up the hard portion of the lines bend towards the side and wont clear the chassis leg on my van. Secondly both lines face forwards which makes sense for a standard a/c install where the condenser sits forward of the engine but in my case where my condenser is mounted underneath and towards the back of the van, I need the appropriate hose to face rearwards.

I was able to solve both issues by sourcing a set of pad to o'ring adapters specifically for the Denso compressor.

After giving the o'rings a bit of lube I was able seat them in their new home:

And that's the compressor all done until I start fabricating my hoses.

 

 

 

[Flash]

I promised to share my receiver/drier mounting bracket efforts with you all, so here goes.

The plan is to locate the drier in the RHS front fender well tucked up above the chassis leg. I decided to make use of the existing bolt holes that mount the coil in the engine bay because if I do go to an electronic distributor sometime in the future the coil will become redundant leaving me with empty holes which will mess with my OCD.

So the first step was to carve a little flat plate out of a steel offcut, and I then poked a few holes in said plate.

Test mounted like so:

The eagle eyed amongst you will likely spot the hydraulic clutch hard line that sits slightly proud of the side even although it has its own factory formed channel to live in, hence the need for the mounting / spacer plate.

Next step was to fizz a bit of square tube to my newly carved mounting plate and after a spritz of satin black I ended up with this puppy:

I've left it to dry overnight, and I'll assemble it all in the morning.

 

 

 

[Flash]

First thing this morning I fixed my newly fabricated receiver bottle mounting bracket to the bought one with a few stainless-steel fixings. Screwed in the pressure switch and she is ready to go. 

Grovelled around in the wheel well with a few spanners, and then:

Next on the list is the under-dash unit.

 

[Flash]

Okay, so whilst a big part of me just wants to concentrate on finishing off the a/c install, I've realised that there are a few dashboard related items that need to be addressed before I fit the under dash a/c unit.

First up you may recall that we deleted the factory glove box and filled the opening with housings for some additional gauges. Photo of what we currently have which while functional looks bloody awful:

A few months of driving around with phones, sunnies, wallets and various other bits and pieces either sliding off the engine cover lid every time we take a corner or languishing in the passenger footwell has become tiring. So, a decision has been taken to reinstate the glove box and move the gauges elsewhere. But more about this later.

The more pressing matter is the current windscreen wiper setup which only really got used in anger two weeks back when we had the first rains in about 6 months. They managed a trip into town, but on the way home they suddenly seized up. Luckily the worst of the rain was over by then, but still this needs to be addressed now as it will be a real bugger to access the wipers once the under dash a/c unit has been mounted.

So, without further ado, I pulled the wiper mechanism out to see what is going on.

Yep, that doesn't look to flash. Now I had noticed a bit of play in the original wiper spindles particularly the passenger side one which I stupidly decided to ignore at the time and it looks to me like the spindle in question snagged up and the resulting torque of the motor did the rest of the damage.

With a bit of effort, I could probably re-bush the units, but the second issue is that the splines have taken some hits over the years and since the wiper arms are just push on units the fit feels a bit dodgy. The answer would be to source a set of pivots in better condition, but what are my chances of finding good ones especially considering the vast majority of used parts would come from the UK where rain is slightly more common an occurrence than here in Straya. So, my chances of finding replacement Thames pivots are probably nil.

The third issue is that the tubby 2 speed wiper motor that I have fitted to replace the original svelte looking vacuum unit now clashes with the glove box inner, so I'll need to modify the inner to clear the motor. The chances of my 60-year-old cardboard glove box inner surviving nip and tuck surgery are slim.

So considering all of the above I've decided to take a different route and it just so happens that I have this mechanism out of a Mitsi SD series L300 van languishing in the shed.

 

Way back when I was stripping my donor vans, I noticed that the SD series mechanism shared the exact dimensions with the Thames and at the time I did successfully do a test fit of the L300 unit which bolted straight up, but at the time I thought the Thames one was a simpler option as I didn't have to shorten the wiper blade arms. Checking out this mechanism the spindles are mint, just needed a bit of lube to make them perfect.

I bolted it into the van and apart from having to shorten the blade arms and fabricate a bracket for the wiper motor, the only other issue is that the LHS "conrod" hits the metal seam where the windscreen surround butts up to the front panel. Even although the seam is hidden under the dash I don't want to butcher it. Luckily the L300 spindles are a lot longer than the Thames units so my cunning plan is to make up a spacer for each pivot that will space the "conrods" away from the seam.

Not too much of an issue I reckon. so I started off by making up the first spacer out of an offcut:

Poked a few more locating holes and trimmed to suit:

Have given it a splash of galv paint which I've left drying overnight. If the test fit works out okay I'll make up a second one for the driver's side.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Started the morning off by fitting the freshly painted spacer to the LHS wiper spindle and then bolted the mechanism in place.

Managed to get a clear shot of the factory seam that I was talking about yesterday:

As you can see the factory had already trimmed the seam in the area of the spindles and I'm guessing that was done to provide the needed clearance for the Thames spindles, but just wasn't enough for the L300 ones.

As you can see in the below photos there is still plenty of depth to the spindles even with my extra spacer.

I'm liking the rubber seals and shaped washers that came with the L300 units. If the Thames units ever had rubber seals, they are long gone.

As can be seen the splines and threads are also in perfect nick.

With the spacer in place I chucked one of the L300 wiper arms on and Mrs Flash held the manky old wiper blade slightly off the windscreen while I climbed under the dash and manually manipulated the mechanism. The good news is that the LHS wiper sweep looks to be really good. The angle on the L300 wiper arm looks good, but the L300 blade is too long and goes well over the windscreen seal. Should be easy enough to source shorter wiper blades.

Spurred on with the success so far, I proceeded to make up a spacer for the RHS spindle.

In order to explain why my spacers have the extra little locating holes on either side of the spindle hole I'll share this photo of the original L300 front panel that I kept when I wrecked that van:

My guess is that they prevent the spindle backing plate from rotating by holding it firmly in place.

Anyway, a quick "in progress" shot of the next spacer which has now been completed and has received its first coat of galv paint, so I thought I'd update you all on progress while the paint is drying.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Next step from a windscreen wiper perspective would be to fabricate a mounting bracket for the L300 wiper motor. Now I'm thinking that I can fine tune the positioning of the motor by either shortening or lengthening this intermediate drive shaft.

And hopefully that shouldn't affect the sweep in any way. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

I figured it would be better to finalise the glove box and under dash a/c unit installation and I can then position the wiper motor in the space left over.

So the first step was to retrieve the dusty old glove box for closer inspection. It's a bit grubby but still looks functional.

The underside of the glove box has a nifty mounting bracket that looks like so:

The pointy end of the triangular bracket mounts up to a little bracket welded to the inside of the front panel with the longer side resting up under the lip on the dashboard, like so:

Now I'm thinking that refitting the glovebox has the added advantage of allowing me to use the same mounting bracket to support the under-dash a/c unit. But in order to do that I need to add some fixings to the dash lip to make the bracket more rigid for the additional weight. I poked two extra holes in the dash lip and added some stainless-steel self-tappers and it's nice and solid now.

Next step was to take a closer look at the mounting brackets supplied with the a/c unit:

Those definitely aren't going to work for me, so I spent a bit of time doing some CAD and came up with these:

Grabbed some 3mm plate that I had in stock. Did a bit of cutting, did a bit of bending, poked a few holes to replicate the mounting slot and I ended up with two of these:

And the plan is to bolt my newly fabricate brackets to the factory glove box bracket in more or less this configuration:

So, the plan for tomorrow is to mount the glove box bracket back in the van and then offer up the a/c unit so I can work out exactly where the holes for my mounting bolts need to go.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

And that's the holes drilled so that my a/c mounting brackets bolt up to the glove box bracket.

I wasn't happy with the puny looking rear mounting bracket that came in the a/c kit.

So, I spent a bit of time making up my own rear bracket in true "Rough & Ready Restos" fashion.

With all of the mounts completed I slapped the glove box bracket back in position and then bolted in the a/c unit.

I'm pretty chuffed with the result. It doesn't look too out of place.

The other good news is that the gas lines are located on the RHS of the unit which means that I can hopefully hide them behind this panel:

The panel currently hides the main wiring loom and a few additional circuits that I have recently added. I whipped it out to see how much space is left behind the panel.

Looks like I should be able to squeeze the a/c pipes in between the wiring loom and the front panel. I've still got a few additional circuits to add (including some a/c related wiring) before I can wrap my extra wiring loom, but hopefully that will neaten things up too.

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

By yesterday morning my freshly painted a/c mounting brackets were dry.

Quickly mounted the under-dash a/c unit for what is hopefully the final time and then set about working out my hose requirements so I can get my order in with Jeremy the a/c man before he closes up for the festive period.

As mentioned in one of my previous updates I was hoping to bring the hoses up into the cabin behind the false panel that covers the wiring loom, but on looking underneath the van a portion of the underside of the floor is made up of a hollow structural brace that I'm loath to drill through. So, the only option is to bring the hose up on the LHS and loop them around to the right behind the unit. I'm thinking I'll replicate the false panel to hide it all.

Anyhoo that has increased the length of the hoses by a good meter each so it's good that I discovered it now. The rest of the pipework looks fairly straight forward although I am a bit worried about the compressor lines as the 90 degree ends that I have ordered may not suffice. But I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

With the hose components all on order, I thought I'd tackle the wiper motor mounting bracket today.

So first up I took a look at the original Starwagon factory mount:

Yeah nah, that helps me "sweet fanny adams", so looks like I'm up for some metal carving.

Started off with a little cardboard aided design and came up with this beauty:

"Why so complex Flash?" I hear you asking.

Well, the driving spindle needs to face the front of the van and the only mounting point that I have available is the lip on the underside of the dashboard located behind the wiper motor, hence this U-shaped monstrosity. 

Next step was to replicate the bracket in something more solid than an old cereal box:

 

After a bit of the old cutty, cutty, followed by the poking of a few holes and here she is in all her glory:

Had to play around with the angle on the mounting tab to get things to line up properly:

Temporarily clamped it in place. The good news is that it just fits between the fuse box and the glove box opening.

I then offered up the little drive shaft, but it's way too long, so that is going to need a bit of nip and tuck surgery. 

That will probably have to wait for a few days as I've just received notification that my a/c hose components are ready for pickup, so I'll head through to town tomorrow. 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Couldn't wait to unpack my a/c hose fittings. I've gone for the DIY Air-O-Crimp option.

It's the first time that I'm going to be making up my own a/c hoses, so I reckon I'm in for an interesting time.

[Flash]

Now "fun me" wanted to crack straight into the a/c hoses, but "serious me" decided that since we are now deep in our rainy season getting the wipers working again should be top priority - not to mention getting the windscreen sealed properly.... but that is another story.

So those of you playing along at home would have likely spotted the shocking condition of my under-dash wiring:

 

Yep, not pretty at all.

The plan has always been to get all of the additional wiring for the mod cons in and then do a final tidy up, but with just the two a/c related wires left to run there is no time like the present to tackle the rat's nest.

First order of business was to get everything out of the way of the new wiper mechanism, so I scratched around in my parts bin and came up with two little metal brackets that came from one of my donor vans. Gave them a quick clean and a spritz of satin black and they now look like so:

I then grovelled under the dash one more time and managed to poke two more holes in the front panel lip. Threw two self tappers at the brackets and wrapped a bit of spiral bind around the wires and she looks much better now:

Once I've added the two a/c wires into the spiral bind I'll use some cable ties to secure the loom to the holding brackets.

Anyway, with the wiring loom now safely out of reach of the wiper mechanism I was finally able to mount the wiper motor in position.

The last wiper related mechanical step was to shorten the length of this drive shaft to suit the new motor position:

So out came my grinder of angles and I ended up with this pair:

Scratching around in my pipe stash yielded a piece of aluminium tube that slips over each of the cut ends perfectly.

I spent a bit of time fine tuning the length of the aluminium joiner till I got the movement spot on. Gave everything a test run and it works brilliantly. Unlike the Thames mechanism which was quite jerky the L300 setup is silky smooth.

Flushed with success I'm now attempting to get the park function working as up to now I've had to time my switching to get the wipers to stop in the correct position.

The wiring for the park function is currently doing my head in so I've shouted out for help on the General Car Chat page and I've already received some good info from a number of old schoolers. So hopefully I can get this sorted too.

Some more work on the wiring tomorrow and with a bit of luck I can get on to the a/c hoses later in the weekend.

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

In my last update I mentioned that whilst I was messing around with a new wiper setup, I was going to attempt to get the park function working.

Whilst I got some really good advice from a number of oldschoolers, it turns out that whilst most wiper motors have a "normally closed" park switch the one that I am using has a "normally open" park switch which makes things slightly more complicated for someone with my barely adequate wiring skills. I even tried stripping the wiper circuitry and components from the donor van that the wiper motor came from.

But upon testing the system it appears as though this little Mitsubishi box of tricks has given up on life:

To be fair to it, the label specifically states "don't drop" and since it's been kicking around the shed floor for a few years I can't blame it for packing a sad.

I do have another wiper motor with a "normally closed" park switch in stock, but unfortunately it is bigger than the Mitsi unit and just won't fit into the available space, so the long-term plan is to source a smaller unit that has a normally closed park switch, but for now I'm just going to live without the park function.

So with that episode behind me for now, I cracked into completing the rest of the wiper setup.

On Boxing Day I headed into town to grab some car related stuff at the usual less 25% sale and grabbed this set of 12 inch wiper blades that suit the Mitsi arms:

Next step was to nip and tuck the wiper arms as the Mitsi units are about 15mm longer than the Thames ones:

 

The extra length on the arms caused the blades to hit the windscreen seal at the very top of the stroke. So,after a quick bit of surgery and a few coats of the usual satin black, I was able to fit everything up. My hackery isn't too noticeable:

 

The Mitsi arms originally had those little plastic covers for the spindle nuts, but one was missing, and the other was sun bleached and really brittle:

So, I ended up fitting a stainless-steel dome nut which looks pretty cool and is kinda in keeping with the vintage:

 

With the drive shaft disconnected I did some test sweeps which looked really good, so I slapped in the modified driveshaft:

Chucked some water on the screen and gave it a whirl.

I'm stoked with the result. Way smoother than the original Thames setup.

I'm looking forward to working on something other than wipers now.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

With the wipers all sorted the next job on the list was to re-instate the glove box.

Chucked it in for a quick test fit to make sure it cleared my new wiper mechanism, and the good news is that it does. The not so good news is that while I was mucking around with it, I noticed that the almost 60 year old cardboard material was crumbling with just a light touch.

Scratched my head for a bit, then decided to chuck on a few thick coats of water based paint as a binder. Left it in the sun till the paint went off and no more flaking so I'll take the win.

To give it a fighting chance I thought I'd line the bottom of the interior with something. Rummaged amongst my stash of junk and found a roll of that PVC based drawer liner stuff left over from our kitchen reno.

 

Shaped a bit to line the bottom and chucked the box back in.

Looks pretty good and the drawer liner stuff stops things from sliding around, so double bonus.

A bit hard to get a decent photo with my potato camera, but here you go:

 

 

[Flash]

Made a start on my a/c pipework today.

First step was to test fit each of the hose ends on their associated components.

This uncovered two minor challenges. The first being the #10 fitting on the evaporator unit. With the TX valve already fitted to the other outlet there isn't enough clearance between the little protrusion at the top of the TX valve to tighten the nut on the neighbouring #10 fitting.

The photo above was with the TX valve joint backed off.

I was able to rectify this by completely removing the TX valve and then fitting the #10 fitting first before refitting the TX valve.

The next challenge was the #8 fitting on the compressor. The 90 degree bend works okay but the incorporated service port is clashing with the side of the engine box which will result in a less than optimum angle once I've crimped on the hose:

I've bitten the bullet and started trimming back the offending part of the engine box side. To do this I had to remove my clutch reservoir and hardline, ignition coil and newly mounted a/c receiver drier bottle. 

I got half of the job done before lunch stopped play, so more butchery planned for tomorrow.

[Flash]

A bit more butchering this morning. The service port on the #8 fitting no longer clashes with the engine box side wall and I reckon there is enough clearance for a/c man to fit his pressure gauges when he gasses up the system.

I then created a reinforcing plate to strengthen the side wall back up. Looks like so:

Gave it a few coats of the usual satin black and it looks almost passable:

 

I'm letting the paint go off overnight and I'll bolt it in tomorrow.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Flash]

And that's the strengthening plate fitted:

And whilst I've still got my big boy pants on I thought I'd do some more butchering. This time some holes in the cabin floor for the a/c pipes.

My plan is to mirror the placement of the main wiring harness that looks like so:

Started by making a little cardboard guide to assist me with the placement:

Then drilled my first pilot hole:

Then opened the pilot hole up with a series of drill bits before taking it up to the final 30mm diameter using my step drill bit. I needed to get the two a/c hoses and the condensate drain fairly tightly bunched together but with enough room between them to accommodate all three rubber grommets, for reasons that will become apparent later in this update.

Chucked a bit of paint on the raw steel to give things a fighting chance against rust, then once the paint was dry in went the 3 grommets like so:

Luckily the second a/c pipe and condensate drain were a smaller diameter.

Quickly test fitted the hoses to get the feel.

 

Yep, functional but looks nasty.

So, my cunning plan to hide the fuggliness is to create a cover plate to hide the pipework similar to the original that covers the main wiring harness. Cover looks like so:

Now it just so happens that the wiring cover needs modifying in order to clear my TX valve and hose ends, so I figured rather than butcher the existing cover I'll just move it across to the left-hand side and then fabricate a new cut down cover for the right-hand side.

Moved the cover across to the left to get the feel and pipes be gone:

All ugliness hidden away and my OCD is back in equilibrium. Perfect.

Now all I need to do is make a holding bracket for the cover.

Out came some repurposed cereal box and after a bit of fiddling about I came up with this:

Which in position looks like this:

So, the plan for tomorrow is to create this mounting bracket in something a bit more robust than cardboard.

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Spent the morning entertaining my neighbours with the sweet tune of my angle grinder and ended up with this:

Gave it a quick test fit followed by a spot of satin black:

Looked around for another noisy Sunday job, but eventually had to settle for something a bit quieter. 

Decided it was time to make up the first a/c hose. Picked the compressor discharge hose as my first victim.

The process is pretty straight forward and goes like so:

1. Test fit and trim hose to final length.

2. Slip the clips over the hose.

3. Slide the hose coupling into the hose.

4. Line up the clips with the green o rings using a spare coupling as a guide.

 

5. Crimp the hell out of the clips using these state-of-the-art crimping pliers:

And, that's the first hose ready to rock 'n roll.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

First thing this morning I fitted the freshly painted mounting bracket for the panel that will hide the a/c hoses inside the cab.

I then scratched around under the dash trying to figure out how I was going to fix the cover panel at the top.

Luckily one of the bolts that holds the Ford badge on the front panel is perfectly positioned for the task.

I found one of those multi holed mounting strips in amongst my stash. Looked a bit manky but nothing that a little loving wont fix.

Gave it a trim and a quick bend followed by a test fit. Works like a charm.

Gave it a tickle with my flapper disc then a few coats of the usual satin black.

I needed to bend the upper mounting tab on the cover panel itself which was easy enough:

Can't mount it till the paint dries on the new bracket, so I carried on making up a/c hoses.

These are the two hose ends that run from the under-dash unit to the compressor and drier bottle respectively:

Spent the rest of the morning routing these hoses under the dash, through the floor and then under the front of the van.

I'll post some photos of the pipes in position tomorrow.