Atomic's wagon build thread

[ratch]

i wish to pose a question Atomic. since ill be doing this eventually when i hav ethe time and money and a proper work environment.
you decided to not change out the gauge cluster on this, you also rewired the Harness. now could i avoid a great deal of wiring issues if i change the cluster to match the harness and ECU i pull?

Also, does the BP mounts on Engine and tranny bolt to the same locations?

[SgtRauksauff]

There's the no-tach cluster available in LX (escort) models. then there's the "sport" cluster, which has the tach, available in GT models, and some LX models.. wiring for the clusters are different, from the back of the cluster to the sensors. If you keep a no-tach cluster (why?) you'd still need to do rewiring of the harness, because neither of the escort harnesses will match the mazda harness, for instrumentation.

engine mounts: BP mounts are the same between auto/manual, but the brackets are different. BP mounts AND brackets are different than CVH/SPI mounts and brackets.

[89BG 323]

will a protege cluster mount up in the same space as the original e-lx cluster?

[atomicEGT]

i think the lx/gt gauges are the same, but if you're changing from mazda/ford senders, there IS a difference. you might need to put the ford sender in your engine.

--sarge

oh hell, that might be it. I'll try to grab one tomorrow.

i wish to pose a question Atomic. since ill be doing this eventually when i hav ethe time and money and a proper work environment.
you decided to not change out the gauge cluster on this, you also rewired the Harness. now could i avoid a great deal of wiring issues if i change the cluster to match the harness and ECU i pull?

Also, does the BP mounts on Engine and tranny bolt to the same locations?

maybe. the way that means the least amount of wiring is to change the dash and engine harnesses as well as the one that runs down the left fender apron. have fun with that.

There's the no-tach cluster available in LX (escort) models. then there's the "sport" cluster, which has the tach, available in GT models, and some LX models.. wiring for the clusters are different, from the back of the cluster to the sensors. If you keep a no-tach cluster (why?) you'd still need to do rewiring of the harness, because neither of the escort harnesses will match the mazda harness, for instrumentation.

engine mounts: BP mounts are the same between auto/manual, but the brackets are different. BP mounts AND brackets are different than CVH/SPI mounts and brackets.

passenger side mount is actually the same between BP/CVH, and I think the front and rear mounts themselves might be as well (with different brackets)... but I honestly can't remember which ones I used at this point

will a protege cluster mount up in the same space as the original e-lx cluster?

mostly. it's a little bit wider and differently shaped

[89BG 323]

so basically there is some trimming required on the valence around it or something of the sort? i basically just want as little wiring problems as possible.

[atomicEGT]

I actually don't think you have to trim it.

wait for Sarge to chime in, I'm pretty sure he did it to his wagon

[ratch]

There's the no-tach cluster available in LX (escort) models. then there's the "sport" cluster, which has the tach, available in GT models, and some LX models.. wiring for the clusters are different, from the back of the cluster to the sensors. If you keep a no-tach cluster (why?) you'd still need to do rewiring of the harness, because neither of the escort harnesses will match the mazda harness, for instrumentation.

engine mounts: BP mounts are the same between auto/manual, but the brackets are different. BP mounts AND brackets are different than CVH/SPI mounts and brackets.

my Tracer has a Tach in the cluster =]

what im getting at on the Mounts, is the ones connected to the body, that the mounts bolt to. can i use those or do i have to move them?

True, but keep in mind I'm going from 1.9L/auto to BP/manual... I *should* have that driver's trans mount around, I know the 1.9 and BP use the same passenger mount (and I have one from JRally to use), I just wasn't sure about the front and rear mounts... I'd buy some from AWR, but this car is getting an E153 at some point so it doesn't really make sense to spend the money.

nvm, page 3 answered my question.

[SgtRauksauff]

will a protege cluster mount up in the same space as the original e-lx cluster?

I actually don't think you have to trim it.

wait for Sarge to chime in, I'm pretty sure he did it to his wagon

heh. I started to do it, but never finished it. I've got some photos somewhere, I haven't uploaded them since when my server died 9 years ago, lol! (holy ****, it's been a LONG time!!!!)

the actual hard plastic of the dash housing, of the escort (at least my '95, which has a slightly different setup than <94) needed to be cut, so the protege cluster would fit. the protege cluster is "square" in the bottom edges, and the escort cluster is more "rounded".

I'd originally changed my under-dash harness from plugging into the original no-tach cluster to a cluster WITH tach. The protege under-dash wiring is different than the Escort under-dash wiring, enough to pop a resistor on the back side of the cluster. Which is why I never finished that project, because I was kinda lazy and don't know exactly what size resistor to replace.


So, short-story: Escort no-tach cluster != wiring for Escort Sport cluster != wiring for protege cluster of any type. If there was a no-tach cluster, in addition to swapping pins, you also have to run the wire from the EDIS/igniter all the way to the tach.

Protege no-tach cluster == protege Tach cluster wiring.

--sarge

[ratch]

im j std soldering certified and i have most color codes and designs close at hand. so if you really wanna get if fixed get me some close ups and i can tell you what size the resistor is.

[atomicEGT]

took the car out for a quick ride down the street to see how the wideband was working and to see if it would warm up enough to kick the fan on. felt strong, everything was working okay (still no temp gauge, but it wasn't breaking up or running funny) up until I got to the point where I'd turn back onto Brandon's street when it started misfiring and got worse by the time I got back to his house. popped the hood to see coolant EVERYWHERE. awesome. a few minutes later, Brandon notices it's smoking and not from coolant and pulls the battery cable off. melted the **** out of the wiring under the charge pipe. take the battery/tray/charge pipe out, clean up the wiring and fix the shorting plug (part of the fan circuit) when I notice that some of the wiring over by the fuse box is melted, too. I *think* the two things are unrelated- apparently the hose from the heater core to the oil cooler kinked and caused one of the other hoses to blow off, and there was an electrical issue in the fan wiring that caused it to melt the wires. tomorrow the fender is probably going to have to come off to find out how much of that wire is destroyed and how much other damage there is. as far as we could tell from looking at it today the motor should be okay, and we think the ECU is still okay though we won't know for sure until we get the wiring sorted out.

****ing STELLAR.

[progt91]

nice, hope it not way too bad

[Mazda_Powered]

rough day man...I'm sure the engine and ecu are fine as well

[Blazin674]

I hope so the weird thing is that none of the fuses blew. You would think that if something was shorting out then it would have blown the coolant fan fuse.

[Blazin674]

[atomicEGT]

ecu seems okay, the wiring from the temp switch to C201 checks out, took off the driver's side fender to tear into that harness- doing some rewiring and shortening. engine harness is out again to get some work done as well.

also, the 1.9 uses a temperature sensor for the temp gauge and the 1.8 uses a simple switch, which explains why the gauge doesn't work.