Been knocking off some mostly small stuff recently. Modified the fan shroud for a 16" fan. There's a bit of oil canning because I was impatient but the fan seals up to it alright.
I then soldered up the top cap of the radiator, just to find out after a pressure test that the core was leaking in a few spots. One of which was my fault for dropping it on something, but could not get the leaks to stop with solder as the heat just broke up the brazing on the core and made a new leak somewhere else nearby. The core had a decent chunk of fin damage as well already. So, I'm ordering a new radiator.
Wiring harness showed up, did not take long to get it ran. With this harness, it made more sense to put the ECU on the inside. One downside of this universal harness is that it has extra length to work with a variety of swaps, so I'll have to stuff a decent amount of wire loom under the dash until I eventually shorten parts of it up. (i.e. never)
I have the flying lead wires mostly figured out, I will be tying them in directly at the back side of the gauge cluster. I did notice though that the line for the 4wd light is broken, so will have to make a little jumper eventually. (See previous "eventually" note)
Only wiring related thing I am not confident in yet is the alternator exciter wire. There is a 2 wire plug on the alternator, which is internally regulated. From what I have gathered, one is the exciter, and the other communicates with the ECU to bump up idle when under load. The later is usually not used in swaps, and that is the case for this harness setup.
My understanding on the exciter wire is that it simply gets wired to the battery light on the dash to supply the alternator with 12v to initiate charging. Could not quite decipher that looking at the back of the gauge cluster, so decided to look at the original external voltage regulator setup.
For fun, hooked up my jumper pack and turned on the ignition. Starter relay clicks which is a good sign, still need to run a wire over to the solenoid yet. On the dash, I got the battery and timing belt lights. I then unbolted the original regulator from the engine bay and turned the ignition on, and no lights. I then cut the wires and found that the yellow wire must be grounded for dash lights to work. The black wire with yellow line and brown stripes also provides 12V, but blows the 15a engine fuse when grounded. I am thinking this is probably the wire I need to use for the exciter, but need to look into that more. White wire is direct to battery and needs to be removed along with the original alt charge wire.
In the interest of trying to have this thing make it on the Wyoming trip, I am holding off on building the front bumper. Cut out the frame nuts what had broken off bumper bolts and tacked new ones on, threw the old POS bumper back on. May try to straighten it up a bit later. Mounted the new power steering cooler up front there, did not want it blocking the rad sitting on top of the frame.
I also have the intake from air box to turbo and turbo to intercooler made. Waiting on EGR delete to cut the last charge pipe to length, then need to weld on MAF and MAP bungs and a barb for the PCV. Exhaust parts are ordered, I am doing a simple run along the outside of the frame rail and dumping out the side in front of the rear tire.