October? I hardly know her

Someone commented on the blog a while back about how if I was working in corporate America, the demands weren't going to go away. Well... she was right (dammit!). I got pulled into a production issue this week that really sapped me. Fortunately, I was able to snag a few hours last weekend before the issue popped. I'm only now able to get to posting about those hours. I'll hit those bits today, and set the stage for this weekend. I should have a few hours again this Saturday (after coaching a kids soccer game in the morning). Hopefully, it will only be a gentle rain.

Cabinet Cut up
There were 2 things I wanted to do to the cabinet before re-installing it. This took the majority of the time I had. I unplugged the OBDII connector from the plastic surround and traced around the surround to mark where to cut. I wanted the plug to be somewhat discrete, but easily accessible when approaching the bus from behind. Also, it couldn't be somewhere that dirt could easily get into it. The picture tells it much better than I could. Basically, it is in the lowest cubby in the "front" (front is front of bus) wall just above the floor.
The other thing I wanted to add was an access hatch of sorts so I could switch from driver's seat ignition to remote starting easily. This was a lot easier than the OBDII hole. Since the cabinet has been in a bus since the late 70's, the underside had some pretty obvious markings to show where the tire hole is. You can see the stains in the picture. Since the underside of the cabinet is just a few thin layers of veneer, I cut the hole with a box-cutter. I won't be installing the cabinet until after we get the injection timing and other computer-related stuff dealt with.

Buen Provecho
Maybe I didn't really "eat" the wiring spaghetti, I just moved it around a bit. But, the ignition switch and OBDII are where they need to be, the computer and relays will fit under the cabinet (in the tire hole, mostly). I did color coordinate the wiring and the ignition plug. This should make switching the wires from front to remote start much easier. There's a picture of the color / paint markings here.

Pedal Recoil
I don't have any pictures of this, but I found a spring in my parts bin that I think will fit the need to pull the accelerator pedal back upright without placing that last bit of stress on the rheostat. Hopefully, this will take the reading down to 0% when there is no pressure on the pedal. I won't know for sure until I can get a computer reading the OBDII.

I think that's all I got done last weekend. Tomorrow, I hope to look into the cabin heat a little bit, maybe replace the driver's rear window (the one the cabinet faces), and wire in the front ignition. We'll see what the weather allows.

pictures:
top - masked off the OBDII hole for cutting.
upper middle - underside of cabinet showing where the access hatch was cut in. You can see the OBDII hole in the side.
lower middle - the color coordination in the book, on the wires, and the ignition block
bottom - the wires hooked into the ignition block