Finally! Time to start working on the brake and fuel lines... just in time to get notification that the finish kit will be here on Monday next week... aaaah! It will definitely be here too soon, but that's ok. It's hard to predict when to place the order for the next kit, because with lead times and such it's a decision you're making several months ahead of time, and the desire is to not be too late. In the end, no complaints on our end, will just be another day or two away from building while we sort and inventory all the new parts that come in the finish kit. We should have room for everything... hopefully.
In any event, the first order of business in Section 36 is to do something that isn't even in Section 36, or Van's plans at all... mount the aftermarket Matco parking brake valve. Derek came over tonight and we set out to figure out the best placement for it. As I've said in earlier posts, I'm going to try and mount it in the tunnel, underneath the control column elevator linkage area. I've done the measurements and checked them twice, and I see no reason that the valve won't fit here. In my mind, it will work better in this location because it will be easier to get to, and it is a location that already involves a junction in the brake lines per the standard plans. I'll need to reorder which brake or fuel line goes where through the three pre-drilled holes between the under-seat areas and tunnel, which I think we can handle. Otherwise I really don't think there will be much heartache over putting it in this location. That's the hope, anyway.
Somehow I made it all night without taking a single picture, but really there wasn't much to photograph except for a lot of Derek and I scratching our heads and holding valves, brackets and control linkages in place and moving things around so that I could be absolutely sure this was going to work. Eventually I said alright let's do this, and in short order a few mounting brackets were made out of angle aluminum . Since I don't have pics yet, basically the mount is made of four 1.5" long pieces of AA6-063x3/4x3/4 made into two "Z" brackets. One end of the Z will rivet to the tunnel floor, and the other end will have a K1000-3 nutplate to bolt the valve to. Since there are two bolts on the valve, two of these Z brackets were made.
Everything got drilled, deburred, dimpled, and countersunk, including match-drilling the holes in the tunnel floor. Then a quick primer session, followed by squeeze-riveting the brackets together put a close to this first night back to building... more to come!