A Suburban A Warhorse and a pair of Double Dees

[onebadmonte 235]

Now for the final step in my front grounds. I got all the cable crimped and ready for installation. I last left off with some grommets in triangle configuration. This is what I came up with.

Here is the bracket formed and the grommets installed.

Here I've got the bracket and alternator assembly on the workbench. I've installed and oriented the ground cables allowing me to place my hold-down.

I've got the mounting points drilled and tapped for the hold-downs. I have also spot faced both sides of the rear bracket where the alternators mount for my grounds.

Here is a close up of the triangle hold-down bracket installed in the rear alternator bracket.

Here is the final assembly ready for installation.

With the bracket and alternators installed I can start attaching the ground cables to the frame ground locations. Here is a shot looking up at the installed grounds. I used some steel spacers to stack the ring terminals without having to go around the bolt in a flower pedal pattern.

Here is a straight shot as the grounds.

Now time for some power cables. Better get back to work.

[Mtopper 23]

the ground cable setup looks great. the spacers on the frame were so that you could get multiple grounds per location right? noob question i guess

[sefugi 166]

Very Clean!!! Great Planning!!! Turned out very Slick!!!! Awesome Work!! Bracket for the grounds coming off the alt. bracket for security of wiring-

[onebadmonte 235]

Agreed. Normally I put it in a vice bend it down, then heat up with propane torch, then let solder melt and fill open spaces.

Hydraulic crimper looks so easy and sure fire. Damn even the crimper needed some modifying

Everything's look great

Thanks. Yeah, the dies that came with the crimper are actually intended for wire rope, which is gauged differently that auto wire. I lucked out that the dies weren't hardened. If they were I'd still be trying to cut on them.

the ground cable setup looks great. the spacers on the frame were so that you could get multiple grounds per location right? noob question i guess

Thanks. The spacers are so I could keep the cables inline when stacked. I could have stacked the ring terminals on top of each other but then the cables would of ended up side by side with them making a "vee" meeting at the ring terminals. If I only had a pair of wires meeting that would have been okay, but I've got 8 meeting there. I would have needed like 8" of frame to pull that off. Like this I used up 4" of frame, including the welded spacer that went unused. (opps)

Very Clean!!! Great Planning!!! Turned out very Slick!!!! Awesome Work!! Bracket for the grounds coming off the alt. bracket for security of wiring-

Thanks.

[LDW3RD 0]

Wow!! Your work and attention to details are top notch.

[Sir-Lancelot 216]

Son!! You wont leave good enough alone will ya? lol

I don't know why I even stop by your build anymore. Makes mine look like I the neighbors kids do all my work.

[onebadmonte 235]

Wow!! Your work and attention to details are top notch.

Thanks, but it's actually a mental disorder I take medication for. Srsly. o_o

Son!! You wont leave good enough alone will ya? lol

I don't know why I even stop by your build anymore. Makes mine look like I the neighbors kids do all my work.

It's like a scab. I just can't stop picking at it.

I don't know what you're talking about. Your build is effin rockin. No way will my weenie 15s compare to your beastly 18s. That Yukon is lookin good.

[outhopu 70]

Killer work man. I love seeing builds like this. Too many people follow a cookie cutter approach to everything. Good to see ther are other willing to take the hard route in the interest of quality.

[Wood. 24]

I'm absolutely amazed every time this thread is updated.

thank you sir for sharing.

[B7L|BL4Z3R 4]

I like to think i would be able to create a build like this but the more you get into detail the more i doubt . your work is unreal man. im proud to say that i have the privileged to go through your entire build piece by piece. keep up the good work.

[onebadmonte 235]

Killer work man. I love seeing builds like this. Too many people follow a cookie cutter approach to everything. Good to see ther are other willing to take the hard route in the interest of quality.

I'm absolutely amazed every time this thread is updated.

thank you sir for sharing.

I like to think i would be able to create a build like this but the more you get into detail the more i doubt . your work is unreal man. im proud to say that i have the privileged to go through your entire build piece by piece. keep up the good work.

I cant thank you guys enough for the kind words. To hear that you guys are enjoying and learning from this build as I am is awesome. I was really hoping to bring something to the table that all of us can take and build from. It's great to hear that is happening. Again, thanks. Back to the task at hand.

[onebadmonte 235]

What's up everybody. I got a little bit of progress done today. With the front grounds done I'm starting to work on the making the positive runs to the battery bank in the rear. I decided to poke through the firewall and run the cables through the interior up to the rear axle hump, right at the foot of the third row seats. From there I don't know just yet, but let take a look at what happened at the firewall.

I already poked the power wire for processor and the front stage amp. I'll be poking the power cables through the same area. Here is the area in question.

For now the, I don't know what the hell it is, controller has been relocated off to the side and I have trimmed the black matting. I'll be circling the existing wire with the new runs of power cable.

I made a paper template to locate my hole locations around the existing wire. I started off by folding a standard sheet of copy paper down the center both length and width wise. With the paper nicely creased I measured from the creases out. I then folded the paper at the measurement marks overlapping the original creases as a guide to get a straight fold. Here's what it looked like once I was done with my folds.

Here are the grommets mocked in place.

I carefully cut my template, and taped it on to the firewall.

I used a spring loaded center punch to mark my hole centers. I started off drilling a 1/16" pilot hole. I followed that up by using a stepped uni-bit to enlarge the hole to the hole saw pilot diameter of 1/4". From there it was onto the hole saw for the final cut. In this case the required hole is 1-1/8". I lucked out having just enough room for the drill and hole saw by removing the brace between the firewall and drivers side fender and the plastic fuse box cover and snap on housing. This is how it ended up looking.

I'll have to run some cable through those grommets and see if that controller will be able to be mounted back in place or if it's mount will have to be modified. We'll leave that for tomorrow. Now time to chill and enjoy and ice cold beer. It was a toasty one out there today.

[manrossdamn 57]

Nice eye!

This is an awesome build!

I wanna do something like this one day..

[sefugi 166]

That's lookin' AWESOME!!! I'm assuming those will be 4 power feeds since you have such a mass of grounds to the frame. Went back and re-read, all power.

[Brett_the_Vandal 2]

Wow. Youre attention to detail is quite alike to mine. I Cannot complete anything if it isn't as perfect as it could be. All my teachers tell me that all the time. lol. Very awesome built man! Cant wait to see it get finished up!!

[onebadmonte 235]

Oh no! Another thread resurrect by a dang noob. I've been off the grid for a bit pondering about nothing, but now it's back to business.

Since my power cables are eventually going to poke though the body, back to the great outdoors, I wanted something to secure them down out of harms way. It was back to the computer for a little CAD work. This is what I came up with.

A couple a grommets and some mounting hardware, and I think I'm in business.

It's all nice and pretty in the computer, but what it looks like in the real world is what matters. Check it.

Wait for it, wait for it. BAM!

There is a bit more to this design than meets the eye, I'll get into that a bit later. Right now before I can bolt these bad boys down I need to figure where my cables are going to run. To do that I need to finish off my battery rack.

Last I left off with the buss bars in place. I need to figure out my grounds, power connections, and buss bar connections. I started off my drilling and tapping the buss bars. This wouldn't be a proper build with out some tool breakage. Damn it, broken drill.

How about a little hand tapping action?

Getting back to that wire hold down bracket. With a couple a snips and some filing, the bracket is shaped into some fancy wire separators. We'll see them in action in the next few pics.

Here is the battery rack in all its glory

Here is a close up of the passenger side. I used a piece of cardboard to mock up the frame rail so I can get my grounds setup. I'll be able to use this cardboard to transfer the ground locations onto the frame. I used my wire separators to keep everything in place. A little tip: Dusting the grommets and cables with baby powder goes a long way in sliding the cables through the grommets without hangs up.

Here is the drivers side. Not much happening, just a pair of grounds.

With the battery rack in an almost ready to install state I am now ready to start thinking power cable routing. I got the first row of batteries in place. I looked around the area I had to work with. I was first thinking I'd be able to poke out through the floor under the third row. The floor makes a nice vertical wall there making for a nice poke through like the firewall. Unfortunately there is a frame cross-member directly behind this wall. It was a little more than I wanted to deal with, so the search continued. I decided to poke through the floor above the rear axle pumpkin. My power cable connections on the battery rack are on the drivers side, so the cables will be routed from the center towards the drivers side. There is a frame cross-member in between where the wires poke through the body and make their connection on the battery rack. I was able to mount my wire hold down bracket on this cross-member.

With all this talk of mounting locations, drilling holes, and working under the vehicle I wanted to mention eye protection. It's very important. Here is a shot of yours truly wearing his preferred type of eye protection, the full face shield. Look at that ham.

Here is a shot look up at the battery rack and the wire bracket. I used some wooden dowels to show cable routing.

Here is a close up of the wire bracket.

Here I am looking through the hole I cut in the floor for the wires. You can see the tips of the dowels representing where the cables are going to be coming from.

Now, you're probably thinking that is one hell of a hole for a few cables. Here is my thinking. It is dang near impossible to bend the cable to have it poke through the hole and have a good seal. I envisioned a sort of sump I could make to angle the cables through the floor at a 45 degree angle. This way I could get a good seal and have the cables routed in the general direction without relying on the cable to hold the shape. For the sump it was back to the computer. Here is what I came up with.

A shot of the bottom side.

I'm not going to be using all the mounting tabs, just the ones that land on the raised portions of the body floor. With everything cut out, I mocked up the wire sump mounting flange to drill the mounting holes in the body.

Wouldn't you know it, none of the tabs hit the raised portions of the floor. I'm going to have to try again tomorrow.

[ssh 924]

Man your work is sick! I wish I knew cad and had access to all that equipment

Wire brackets are awesome

[Sir-Lancelot 216]

Ho Hum, same ole boring shit we always see from you. Try being a little creative can't cha? - Yawn!

Damn it Bro, will you stop showing off already. I am just serious either I move beside you or you beside me, but one way or another I will steal all your ideas and make them mine.

[djjdnap 78]

hot dam

[onebadmonte 235]

Man your work is sick! I wish I knew cad and had access to all that equipment

Wire brackets are awesome

Thanks bro. I've been doing this work for just over ten years, and this is the first time they let me cut stuff out for a personal project at work.

Ho Hum, same ole boring shit we always see from you. Try being a little creative can't cha? - Yawn!

Damn it Bro, will you stop showing off already. I am just serious either I move beside you or you beside me, but one way or another I will steal all your ideas and make them mine.

LOL! That last part that reminds me of the scene towards the end of Dinner for Schmucks when Steve Carrell fights back against Zach Galifianakis by having mind control over Zack's mind and laying eggs in his brain. Just some random nonsense.

[Julian 641]

I may need to come down to San anton... im about 6 hours away! you can pimp out my car

[outhopu 70]

All of the fancy brackets look smooth as hell. Keep at it man. This has officially became my new favorite build and I'm not easily impressed by much these days.

[Mtopper 23]

i completely forgot you had the battery rack to put it. your build is amazing... love all the custom work you've been doing. keep it up man

[sefugi 166]

Consistantly over-the-top with your creative designs!!! Great watching this build come together!!

[onebadmonte 235]

I may need to come down to San anton... im about 6 hours away! you can pimp out my car

Lol! With those six funky pups in your avatar I don't think I can do anything to top those. You should try making it to the Heatwave show in Austin coming up in July. I trying to get as many forum members to meet up there.

All of the fancy brackets look smooth as hell. Keep at it man. This has officially became my new favorite build and I'm not easily impressed by much these days.

Thanks bro, I'm glad your liking it. I know it's not a full on build like the frame off lowrider your building, but I'm hoping these little details pay off in the long run.

i completely forgot you had the battery rack to put it. your build is amazing... love all the custom work you've been doing. keep it up man

Thanks.

Consistantly over-the-top with your creative designs!!! Great watching this build come together!!

Thanks. I'm slowing nearing the end of the install, but there is still a ways to go in testing and tuning. o_o