home made fsd

[ttpost]

still havent got the truck going, but i ordered a new fsd.thinking of making my own cooler.i have a dead audio amplifier.it is an aluminum housing with cooling fins looks to be twice as big as the after market ones.thinking of mounting it on the fender and adding a small cooling fan out of a computer.toying with finding some sort of small temp switch to control the fan.any suggestions on the best way to extend the wiring harness, and does anyone have know what gauge and wire type i should use.also where could a guy find the connectors.thanks for any help rob

[ucdavis]

1) If your mileage is beyond the 120,000 mile/11 year warranty, just splice new wire into the existing harness to your needed length. Use standard multi-strand wire, solder the splices & use some good shrink tube to keep H2O outa soldered joints.
2) If w/in the warranty period, some like to give the dealer the illusion of a stock config & use a connector-to-connector loom (so as not to get into warranty "voiding" arguments). If I have trouble w/the cooler FSD I can unplug the extension & plug in the good FSD that's still on the IP & if that one fails I have the warranty. I made mine outa the sawed-off male end from a dead FSD & female end off a spare harness (you get one w/some FSD kits these days). Male part comes out a teeny bit ragged when sawed & chiseled free of the FSD, and the solder pins are @ 90 degrees to the plug end of the pins. But the male part is proprietary to Stanadyne according to rumor heard here on TDP so you can't buy the male piece as a connector; it only comes on a "device" (and I use the term loosely).
A well received alternative is Kennedy Diesel's extension harness which is reported to be slick & plug/play; don't know how he makes his male ends, but reports are that it is well sealed, etc.
3) your idea for the homemade cooler sounds great if you have sufficient flat area for mounting the FSD. I'd nix the fan complication IIW me. If you have sufficient fin area, fan is not needed. You can only get so much cooling & req'mt is to keep it < overheating; a good heatsink will get you ~ 135 deg. on the FSD & fan might drop that another 5 or so (not worth the hassle as anything under about 150 is probably w/in the expansion/contraction range a well constructed FSD needs.

[rjwest]

" well constructed FSD " where do you buy that kind??????