Battery rack, Vacuum Reservoir Installation

Well... I am nearly caught up to current events with my S-10 conversion. One more post after this one and everyone will be up to date. This work was done the first week in March and begins with the repair and attachment of the flaps between the engine compartment and the wheel wells. One was in good shape, a few tie wraps in choice spots and re-attach with new plastic fasteners. The other side was in pieces. I used a rubber exercise mat and traced it and cut out a new flap. Punched holes and attached. I think it will work fine. Next is the battery rack installation. The front battery rack will hold 4 6volt golf cart batteries. The rack was made by Mark Hazen of http://www.evhelp.com/. He does a very nice welding and painting job on his battery racks. I also really like the hold down straps on the top of the rack. This one fit well into the space where the radiator used to be. My remaining 20 batteries will be in battery racks under the truck bed. That project is coming up soon. Stay tuned right here for all the details!
I positioned the battery rack and marked the spots where the holes would be drilled for mounting. There is a small shelf on which the radiator sat. It is to this shelf the battery rack was bolted. There are also 2 upper supports that attach just over the lip of the steel shelf just below where the hood would close. After the holes were drilled, I bolted the rack in place. Not bad, that is done. Onward!
There are a couple of schools of thought on using a reservoir to expand the vacuum storage for the power brakes and the air control (changes the vent positions when moving the selector from air to heat to vent, etc..). The first is to connect the pump directly to the power brakes and vent control. The second is to build a reservoir to extend the time between run cycles of the pump. Both work equally well for functionality. I chose the second. My reasons? It was inexpensive and I thought it would be cool to have. Unfortunately, I had to go through 2 iterations before I got it right. The photos in this post show the first attempt. My next post will show the finished product installed. I found the perfect place to install the reservoir, just forward of the battery box. I used a length of 3" pvc and 2 caps. I drilled and tapped in 2 hose barbs, one 3/8 and the other 1/4. I was going to use the entire 3 feet, but it would not fit properly due to a bracket in the way. So, I cut it off and assembled it, then connected all the hoses. After firing up the pump, I had leaks! Turns out the hose barbs were too small for the automotive type vacuum hose, even though they were both 3/8". I had an idea at this point on how to make the reservoir larger and solve the hissing air issue. A trip to Home Depot was in order. The next post will show and tell the completed vacuum system. Cheers!