I received an email from Mark @ Bluefire on Nov.30. He suggested double checking my wires for any issues, and corrected my thinking about the J1708 (RS485) not being a CAN bus.
I double checked my wire plan and confirmed all was correct, then metered the appropriate pins on my extended 9-pin outlet. All pins checked OK, so I tried the Bluefire Adapter, again. This time it connected right away (didn't have any trouble connecting previously) but still didn't show any data, but then a popup said something about an update, so I enabled that, now it works! Sorry, I did not pay more attention to the update information, but I think it was for the adapter. A second update came up, but I was not in Wi-Fi range to get it. But NOW ITS WORKING!
link to breakout wiring
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rKtQdQpoVzFMggvt32vlDGrAK3AfxJsk/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vnY6FZHObmahlA89m30zzcKFRjzHuAYE/view?usp=sharinglink to extension cord
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19M4W--Q2PSC3PpPpV3SuEZdWyCsgQ6CC/view?usp=sharing