upgrading an old system ......

[steptoe]

Was thinking I will get the wiring right on my next Brumby project and on the share principle some not follow in here, I am planning on a pair of six ? blade fuse boxes under the dash - one for add ons needing ACC position, another for items only needing IGN ON position.

Another member shared with me (quietly) he also adds a relay, so main chunky wire from batt pos + to the fuse box via a relay each for a more modern auto elctrical approach to reliability and safety - thus (short fancy word use alert) bypassing any additionla loading of existing FL's or main fuse box.

Still likely to need another fuse box or just those fused relays ? set up for air horns (non whistle type for ADR requirements) driving lights, fan left, fan right etc. Some labels might come into it too

[RSR 555]

Circuit breakers? instead of FLs

I'd say to check with Doug.. he did a pretty neat setup in his MY Touring Wagon

[Silverbullet]

Thinking I need to do something similar to my wagon, I don't really like the idea of using the crusty old wiring loom as it is if the rest of the car is going to be brand new. Would have no idea where to start though, never done anything do to with electricals. I've got the FSM hard copy though and the chapter on wiring is the biggest chapter in the book, plenty of diagrams etc.

Maybe I just hand the whole car over the an auto elec and have them make me a new loom

[RSR 555]

Sam, I'd probably look at 'Painless Wiring' systems if you're going to replace the whole system.. probably a lot cheaper than an Auto Sparky

[Subydoug]

I did something similar Jonno,



A power bus for direct battery power, one for acc and one for ignition. Then just some fuse boxes and I just picked what bus I wanted to use for that particular circuit.

Looks like this at the moment,



with heaps of spare relays. If you do rewire your car I would look at having the key barrel energize relays instead of throwing the power directly as if its anything like mine you will get some voltage drop across it. The only reason I put it under the hood is because I hate working under the dash.

Silverbullet, making a new wiring harness, even for these older cars is still a big job. I rewired mine but its very "bare minimum". I never wired up any of the door switches or the clock and my cabin fan is just a single position, flat out . If I were you I would just have a look at the condition of the connectors. If they show corrosion, replace them and snip the wire end off at inch intervals to make sure the corrosion isnt into the wire. IF it is, keep snipping it until you have clean copper then solder a new bit on to make the length right.

The other problem with the older cars is all the switches, for headlights and wipers and such all start getting crusty. I solved this by making the switches throw relays. Put a relay between your wiper switch and motor and watch that thing scream across your window , no more staggering.

One last thing, I used a single color for everything. A really stupid idea but I know that the only person thats gonna be digging around in my wiring is me.

Regards

Doug

[steptoe]

Some extra god ideas there...yes, want to have IGN switch throw the relays for acc and ign. The idea of a relay on the wipers is good - just one relay, or one for each speed - or have you just got one speed there too ??

single colour wire is not original, all black is favoured by security installers, and you'd think being colour blind would be a deterent to training an auto elec. Heard of one of them didn't care for colours much at all

bus stuff is a bit beyond me at the moment, sort of understand what it is, I still like the idea of one wire one job

[Subydoug]

Yeah one speed wipers too

[RSR 555]

Yeah one speed wipers too

Still better than what I had on Honeycomb