My old Dodge needs rewiring in a bad way. It came from the factory with only one fuse (blower motor) and all the wiring is brittle.
I did the HEI upgrade, added an electric fuel pump relay, will be using a relay for headlights, use two relays for my overdrive, need a horn relay, etc.
I have very little space in the kick panel area, so under hood is best for me.
I also checked out every wiring harness and fuse panel kit on the web and none of them came close enough to what I want to make them worthwhile.
Here is what I came up with for 22.00 at the boneyard:
It has a neat hinged bracket, plenty of fuse and relay positions and a very adaptable size and shape for fender well installation.
I drilled out the 6 rivets holding it together and found a fairly elaborate system of bus bars linking and interlocking fuses and relays together for God knows what.
I removed it all to reveal only the tabs behind the fuse and relay clamping jaws. Then, using the fuse and relay locations on the cover as a guide, proceeded to solder in the connections I want to use.(I'm using a 240 watt trigger type soldering iron. These jaws are fairly large and require a lot of heat for a good solder joint.) I then cut out the bottom of the bottom cover (the bottom cover also holds half of the hinge) and used 1/4 -20 speed nuts from Menards to re install it.
Then I cut the mounting bracket which is kind of model specific and welded it to a bracket the would work for my application.
Next I picked up some terminal strips and jumpers from Radio Shack along with the proper size connectors.
The hinge cover allows easy expansion/modification.
The color code I chose is:
Black- fused battery power
Red- fused N.O. relay contact
Blue-Switched ignition
Green- switched accessory
Yellow-Ignition crank
Orange-switched headlight switch
Here is the installed product:
The under sized Ford fuse relay panel will come out.
To rewire the car, I opted to work one circuit at a time. Namely:
1) ignition
2) headlights
3) accessories
Ignition gets:
a 20 amp fused black wire to Batt on ignition switch
a blue wire from IGN 1 jumpered to IGN 2 to power HEI relay and fuel pump relay(blue wire jumpered at terminal strip)
a green wire from ACC on Ignition switch to power Accessory relay
a yellow wire from crank on Ignition Switch to starter solenoid
Since a faulty tach can affect HEI operation I will use the same black Ignition switch wire to power all aftermarket gauges. More on that when I start rewiring sub circuits.
Headlights gets:
20 amp fused black wire to headlight switch
orange wire from headlight switch to power headlight relay.
(tail lights will be fed from headlight switch, along with dash lights. Dome/courtesy will get a separate circuit.
This pic shows a lot of bang for the buck in a small space.
10 Bosch relays, 2 Siemens relays, 9 maxi fuses and 15 or so teeny weenie fuses.
PS, I swapped to a 120 amp chrome GM one wire/three wire alternator and could not be happier. Driver side, low mount, no regulator wires on the fender and no flickering lights. Oh, and looks good too for 80 bucks shipped.
I think its important to note that although an OEM harness for a more modern car would be a great way to go, I would probably still rewire it myself, my way. Not because my way is better, but because it makes sense to me. The factory engineers things to go together easily, I engineer them to come apart easily.
Also, I'm no where near through screwing around with the car(electric cooling fan, EFI, and whatever other cockamamie schemes you guys talk me into) so whatever I do will be molested again and again. I want a versatile access point.
