Re-wiring the whole truck: enough is enough

[olly hondro]

I am wiring the Blazer head to tail. Too many instances of a run of wire to a hand- crimped butt splice to another length of wire to a taped termination. Wires that go into a harness but don't come out. Connectors that don't connect to anything.


For my application , reliability is King. Separate circuits for everything. I don't want a faulty horn affecting the heater blower motor or the headlights. The new fusebox will be center of the dash: no more working upside down on the floor wedged between the seat and the A-pillar. I'm soooooo over that

Will post progress/fails as I go.

 

[DREDnot]

Whenever I weave up a new whole wiring harness, I find it helps bigly to have a 4x8 sheet of plywood and saw horses to lay out the old harness section and remove one wire at a time and recreate a new harness side by side.

 

[Chaski]

Ever thought of installing a DIY4X aluminum dash?

 

[olly hondro]

Whenever I weave up a new whole wiring harness, I find it helps bigly to have a 4x8 sheet of plywood and saw horses to lay out the old harness section and remove one wire at a time and recreate a new harness side by side.

Yes, its a great idea, I've done that before with a Bradley kit (the gull wing sports car, not the tank :0)

 

[olly hondro]

Ever thought of installing a DIY4X aluminum dash?

Yes, I am considering integrating the custom dash at roll cage installation. They will place openings for whatever I choose, so need to design carefully to maximize the benefit for the cost.

 

[WELDINSPECTOR]

So I'm gonna start on a Dmax swap very soon 1-2 weeks and one of the reasons I decided to is that my Starter just start going off when I tried to start it and wouldn't stop until I disconnected the Batteries. I bought a new ignition switch tonight and crossing my fingers that this is the culprit. I thought everything was Perfect, I guess not lol.
The Purple Remote wire is energized no mater which position the key is in, causing the starter to go off.
I will have to go back to 12V and hope to eliminated a lot of this wiring. I will be following this thread and hope to learn a few things.

 

[Evil Dr. Porkchop]

So I'm gonna start on a Dmax swap very soon 1-2 weeks and one of the reasons I decided to is that my Starter just start going off when I tried to start it and wouldn't stop until I disconnected the Batteries. I bought a new ignition switch tonight and crossing my fingers that this is the culprit. I thought everything was Perfect, I guess not lol.
The Purple Remote wire is energized no mater which position the key is in, causing the starter to go off.
I will have to go back to 12V and hope to eliminated a lot of this wiring. I will be following this thread and hope to learn a few things.

Your starter relay under the dash is probably stuck. Easy fix.

 

[aleigh]

https://www.rbracing-rsr.com/wiring_ecu.html

 

[WELDINSPECTOR]

Gonna Find out tomorrow

 

[nyoffroad]

Your starter relay under the dash is probably stuck. Easy fix.

Yup and now that your batteries are partially discharged and you put another stock relay in there in to will stick and weld the points together. Atleast that's what happened to me, make sure your batteries are charged!

 

[WELDINSPECTOR]

Hi, Well I got it fixed, Ignition switch was bad, took the relay apart and inspected it and was all good and the batteries never drained so all good now.

 

[red]

I am wiring the Blazer head to tail. Too many instances of a run of wire to a hand- crimped butt splice to another length of wire to a taped termination. Wires that go into a harness but don't come out. Connectors that don't connect to anything.


For my application , reliability is King. Separate circuits for everything. I don't want a faulty horn affecting the heater blower motor or the headlights. The new fusebox will be center of the dash: no more working upside down on the floor wedged between the seat and the A-pillar. I'm soooooo over that

Will post progress/fails as I go.

Looking at doing this to my 82 k30 crew cab. Found a bunch of twist caps, electrical tape only connections, and old/brittle wires. Debating going to a water proof fuse block mounted outside the cab and using bulkhead fittings to run the wires into the cab that are needed.

 

[olly hondro]

fuse panel

Am narrowing down the search of components for the rewire. I like the specs on the Blue Sea Systems 12 circuit panel with ground bus:

It has the screw type wire attach; I like that because I can solder terminals to the wires, then screw them down, and observe the integrity of that connection over time. I like the ground bus because I can run an accessory wire harness straight to the fuse panel rather than splitting the ground off elsewhere. There are youtube videos that describe recycling automobile fuse panels, but they have the springy terminals captured on the backside. Cannot see them, and the springiness will degrade with time.

As a first pass, I will mount the fusebox to the aux heater plate in the center of the dash. I can bring power in from the existing bus bars on the engine side of the firewall, thru the hole where the diagnostic harness was. Then I'll divorce the stock fuse panel one circuit at a time. I'll see how that works out.

Then another panel for all those relays that just flop around under the dash on the driver side. I think I have a plan anyway.

 

[richingalveston]

fuse panel plate

I installed a flat plate up under the dash. I do not have a current pic but there are two 8 position fuse panels mounted to plate along with other things one fuse panel has relay to work from ignition and other panel is always hot.
you have to remove the glove box but it is only four screws. it does not interfere with glove box.

 

[lindsey97]

Have you guys considered making a call to Painless Wiring? They have good tech support, and do all kinds of custom harnesses for hot rods and such.

 

[red]

Have you guys considered making a call to Painless Wiring? They have good tech support, and do all kinds of custom harnesses for hot rods and such.

I'm considering this one for my crew cab https://buypainless.com/products/10140?

 

[richingalveston]

my wiring is fine, I just put the plate there for all the loose stuff plus my new stuff. I have a Dakota digital ds1 for the tach signal and I have two fuse panels. one operates on a relay from the ignition and the other is always hot. the fuse panels I am using have 6 fuse slots. they are not as nice as what was already posted here.

 

[olly hondro]

now that the truck has a roll cage

Will try going with two of these 6 circuit boxes that mount to a roll cage element. One push button will be for glow plugs, the second for the starter. I discovered that when I am harnessed in, I can't reach the dash mounted controls.

 

[olly hondro]

OK, the fuse panels arrived; back ordered for months. I'm thinking one fuse panel for 12V stuff, the other for 24V. You see, contrary to the crowd that migrates the electrical system to all 12V, I'm going the other way: 24V fuel pump, lights, fan, winches.

 

[olly hondro]

Oh, a quick comment on 24 volt electrical: I'm not doing it for NATO vehicle compatibility or mil spec originality. A single line of arithmetic says that, for a particular power need, if I double the voltage then I can halve the current. That means wires can be smaller diameter, if they aren't too long. Since I am rewiring the truck anyway, I want to take advantage of the math.

24 V accessories are still common in the industrial and marine world: Warn makes 24 v winches for example.