Aftermarket or retrofit fuse box?

[dkbug]

Anyone ever retrofit a different cars' fuse box or power distribution box into their A-body? I have been thinking about doing away with my old system and putting in a fuse box in from a different simple system. I hate the stock power box in my 70 dart.... There are too many things wired in a series that it makes it damn near impossible for someone to diagnose a problem sometimes.

I need to rewire my entire lighting system from scratch since all of the old wires are garbage. They are all tied in with the wipers, cluster lights, yatta yatta. I just want a simple, I guess I would call it "modern", light wiring diagram.

 

[dkbug]

And it's threads like this (http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=161467) that back my reasoning. Instead of having your damn tail lights wired in with your radio..... why not have them on separate circuits?

 

[67Dart273]

I'm rewiring mine, and am using two, actually. Using a "like new" EZ wire harness and two JEEP relay / distro boxes, which have been "melded" to get more relays. In other words one or two modules from one box went into the other. Before this, I had a Caravan? box under the hood. They work fairly decent, as well. You just have to troll a junk yard and find what works. Some of the stuff is difficult to re-configure. I like the Jeep boxes

You are looking here at my 67. The EZ panel is about where the OEM was. The vent has been replaced by an early Mustang vent, cut way down to only save the damper butterfly. Jeep box is at top, and Holley EFI is tucked in below. Believe it or not the kick panel will fit with a little "work."

The black area of the Jeep box takes "mini" blade fuses. I've forgotten what the larger ones are. You can get them from something on the order of 20A to 60 I think. (JCAS fuse is one term)

 

[65 Dartman]

I will be using an under dash harness in my 65 Dart wagon from an 80s Dodge Mirada. It uses the blade fuses and has separate circuits for pretty much everything. Am also eliminating the ammeter and going with a voltmeter. By eliminating the ammeter I will have 3 individual 12 gauge wires running from an aftermarket fuse/relay center into the car via the solid bus bars on the junction block. I added a third bus bars to the 2 already on a stock bulkhead connector. I swapped the Mirada bulkhead connector for the 65 Dart connector. The incoming wires go to the headlight switch (1) and (2) to the ignition switch and will be protected by suitable size maxifuses in the relay center. Am also going to use the Mirada steering column since the under dash harness is already set up for it.

If you're interested I have a fuse panel form a later year A Body - think it's around 74 or later - and it has plenty of fuse capacity.

 

[67Dart273]

This is an OEM Jeep power center similar to what I bought two of on ebay. Here you can see the one blank module. The 4 relay modules can be removed and reconfigured.

It's difficult to tell, but what I ended up with is the two tan modules hold 1 large relay and 2 of the micro relays. The two bright yellow modules hold 2 of the larger relays. So 6 of the largest relays and 2 of the little micro relays. I cut and rewired the small fuses mostly to feed the relay coils. You can do a "certain amount" of re-configuring on the large fuses in the box.

 

[67Dart273]

This is what I used to have, and it worked well, out of a Voyager van. You can mount this up on the fender apron, and you can re-configure the relays

The fuses for this and the Jeep box are not cheap, but then, you ain't sposed to blow many fuses LOL

 

[dkbug]

This is why I love this forum..... You guys ROCK!!!

I crawled around my local pull-a-part and actually looked a jeep box. When you guys say you can "reconfigure" them, what do you mean by that? I want to run another hot wire from my starter solenoid where my alternator and battery meet up to the box to run all of my accessories on their own individual circuits.

 

[67Dart273]

When you guys say you can "reconfigure" them, what do you mean by that? .

On the Voyager box, you have to clip the harness so you "have some left" and you can just use the relay socket wires as stubs to wire up how you want, heat shrink, splices, etc

On the Jeep ones, part of that is same deal. But the Jeep ones come apart. "Take a standby" I'll try and get some photos of the "leftovers"

 

[dkbug]

On the Voyager box, you have to clip the harness so you "have some left" and you can just use the relay socket wires as stubs to wire up how you want, heat shrink, splices, etc

On the Jeep ones, part of that is same deal. But the Jeep ones come apart. "Take a standby" I'll try and get some photos of the "leftovers"

Yeah some photos would do me wonders. I am actually contemplating looking at a under dash wiring box out of a 90's model dodge, which is the small one. I think it would actually fit in my factory location quite well.

 

[67Dart273]

Here is the Voyager box pictured earlier, stripped out. The individual relay wires can be easily traced out and spliced to whatever fuses you want. Some of them will already be connected

At bottom left of the second photo is the mini fuse section. The large fuses are the same (I think?) as the Jeep box

 

[67Dart273]

Jeep box.......This is one of the stripped Jeep boxes. All the modules snap in with little latches you have to release with a jeweler's screwdriver, etc.



The last two are the input buss. These snap in the bottom and provide one contact to the large fuses. The wires to these are not shown. They snap into the mating fuse holder with a latch similar to the Mopar Packard terminals

The third photo down, far right of the buss, you can see the smaller terminals feeding power to the mini relays. Note that all of this is HOT, that is NOT switched. I used most of these to feed relays, and then of course used smaller fused circuits to trigger relays feeding off. Two relays for headlights, one for hi, one for low, one for starter relay, one for security, and so on.

The far right of the bottom photo is the input power buss into the mini fuse section. These are not very configurable. I believe I cut up this buss somewhat and used connector terminals out of both boxes in order to make these more independent.

I don't remember I bought two of these, slightly different from each other, on th' bay for 30 or so each. They of course are LOADED with fuses and relays

 

[67Dart273]

Jeep box next Shows the mask for the fuse section

 

[67Dart273]

Jeep box continued These are some of the unused relay modules. As I said, the box I'm using is now a mix of the two. At least part of these were in the other box. These modules hold 4 of the smallest "micro" relays.

 

[dkbug]

This needs to be stickied.... I will be doing this swap and adding pictures of my progress.....