First Car -- 1968 Barracuda Notchback
Well, it turns out I remembered things wrong. I thought I did the interior and then the wiring fixes, but apparently I did things in reverse order. So, here's the wiring saga:
This car has always had very dim headlights and the only gauge lights that worked were about 1/3 of the speedometer lights and the light in the gear indicator on the column. My headlights used to get brighter with engine speed, but a new voltage regulator fixed that. The main upgrades I wanted were headlight relays, better choke wiring, and a USB charger for the cabin.
When I installed the new Holley 650 on the car 5 years ago, I did the worst wiring job a 15 year old could ever do for an electric choke. It was crappy splices into the harness with a cheap-o inline fuse and a relay dangling in the inner fender. This time around, I decided to buy a designated fuse/relay box for the engine compartment similar to what many newer cars have. I did a more in-depth review of the unit I bought in this thread: Engine Bay Relay Box Installation
I bought a $20 relay box off of amazon, and it's a pretty skookum unit. Nice glass-reinforced plastic, rubber weather pack seals, six 5-pin relay slots and 6 maxi fuse slots left me room for more electrical upgrades in the future.
I started by installing the relay box empty in the car so I could figure out my wire routing and lengths. The last thing I wanted to do was drill holes in my inner fenders, so I made the jankiest bracket out of a spare piece of steel in the garage. I bent it to shape with pliers and an unsecured vice, and then wrapped it with electrical tape to prevent the sharp edge from cutting wires. I didn't want to drill holes to mount it, so I secured it with a fender bolt and a broken plastic clip further down the inner fender. The last bracket was one the box came with, and it shares a mounting point with the washer fluid reservoir. It is in tripod mode, but it's pretty secure and I installed rubber washers at every mounting point to reduce vibrations from the car. Here's the first mockup:
Once I had the box in, I began assembling the headlight relay kit from CrackedBack. It's an amazing kit! I highly recommend it. It took me a while to assemble because the relay box changed the layout from the original kit, but I'm glad I took the time to do it. Here's a diagram of how I laid things out, plus some wiring pics:
Since both the choke circuit and the USB charger run very little current, I decided to run them off the same switched ignition relay on two separate fuses. The switched ignition relay gets its signal from the 12v side of the ballast resistor, and the switched circuit pulls power directly from the battery. I used a set of pre-assembled weather pack connectors for both the choke and USB charger circuit for easy disconnect in case I have to service or repair any electrical components. I've once again hit the photo limit so I'll include a picture of them in the next post, but I'm satisfied with them as well!
Once I had the main box installed, I finally installed the USB charger. It was a cheap-o $10 unit with two ports and no bracket, so I had to make do. The previous owner of the car installed an oil pressure and ammeter combo underneath the dash below the ashtray, and the ammeter has never been wired up from what I could tell. I pulled the ammeter out and stashed it away for later use, which left a hole about an inch too big for the USB charger in the gauge bracket. Again, using the powers of hackery and my mad skillz, I fabricated a precision adapter plate out of the bottom of a can of olives:
aaaand, Bob's your auntie! A fine USB charger for the fancy tech that we all carry nowadays.
That pretty much wraps up the March 2020debacle saga. I'll finish the details in another post, but that brings us up to speed until Friday, May 29th, when the transmission suddenly decided that it didn't like ATF anymore... Stay tuned!
Well, it turns out I remembered things wrong. I thought I did the interior and then the wiring fixes, but apparently I did things in reverse order. So, here's the wiring saga:
This car has always had very dim headlights and the only gauge lights that worked were about 1/3 of the speedometer lights and the light in the gear indicator on the column. My headlights used to get brighter with engine speed, but a new voltage regulator fixed that. The main upgrades I wanted were headlight relays, better choke wiring, and a USB charger for the cabin.
When I installed the new Holley 650 on the car 5 years ago, I did the worst wiring job a 15 year old could ever do for an electric choke. It was crappy splices into the harness with a cheap-o inline fuse and a relay dangling in the inner fender. This time around, I decided to buy a designated fuse/relay box for the engine compartment similar to what many newer cars have. I did a more in-depth review of the unit I bought in this thread: Engine Bay Relay Box Installation
I bought a $20 relay box off of amazon, and it's a pretty skookum unit. Nice glass-reinforced plastic, rubber weather pack seals, six 5-pin relay slots and 6 maxi fuse slots left me room for more electrical upgrades in the future.
I started by installing the relay box empty in the car so I could figure out my wire routing and lengths. The last thing I wanted to do was drill holes in my inner fenders, so I made the jankiest bracket out of a spare piece of steel in the garage. I bent it to shape with pliers and an unsecured vice, and then wrapped it with electrical tape to prevent the sharp edge from cutting wires. I didn't want to drill holes to mount it, so I secured it with a fender bolt and a broken plastic clip further down the inner fender. The last bracket was one the box came with, and it shares a mounting point with the washer fluid reservoir. It is in tripod mode, but it's pretty secure and I installed rubber washers at every mounting point to reduce vibrations from the car. Here's the first mockup:
Once I had the box in, I began assembling the headlight relay kit from CrackedBack. It's an amazing kit! I highly recommend it. It took me a while to assemble because the relay box changed the layout from the original kit, but I'm glad I took the time to do it. Here's a diagram of how I laid things out, plus some wiring pics:
Since both the choke circuit and the USB charger run very little current, I decided to run them off the same switched ignition relay on two separate fuses. The switched ignition relay gets its signal from the 12v side of the ballast resistor, and the switched circuit pulls power directly from the battery. I used a set of pre-assembled weather pack connectors for both the choke and USB charger circuit for easy disconnect in case I have to service or repair any electrical components. I've once again hit the photo limit so I'll include a picture of them in the next post, but I'm satisfied with them as well!
Once I had the main box installed, I finally installed the USB charger. It was a cheap-o $10 unit with two ports and no bracket, so I had to make do. The previous owner of the car installed an oil pressure and ammeter combo underneath the dash below the ashtray, and the ammeter has never been wired up from what I could tell. I pulled the ammeter out and stashed it away for later use, which left a hole about an inch too big for the USB charger in the gauge bracket. Again, using the powers of hackery and my mad skillz, I fabricated a precision adapter plate out of the bottom of a can of olives:
aaaand, Bob's your auntie! A fine USB charger for the fancy tech that we all carry nowadays.
That pretty much wraps up the March 2020
