Dashboard - Part 2 - Wiring Loom

Hi all, here's another installment from Phil who has been doing all the wiring...... 

I don’t do social media – no facebook, twitter or linked in for me. My excuse is that I’d rather be living my life than writing about it. That said, I do like the idea of a build blog and intend setting one up when I finally get our house renovations done and can crack into my own projects with some regularity.

I suspect the lack of blog updates for GRQWLA in the past couple of weeks has not gone unnoticed - with the reason simply being that everyone is working flat out getting it ready for Beach hop.

Why is it that every project always comes together at the last minute, with week’s worth of work being squeezed into days? GRQWLA is definitely in that vein.

A week or so ago I headed up to Auckland with work. Plan had been for me to be in town overnight, but before I knew it work commitments had me there from Wednesday through until Tuesday. This ended up being an unexpected bonus and I had managed to put together the main part of the wiring loom on a piece of wood all ready for installation and hook up in advance of heading north (with the exception of a few minor circuits). I figured that a few more hours of work and we’d be done.

So much for that plan!

It all became a bit of a blur, but it ended up being along the lines of working on the car 5 hours Wednesday night, 5 hours Thursday night, none Friday night due to a work function, only 11 hours on Saturday due to another function, 17 hours Sunday and 8 hours Monday night – all on top of a normal day at work during the week. An early night was an 11 PM finish, with midnight and 1 AM not being unknown either. My thanks go to my friend Jason who was able to lend a hand for 8 hours on Saturday.

Along the way the wiring got completely reconfigured, as it became apparent that mounting it behind a long thin under dash trim panel was a better way to go. This required about 50% of the wiring to be re-done. 

I arrived in Auckland with this....

The finished wiring though utilises 7 x relays, 1 x LED flasher unit, 17 x fuses and 6 x dash mounted switches, and employs a set of Toyota column stalks.

We also needed to find somewhere to mount the main switches, the upshot of which was two handmade panels, as the configuration and location morphed as the project progressed and the first panel became unsuitable. Then there was the stereo head unit, which needed to be installed in an aftermarket mounting box that in turn had to be fitted to the car.

We ended up replacing the entire car wiring loom from nose to tail, with the exception of the short run up the A pillar (hidden under the upholstery) to the wiper motor and interior light. The tail lights and stereo speakers are all that remains to be connected, which won’t take long.

There is significantly more wiring in the car than before, but in all honesty what came out was rough to say the least.

Here it is still in the car.....basically a birds nest.

On the floor it doesn't look any better.

Even when you lay it out it's a mess.

Here is the transformation though. Here is what we have ended up putting in the car.

And here is the back of the stereo

And the gauges

True to form the wiring finally got powered up at midnight on Monday, at which point it became apparent that there was some debugging required, as the car turned over but wouldn’t start. The ignition system had also been modified, so there were more than a few unknowns and time had run out.

From the outset the main part of the wiring was configured so it could be unplugged from the car and worked on on a bench, as opposed to having to work upside down under a dash, which is always unappealing. So, I simply unplugged the wiring, threw it in my bag and brought it back south to Wellington to fix.

I flew back on Tuesday after work and had a car club meeting that night, so the pressure was on on Wednesday after work to sort the wiring. This took until 1 AM, and I managed to courier the wiring back to Colin overnight Thursday, with a view to it being installed Saturday and the car run. This allows Sunday for a shakedown on the car and a bit of loose end tidying up before GRQWLA heads off to beach hop on Wednesday.

My rework on Wednesday night uncovered a few faults, which I am sure are in no small part due to a bit of fatigue creeping in, and a lack of time to work as methodically as I’d like:

·           The instruments and warning lights were powered up whenever the battery was connected – ended up being due to the wrong relay being connected to a wire.

·           The high beam warning light didn’t work – ended up being a mix up between a wire for the alternator and a wire for the high beam light (two identical coloured wires in the same 8 pin connector got swapped)

·           I also had some funny stuff happening with the radiator fan and air horns, which ended up being due to a missing power feed that resulted in a floating earth and back-feeding of 12 volts into circuits (which always causes funny goings on).

I also took the opportunity to re-route some of the wiring to make it a little neater, and to amend my drawings of the circuits.

So, the acid test is this weekend – fingers crossed it will be a plug and play. The good news is Jason will be on hand in my absence to do the final hook up and sort any issues.

Stay tuned!

Phil

Here is a pic of Phil (left) and his mate Jason (right) pitching in and nutting out the wiring together.

At times the driveway looked like a used car lot with all the guys on hand and helping out.

I am hugely indebted to Phil and Jason for doing all this wiring for us. There is no way I would have been able to tackle the job to that extent and still have made it to Beach Hop. In fact I'd go as far to say that without these guys doing their thing we wouldn't be going to Beach Hop. THANKS Phil and Jason. I really, really appreciate what you have done.

And the good news! It's alive and we can drive the car. After sorting a couple of teething problems, its all go! Yay!!!!

I'll run another blog soon to summarise all the other work that has been done as there are some other people I want to acknowledge on the non-wiring side of things too.