Wiring ideas for your car

Discussions about general body work and modifications
lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

lavron wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:51 pm
On that same note, anyone know the proper 1157 sockets for a '64? Mine are crusty and don't work too good, I am not really sure how they come out of the housings either plus I need an extra one for the center hole that I think is larger, on the original, it looks like it was a twist in socket.
I found what I was looking for RockAuto had the best price, they show the same sockets for the front so I went ahead and ordered 2 extras for those, for the center taillight socket that is a backup light on more expensive Comets I ordered a Dorman 85802 socket it looks like it should snap right in.

I removed the old sockets already by punching them out with a drift punch and hammer, didn't do them much good but they were trash anyway and I did not damage my housings, only one was really stuck bad and had to be severely mangled to get out :roll:

Since I am doing my own wiring anyway can I wire the front park lights to come on full time with the taillights since they can be dual filament by just running an extra wire?

Also, we were talking about the cheap headlight harness on another thread, I took mine out and installed it today (mostly) Just remember it is a sub $20 part that has all the sockets and relays and wires, I, of course, had to modify mine and I threaded two more wires through the conduit that goes across the front of the car, one is the exciter wire for the alternator that I had already run and I ran an extra wire while I was at it, messing with the conduit is when I discovered the high beam wires are just crimped together inside the conduit with no insulation, it may be fine but I chose to fix mine. (it is this way on both sides).

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The other thing I had to do is remove the plugs from the passenger side by un-clipping the terminals so I could thread them through the frame below the radiator they are too big to fit in the holes on the inside, just an FYI you don't need to remove the black wires from the terminals, they can stay attached because once you remove the white and blue wires both sockets and black ground wires are separated, I did not realize that and removed them. Be careful because the ceramic sockets are pretty delicate they were already chipped inside before I started, I did not chip them anymore.

I also removed the in-line fuse from the battery wire and replaced a wire to run directly to the fuse box.

Maybe there is something someone can use in that rambling :P

See Ya,
Mike
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poboyjo65
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by poboyjo65 »

saw these SS zipties,they look pretty handy . just last night I was trying to fish a ziptie back thru something,trying to bend it so it would come back thru another opening so I could grab the other end to run it thru the lock, it didnt want to stay in the shape I bent it ,these would have been nice;
https://bloomgum.com/products/ties?fbcl ... cJy4DGzx80
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Johno

lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

poboyjo65 wrote:
Thu Jul 30, 2020 6:52 pm
saw these SS zipties,they look pretty handy
Pretty neat, my only concern would be them cutting into the insulation on wires, etc. where an old plastic zip tie wouldn't, otherwise I have a couple of places where I have conduits zip-tied together and these might be a bit more secure for that.

I got the replacement headlight switch and pigtail today, finally figured out it was for mid-'90s Bronco/Aerostar, let's just say '96 to keep the year the same as the other '90s parts on my car :roll: I haven't had a chance to install it yet but it looks like a well-made part (Standard Motor Products DS268T) the pigtail has 9 leads on it (Standard Motor Products HP3820) I knew there was at least one wire I did not need after finding a chart showing what each wire was, pin DN is the radio illumination wire :roll: the other one I did not know was pin IGN which said it ran to the battery, I tried to find a diagram to see if I could come up with a purpose for it, finally found some info on a '95 Mustang switch that looks like it is the same.

A picture I stole from that website.

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Same 9 pins ING and DN (radio illumination) are not used so I removed the wires from the plug (They clip in so I just un-clipped them) that leaves me with the 7 shown. It appears that B1, B2, and D1 all run back to hot always (headlights, taillights/parking lights and interior light feeds) Since I am running a relay on the headlights I was thinking I could tie all 3 of those together going back to the fuse box, I ran a 12 or 14 wire from the box already for the main feed.

I did make the headlights come on today, well 3 out of 4 I think one must be burned out because the test light showed the socket had power, going to change them out anyway to LEDs or Halogens.

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

I went ahead and left the interior light feed wire unbundled from the headlight/taillight feed, there are no interior lights right now anyway. I did order two new door jamb switches, my old ones fell apart when I removed them.

I am a little fuzzy on how to wire the door jamb switches and the headlight switch right now but will figure it out, I am not sure if the door switches are grounds or are hot wires, I know there is just a single wire running to the dome light, or that is all I found, if that is true it would be a hot wire running up there :roll:

The dimmer switch came today and I got it installed now I have properly functioning headlights, I don't have to jumper across stuff to make them come on and they turn bright and dim with the click of the footswitch.

Building my own wiring harness I have learned a lot about how all the parts interact with one another, don't think I would even want to try with one of the modern computerized cars :shock:

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

I will ask this way ahead of when I will need to do it, if I add 4-way flashers how do they wire in and I am assuming they need their own flasher?

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

lavron wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 5:30 pm
I will ask this way ahead of when I will need to do it, if I add 4-way flashers how do they wire in and I am assuming they need their own flasher?
I think I have it figured out will post when I get my stuff in and see if it works :roll:

We were talking about headlights over in Christian's thread so I thought instead of hijacking his thread anymore I would put this here.

I went ahead and bought a set of empty composite headlights (glass lens and metal reflector no bulbs) off of Amazon, I ordered a set of H4 LED bulbs off of eBay, I got the headlights this week still waiting on the bulbs. as I do often I was sidetracked a little and decided to see if they would fit, the answer is yes and no.

They fit the low beam buckets fine, in fact, they are all low beam headlights so they don't fit the high beam buckets at all, my solution was to cut/break off the tabs on the high beams leaving a little sharp prongs, they grab the bucket and appear to fit fine, I only did the passenger side and will take pictures when I do the drivers side.

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These particular lights are flat-faced, I think they look ok in my '64 they were $20 a pair the LED bulbs were $20 for all 4 so a set of LED composite headlights for $60. I will let you know how it works out for me.

See Ya,
Mike
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lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

Update on the headlights, you only need to cut off the tip of one of the locating pins on the brights. And don't buy cheap bulbs, I had 4 headlights for a few seconds and one of them internally shorted as far as I can tell and now I have 3 again, I guess I will look at a little better bulbs to replace them with, oh well they only cost $20 for the set :roll:

I do need to figure something else out however, it blew the fuse as well but it was the switch fuse the activates the relay, not the relay fuse so that confuses me a little, I replaced the fuse and it did not happen again.

The little while I had all 4 they are brighter than the old ones.

See Ya,
Mike
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smithhe
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by smithhe »

Little bit off topic here but when you use an aftermarket starter with the solenoid mounted on it, do I need to ground the starter or will it be grounded automatically because my engine is grounded to the frame?
1964 Mercury Comet 404 with 347 stroker
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lavron
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by lavron »

smithhe wrote:
Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:12 pm
when you use an aftermarket starter with the solenoid mounted on it, do I need to ground the starter or will it be grounded automatically because my engine is grounded to the frame?
It should be grounded automatically to the block/bell housing, just make sure you have a good ground to the frame from the block and all should be well.

See Ya,
Mike
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smithhe
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Re: Wiring ideas for your car

Post by smithhe »

ok that's what I thought, Thank you!
1964 Mercury Comet 404 with 347 stroker
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