Massive amount of aftermarket wiring, how to do it right?

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Randy88FJ62

Randy88FJ62

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Apr 14, 2008
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367
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Location
North of LA California
Over the years I have learned to do basic wiring, relays, etc. I recently spent 4 days redoing my aftermarket wiring only to get smoke when turning it all on. Before I tear it all apart and start again I wanted to know where people read up on wiring and how to do it professionally. I have a hydraulic crimper, heat gun, and all the basics to do wiring myself.

My 62 has a tuffy center console and I cut a square out of the front and installed 7 switches to control air compressor, lockers, heated seats, power seat controls etc. Where can I read up on how to wire like a pro? I need better planning and execution so I dont set my truck on fire.

All switches etc get fused and main 2 ga wire into cab from aux battery is fused with a circuit breaker.
 
Three blue switchs are ARB comp and lockers. Green switch is Viar Comp for airing up. Heated seats for both passenger and driver. USB charging for his and her phones. Antenna switch upcycled and used for drivers power seat lumbar back and forth.

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oh man, it takes years of learning what people are teaching, miles and miles of arbitrary ditch digging and miles and miles of pulling #14 red with 6 digit ID tags on each end, and thousands upon thousands of dollars of screwed up work before a guy realizes he knows NOTHING about wiring; at which point, he actually begins to understand fractions of the bigger picture...about a decade later he might allow himself to thinks he's a pro....auto wiring is NOTHING like house/business wiring, and every car mfg has it's own idea of how to do it. I spent a month of dinners staring at the wiring pages of my camros repair manual before I actually got what GM was doing, and that was after 6 or 7 years doing motor controls for general industry. don't forget the fuses...they help keep the smoke in...
 
JMJA,
I don't remember the brand of the console. It was free from a friend in my 4x4 club from his 40. Got real lucky with it and love it.

After hours of perusing the web last night I'm going to ditch OEM switches in the center console and switch to all contura carling or daystar switches with their sockets on the back. This 'should' allow me to standardize and hopefully simplify the wiring of the switches.

I also plan on running a dedicated ground through the real heater holes (rear heater is gone/gutted). I believe part of my problem is grounding on the seat bolts or e-brake handle bolts isn't adequate.

The real head scratcher for me at the moment is how to fuse all the accessories and have a fuse block in my center console so I can at a glance see what's going on should a fuse pop. Running a million wires into my center console is proving to be a challenge.

I cut a hole in the bottom of my console and mounted a Bud Industries metal project box. I unscrew butterly nuts and I can access the box from the center console. The Bud Box sits where the rear heater fan used to be. This allows me to keep the center console storage space and also have access to the electrical. I also mounted my ham radio transceiver in this bottom box so there is a lot of speaker wires, amp wire running the ham radio L and R speakers.

Reviewing Painless Performance harnesses was sticker shock. Saw something I liked only to find the price was $700. Um No thanks. I'll retry my own hand at wiring again.
 
Blue Sea sells fuse panels that have a ground buss bar and dual hot banks: one for switched power and the other always hot.

I'm electric ignorant but it seems to me that having one hot direct to the battery, another hot to a switched power source and just one ground direct to the battery would simplify the situation a lot. Especially the bussed ground in the fuse panel. In my experience bad individual grounds have caused a lot of headaches.

I have one of those fuse blocks. Now I just need to strip all the old accessory wiring out and start over.
 
I run a blue sea 187 circuit breaker at the battery and another at the center console. When smoke came from the center console on sunday I was able to switch the circuit breaker off immediately then I opened the hood and switched the other one off as well. Glad I didn't have to use a fire extinguisher.
 
I have not had time to take it apart. It's going to take approximately 2-3 hours to get it all open and diagnose the cause. I am cutting off my rear springs this weekend and installing chevies so my after work time is being spent prepping for that at the moment.
 
Run hot and ground from the battery into the Tuffy console. Fuse the hot as close to the battery as possible. Terminate in the console with a fuse box that has a ground bus. IMO, 2 guage is too big to run to the fuse box, I doubt it will even physically fit. Use 4 gauge max. If you need more current to power something, use a relay, and run the hot from a separately fused distribution block off the battery.
 
I can show you the basic setup this evening Seth. I am running 4 Ga at the moment into the cab from engine bay distribution block. The 4 Ga is fused via Circuit Breaker at battery and again at console. This allows me to turn it all off when truck is not in use.
 
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