Builds Moonshine - A Build Thread (7 Viewers)

[J Mack]

The power-gate comes on with an ignition signal (instead of starter signal @J Mack , hoping to avoid the problem you described)

Congratulations Johnny you are doing a fantastic job as usual.

With the amount of onboard power you’ll have I don’t believe you’ll ever have the problem I had running a single group 34/78 AMG battery dropping below the voltage threshold and turning the power gate off.

 

[MrK]

I ended up buying a 10a Noco Genius battery tender with "lithium" mode for $90. I was looking for something a little more automatic than a DC power supply, although I did strongly consider one. If I develop my workspace to the point where I can have a dedicated electronics workstation, I'll be sure to get one.

HUGE milestone yesterday. Did a full running functional test of the truck, and was able to confirm that *nearly* everything works as expected. The power-gate comes on with an ignition signal (instead of starter signal @J Mack , hoping to avoid the problem you described) I'm particularly proud of that, considering I've entirely rewired two or three circuits in the factory harness, eliminated about 10 others, and integrated all of my accessory wiring that's been added over the past thirteen years. Here's my remaining electrical list, which is so awesome.

- diagnose inoperable reverse light circuit
- confirm voltage at ac clutch signal
- confirm wiper motor operation
- confirm washer motor operation
- mount and wire stereo amp
- loom harness

I will do a write-up once totally finished, but this feels GREAT!! 5 weeks of wiring so far

That’s a heap of work done. Definitely want to see the write up as perhaps it might be on my list as well.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

In hindsight, it looks like the traditional battery tender was charging the lifepo4 pack, but it was slow.

Charging with the Noco Genius 10amp on the lithium setting.
13.4v @ 9.8a w/62.25ah @ 2:50pm
13.6v @ 9.8a w/85ah @ 5:15pm
13.7v @ 9.8a w/99.51ah @ 7pm

Fully charged by 8:20
14.0v resting
99.99 ah
At this point, the cells were topper up all the way. The BMS' cell protection kicked in as expected and disabled charging at that point, and the Noco responded by blinking as if it wasn't connected. Too cool!

Sneak peak. So close to finished (with the wiring) I can taste it now.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

The wiring project is officially finished as of last night.

Let's summarize what my goals were when I started this wiring project 6 weeks ago, how that fleshed out, and specifically what harness modifications I did.

Goals:
1. Move batteries to the center of the vehicle to make more room for activities in the engine bay.
2. Battery Isolation
3. Clean up unused systems in the factory harness (original 2f emissions control systems, rear heater, etc.)
4. Clean up engine bay wiring
5. Remove hatch washer and wiper
6. Integrate 12v accessory wiring into harness (into factory fuse box if possible)
7. Increase overall battery capacity
8. Have ability to monitor battery bank charge rates
9. Move HAM radio head unit to above the rear view mirror (eventually create overhead console with lights)
10. Eliminate stereo deck and move to headless stereo system

Bonus Round:
- all harness loads are off of the lithium battery bank, including the fusible link and aux fuse block
- AGM batteries are wired in parallel, and charge through the power-gate, but power only the starter and winch

Doing this meant relocation of a few things in the harness, elimination of a whole lot of things, and adding a bunch more. I broke it out by harness location and harness contents:

Center Dash to batteries (entirely new harness):
- fusible link wires (moved from PS front engine bay harness)
- ARB compressor switch signal
- ignition + signal for power-gate charge indication
- battery join control wires
- ham radio power wires
- fan controller power
- dash 12v socket power

DS Dash to rear quarter panel
- remove defog circuits
- remove wiper circuits
- remove washer circuits
- splice hatch LED light harness to dome circuit at the top of the d-pillar
- rear fridge/socket wires

DS Dash to DS front fender:
- remove horn wiring and add back new horn + wire (will explain later)
- winch contactor/solenoid control wire bundle (power, ground, in, out wires)
- retain/repair side marker, turn signal, and headlight wiring
- starter + and - 1/0 wires through bulkhead fittings

PS Dash to PS front fender:
- fan controller power
- fan controller constant on
- fan controller constant off
- fan controller constant ign +
- alternator 1/0 + wire through bulkhead fitting
- AC clutch signal wire
- oil pressure sensor
- pyrometer thermocouple
- wiper motor
- washer motor
- remove all emissions equipment wiring
- remove charge circuit wiring (has been defunct since engine conversion)
- remove horn wiring
- retain/repair side marker, turn signal, and head light wiring

Center Dash to Engine harness (entirely new harness):
- injection pump signal wire
- starter solenoid signal wire
- reverse light switch wires
- fuel pressure sensor wire
- tiny-tach inducer sensor wire
- coolant temperature sensor wire
- line lock wires

DS Dash to Overhead harness (mostly new harness):
- OEM dome light wires
- *future* light bar power wires
- gauge backlight + wire
- ign + and - wires


In the main harness that runs through the dash, all of the redundant or unnecessary wiring was traced and cut out. This removed a substantial amount of wire. The gauge cluster wiring was audited and consolidated to reduce the number of connections, the gauge pod wiring was cleaned up, and new speaker harnesses were created and added in. All of the wire additions above were designed to be able to be disconnected for when the harness comes out of the truck, with exception of the center dash to battery harness.


OEM Circuit modifications, sorted by OEM fuse.
Two primary fuse box circuits were entirely rewired for the purposes of this project. As part of this project, I created a modified HVAC bezel to utilize carling rocker switches instead of trying to source OEM switches. I also eliminated the OEM cigarette lighter and ashtray in favor of a blue sea cig/USB combo deal. Since all of the HVAC switches were eliminated, this left the DEFOG and CIG circuits open to whatever I wanted. The rest of the circuits listed here were partially rewired, but all left with the OEM fuse rating, and matching (or larger) wire gauge, to prevent shorts.

CIG
The carling switches I got from delcity.net have a 15a rating (i think) but I'm using them for low current operations. To list the purposes, ARB compressor relay signal, power-gate battery join, line-locks, fan controller constant on/off. For this purpose, I rewired the CIG circuit to power my carling switches, and the new headless stereo amp I put in. The wire gauge was matched to the OEM power wire, and the factory rated fuse was retained in the fuse block.

DEFOG
The DEFOG is a 20a circuit that ran all the way back to the rear glass to power the rear glass inductive heating strips. Since all that was removed, I repurposed this to a different carling switch, which will eventually power a light bar that goes on the roof.

IGN positive (ENGINE)
For the handful of places I needed IGN + to signal the ignition was on, I leveraged a black-yellow wire from the ENGINE fuse circuit. This is a 18ga wire in the factory harness, which is fine because the devices wired to it use it as a voltage sense to switch on, not to carry current. The IGN positive was ran up to the fan controller to signal that to turn on, and back to the power-gate, to tell the power-gate to turn on to allow the alternator to charge the batteries.

DOME
I have a pair of LED flood lights in the hatch that I added some number of years ago. For forever, they've been ran off of 18ga wire on a 5a fuse. I eliminated that harness, and elected to splice them into the rear D-pillar DOME circuit where the rear dome light connects. The DOME circuit is 7.5a, and is perfectly suited to this. I will still have a switch in the rear hatch to manually turn on the hatch lights, so that they do not come on when the doors open.

HORNS
The horns were interesting, but after some thinking, they came out pretty slick. HAZ/HORN circuit in discussion. As those of you with 60s know, the horn button on the steering wheel switches the ground leg (solid green wire) of the horn circuits. The green/orange wire is a constant power wire (12v all the time regardless of key position). This works with the OEM horns, as the OEM horns are isolated from their mounting location, so when the ground is connected by the horn button, current can pass through the harness constant + wire, through the (now connected) ground and the horn activates. The issue is that seemingly all aftermarket horns HAVE to be + switched, as they ground through their mounting studs.

The fix for aftermarket horns is to run a relay with a power source from the battery, using the OEM circuit as the relay signal, which works well if your battery is still up front. Well, since i had the whole harness apart, and my batteries are in an inconvenient spot, that wasn't going to work well. I figured out that you can power and switch a relay all through the two OEM wires, and get a single horn button activated positive output wire to power the horns with. Green wire (switched ground) goes to one of the two relay switch pins, and the green-orange wire (constant +) goes to the other side of the relay switch, and the relay power pin. This way, when you hit the horn button, the constant power from the green-orange wire is powering both the relay's switch, but also the relay power, which is then ran all the way up to wherever your horns are. Presto, amperage protected, simplest wiring conversion possible for aftermarket horns on a 60. I stuck the relay down in the DS kick panel as there was now tons of free space in there.

 

[cruisermatt]

You are killing it dude. Going to be so sweet once it's put back together with the paint.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Getting to the pictures, stepping back a little bit. This is the power distribution and control system I've come up with. The power-gate is a fancy battery isolator. When the truck is off, the batteries are isolated from each other, and from the alternator, so that they discharge independently. Disconnecting the alternator is done as a safety feature, as that large wire doesn't need to be powered when the truck is off, and to help prevent parasitic draws.

The silver thing in the center is the BMS (battery management system) that controls and monitors the LiFePO4 battery bank that's hidden underneath this wooden platform. It protects the lithium battery bank from over/undercharging, over/under current, from charging/discharging when too cold or too hot, monitors cell balance and has bluetooth so i can diagnose problems quickly. It's pretty cool.

The brass and clear plastic thing is a shunt for a battery monitor display that's in the dash. It is wired to show me the charge state and approximate remaining capacity of my lithium battery bank.

The 100a breaker is to disconnect the positive wire from the lithium batteries for servicing, and to protect from overcurrent (100a BMS).

The red bus bar is for loads, and is only connected to the lithium batteries. The black is a common chassis ground between the AGMs, lithiums, motor and chassis.

The shunt displays battery capacity, as well as the instantaneous charge or discharge rate in amps and watts. Perfect for a quick check.

Once wired, pre-cable management, this is what the distribution and control system looks like. The wire bundle going bottom-center out of frame goes to the ARB compressor.

Sidenote; I elected to put a new steering wheel on while doing the horn rewiring:

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Headless stereo setup is just a 600w marine amp. I whipped up a quick bracket to bolt to the unused speaker hole bolts in the dash, since this amp is super light. I love this location. Plugs in to the harness I created for speakers (blue/black and yellow/black twisted wires).

Don't mind that mess in the background, it's just hard to fit a roll of electrical tape in there to bind it together. It'll get fixed once the harness is pulled out.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I'm SUPER happy with how the engine bay wiring came out. I was able to completely eliminate all of the wiring going over the engine, which just looks awesome.

DS dash to front harness and starter power wires pictured. 60 owners would be familiar with all of the OEM emissions control wires on this side that are now all gone. This harness is down to exactly 12 wires INCLUDING the 4 for the contactor/solenoid winch controls. I'm quite pleased with that

Center dash to engine harness next. I leveraged the OEM speedo cable grommet to pass cables through to the outside for a nice clean hidden look. The single wire going straight up in the engine bay shot is the GPS speedo antenna.

PS dash to front has a bit more going on. AC clutch, starter excite, alternator charge, wiper motor, washer motor, fan controller wiring.

Finally, center dash to batteries harness. Alternator charge wire and the partially loomed harness going back. In the previous iteration, I had my HAM radio wires on this exact path, and they never got in the way, so it seemed ideal. Using this route allowed the fusible link wires to be used without extension, which I was in favor of.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Some shots of the main harness:

Here you can see the center-dash to front harness fork (left) and the center-dash to batteries fork (right):

 

[GLTHFJ60]

For fun, this is nearly all of what I've cut out of the factory harness:

These are the OEM switches, motors, relays and computers that were eliminated

Finally, this is the wiring removed from the truck that I added over the years to power various things. Most of the functions represented by this were integrated into the vehicle harness, or rewired to accomodate the new battery location. I had added a lot of stuff in the past 13 years!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

In conclusion, I spent about 6 weeks on and off designing and wiring this system. I've verified the operation of every light, indicator and switch in the truck, and everything works as expected. The truck runs, the alternator charges the battery, and all of my switches work the way I've intended. It's been a long road, but I'm glad to have done it.

Now that I'm done, I can mark the harness where it needs hangers, pull it all apart, and loom it. After that, I'm back to easy mechanical junk, and first up on that list, is stripping the interior for new sound deadening.

Stay tuned

Bonus, these are the lists I've been referencing for this project

 

[boots4]

Wiring is one of those projects I'm happy about once it's done. Good for you for tackling this one.

 

[cruisermatt]

you killed it man. Never seen anyone completely wire a 60 so thoroughly before.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Wiring is one of those projects I'm happy about once it's done. Good for you for tackling this one.

Thank you. I'm happy it's done too. One of the few tasks on these old trucks that consumes a tremendous amount of time with so little to show for it.

you killed it man. Never seen anyone completely wire a 60 so thoroughly before.

Thanks man. Only way to do it more than this is to use a full replacement harness, like a painless setup. I didn't go that route, as it seemed to be the same amount of work, *plus* figuring out how to wire the steering column switches.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Tore it all down to strip the floor for primer, then spray-in sound deadening. Working on stripping now, should be done in a day or two.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Stripping done. What a messy, s***ty job that was. I had put a few layers of Second Skin down on the floor a number of years ago, and man, that stuff does not want to come off.

Currently drying from a quick water washdown, then ospho tonight. Decided I'm going to spray the whole floor and ceiling with epoxy primer, then spray the sound deadening down over the top of that. The epoxy primer will seal the metal really well, and provide a uniform surface for the spray-on sound deadening products.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

After the ospho dried, i went over all of the surfaces with 80grit sandpaper on an orbital sander. The spots that couldn't be reached with that were got with a wire wheel on a die grinder.

Eastwood epoxy primer was sprayed on next. Went on easy, two coats, wet on wet.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Next, I elected to take the tar insulation off of the inner side of the firewall. Glad I did, found some surface rust in a few spots. Got that all primed and masked, then sprayed the lizard skin sound control. Used one gallon to coat the floor, firewall and roof. Not sure if it's thick enough, but at $120 a gallon or whatever it is, one gallon is enough

One gotcha here is that the insulation blanket thing from the factory that's on the firewall goes on before the column and pedal buckets bolt in. It's two halves, the upper half around the cowl, then the lower half that extends towards the floor. My lower half was torn up on the outsides, so I cut it out. The upper half was in good shape, so I wrapped it around the steering column to be able to spray.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Have to wait for the first layer to fully cure before spaying the second, so next up was seam sealer. The 3m product was going to take forever to get here, so on recommendation I used this flowable seam sealer product from SEM to do the rain gutters. Worked out pretty well, although I am not very good at caulking

The 3M heavy bodied seam sealer came in though, so that got used on the body seams. Remember, doesn't matter if it's not perfect, it's getting paint over the top. At least, that's what I kept telling myself

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Slowly plugging away. Got the ceramic lizard skin sprayed in, then earlier today I sprayed about a gallon of Majic tractor enamel paint on the floor. Once the fumes dissipate, I'll start on the body shell bondo skim coat, in prep for the final layer of epoxy primer on the shell. After that, color