my epic wiring adventure

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mancinator

mancinator

10 Year 15 Year 20 Year
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Threads
58
Messages
243
Location
Pitt meadows BC
ok, i got the painless wiring harness delivred last week and today is my day off so i figured id go thru it and see wht wires i need and what i dont.
what id like to do is post all my questions here as they come up as i go thru things and if some of you with the higher knowledge would be good enough to tell me what im doing wrong or what im missing id be very much appreciative. im sort of a novice at this sort of thing, but i am confident that if i can get the engine wiring stuff taken care of, so the thing still starts and drive without shorting anythign out, ill be ok.
so first some background
ezwiringhandbook.JPG
ezwiringkit.JPG

its an EZ wiring harness http://www.ezwiring.com/....21 circuit setup...set up for gm steering coloums (which i have luckily!!).
and it will be going into this
cruiserpside.JPG

402side.JPG

67fj40 with a 1970 nova ss 402 chevy v8. its carburated with a quadrajet carb....
first question i have is, does a carbed engine have an electircal fuel pump or is it vaccum...i think its vaccuum becuase i know on cold days i have to pump the pedal a few times to get he beast to start and if it was electircal id have to have the key on to get power to an electrical fuel pump. anyways...the reason i need to know is there is a wire that goes to the electric fuel pump, so i would like to know if i can snip that and elimnate one more thing to wire in.
secondly...how do you tell if you have a 4 or 5 core radiator? thats just for my own info...but ive always wondered. i know this whole topic feels like it should be in the newbie forum, and if it needs to go there, ill send it that way...but either way i coudl really use some help. there will be more questions (and pics!!) to come as i work thru this kit!! thanx in advance!
 
You could have either elec. or mechanical fuel pump. Mechanical is located on the pass. side towards the front of the engine. Elec. could be located anyware in the fuel line but I know that they work best when they are located close to the tank. Elec. are push fluid farther (ie tank/pump/pushed to carb) rather than pull it, like if the pump was located near the carb.

Not sure on the rad question. I can tell you it is at least a cross flow, which I understand is a better setup than mine which has the tanks top and bottom.
 
Just follow the fuel lines from the tank to the carb. You should find a pump and a filter along those lines. If the pump is attached to the engine block and has no electrical wires connected to it, its mechanical.
 
well, i finished tearing all the wirtes out today...it was a lenghy job and at first i was realyl considering keeping as muhcv of it in just so i can trace thigns.....but as i got further into it and saw all the crazy splices and "creative" colour combos i realized that it woudl be impossible to trace any wire in that truck....so i started feeding everythign out and ended up takign all wires out. it felt good...like i twas cleansing the old iron giant of some sort of disease.
anywho, i cleaned all the switches and made a list of all the supplies i need to get tomorrow....a few switches, a few relays and a roll or two of ground wire....all connections will be soldered where possible and heat shrunk to protect it from the elements....besides my headlights, is there any other circuit that requires a relay? when i was takign things out, the only thing that i saw that used a relay was the headlights....but id like to to it all right the first time as after this im pretty sure ill be sick of wiring....i think tomorrow might be a lonnnnnng day, even still it will be fun
 
Nice, more pics of that beast please, engine and engine bay pics! exhaust man, rad and rad mount, etc...

ditto the fuel pump, i suggest not snipping the extra wires as you might need to add one later.

In the pics you show what looks like a relay above the fuse box. Any electric fan should have a relay.

It would appear you have a GM application radiator, cross flow as mentioned above, Easiest way to tell
core number is to open the rad cap and count the number of cores/holes you have across the rad front to back.

21 circuit lots of juice, make a list i dont think you will use but half or so.
 
I have the small block set up with an electric fuel pump. I was going to go with manual, but the motor mounts were in the way. I went to Napa auto parts and got an electric pump and order the Painless 30amp fuel pump relay kit. The PO had a toggle switch on the dash that turned the fuel pump on and off...that had to go. The set up I have works great, and the installation was a breeze.

Let me know if you have any questions about it.

Good luck and sweet looking cruiser!
 
good lord i hate wiring....i managed to get almost everythign hooked up...i put the positive cable back ont eh battery and listned for any breakers popping or wires fryin.....luckily there was none.....so it passed step one.....step two was to turn the ignition to acc.....and i heard a small pop and it turns out i fried one fuse...the one that supplies power to my dash/speedo/ampmeter/gas gage.....so that kinda sucked....but now i have brake lights so that is good....my turn signals work, but for some reason they dont flash....kind of bizarre...maybe its the led tail lights that im using?.....what else....i still do not have any headlights and no front turn signals....so even though i have pretty much everythign hooked up im still not out of the woods yet....the truck starts great so at least its mobile....but i have worked on it hardcore for the last 3 days, pretty much spending all dayl;ights hours on it so im goign to take a much needed break from it (i still gotta work though yuck!) and maybe i will dig back on on wednsday....
 
Relays are normally used for a horn rather than lights. If your signals
are not blinking it sounds like you bypassed the flasher (starter) on
the fuse block. There are two of them mounted on the fuse block
... one for signals and one for hazards.

As mentioned, all early chevy engines including your big block mount their
mechanical pumps on the lower front passenger portion of the block.
If there is not a pump there you should see a block off plate mounted
in its place. In the pic I see a fuel line coming up from the water pump
area which clues me in that it's mechanical.

The radiator looks very much like 4 cores or even 3 from the pic. I rather
doubt 5.
 
looks like his new fuse block has the flashers on it so if wired correctly it wouldnt be them. am thinking it has to be flasher wire not hooked up in right spot- assuming you wired emergency flashers to turn signals if not start there. otherwise, maybe got the brake/flasher wire turned around? turn signals were the last thing I got wired on mine, took some time to get them straightened out.
 
is there any way that i may have unknowingly bypassed the blinker capacitor on the fuse block? i didnt really do anything....i mean the turn signals work, they just dont blink....
 
did you hook up the flasher wire to the turn signals? also needs to run to the emergency flashers I believe. all the turn signal wires connect to the emergency flashers- with a general harness need to cut some wires to go from emergency flasher to turn signals. otherwise dont think you get flashing. not sure though, been a while.
 
it very well could be that not having my tusn hooked up to the hazard switch is what is causing the problem....i am so burnt out from work and wiring this thing the last 4 days that i am goign to take a break and get back to it maybe on saturday.....one thing i really really recommend to anyone wanting to do this, the most important thing, more so then experiance id say, is to run and attach ALL the wires by yourslef....i was lucky enouyhg to have a friend help me and my wife partook as well, and as much as i appreciated their help and company, i think that really messed up some things here. oh well....if im lucky i can sort it out this weekend.
i also decided that i am going to cut out a large section of my dash and replace it with some decent thickeness sheeetmetal....throw in a new speedo, fuel, tach gauegs and reuse a few old ones...i have alot of unecassary holes in my dash and it looks terrible....also im going to try to mount the fuse panel on the dash maybe recessed in a bit to get it away from the pedals....i wanted to put the fuse panel int he glove box buit unfortunatly the steeering coloumn plugs and wires wouldnt reach so now things are sort of cramped in the drivers feet area. oh well...live and learn.
 
Just skimmin here- maybe I'm way off,
but you mentioned led lights? Are you rear blinkers LED as well?
I've heard about the led blinkers not working correctly with the stock flashers because of the low resistance/low draw design.
 
That would high resistance / low draw. I think.

Anyway, yeah I think the blinker is a fancy automatic relay that relies on the current from the bulbs to work its blinking magic. I think.

Throw a couple regular bulbs in there and try it out - easier than tracking all the wires down again.
 
Had a "no blinking" flasher problem once. Went to Toyota Dealership to buy new flasher relay and the parts guy told me to go check my bulbs first. I checked and sure enough, one bulb had gone bad and keep both blinkers from flashing.
 
there are 3 bulbs per side in the later model 40s and even 1 broken, or if there is slightly higher wiring resistance somewhere is enough to stop the blinky-blink. I had high resistance 1 side and an intermitant short on the other and somewhere b4 the hazard switch. So i had some fun on the weekend re-wiring the entire indicators. I just havn't re-wired the hazards yet. That shall be a challange for another day (after i work out how they work)

Sam
 
oh yeah, point being, if they dont flash, just wire in either some appropriate resistors or some extra normal bulbs in parallel with the other outputs to the LEDs, which will bump up the current draw and get some kool flashing action going.

Sam
 
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