The shims were good? Not cracked or spun?
Pumpkin spice..
- Thread starter J Mack
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- Thread starter
- #42
Original builder said in post #131 of the build thread "Stripped the old harness out... Will be installing a new bumper to bumper harness." If that had happened this would have been an easy fix but like much of what he says that was not the case.
I only work on old cars and I always pull all the wiring out and upgrade with new components, this isn't difficult and the information is out there on the world wide webs for the 100's of acceptable ways to do this.
This is not as straight forward after the fact and all the money in the budget has already been spent, my plan is to move some of the wiring around obviously the stuff pictured and a few other things then get everything on proper sized fuses to protect the wires at a minimum. I'm looking at ways to accomplish this while keeping it clean, making it serviceable on the trail and not breaking the bank with parts and labor.
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- Thread starter
- #43
Everything look good on the rear so new seal is all it got. I'll dig in to the front later but it will be a bigger job as you'll soon see.
- Thread starter
- #44
I used a 175 AMP MRBF fuse block at the starter and ran the alternator wire to that in this configuration..
Added inline fuses to all the smaller gauged wires and found an unused 50 amp megafuse in an existing fuse panel to run the main power feed back inside to the original fuse panel.
All buttoned up and should be easy to work on if needed in the future.
I like the MRBF fuse blocks because they're reasonably field serviceable and work well for the higher amp loads, I use these on the hot rods when I remote mount the batteries right on the positive terminal.
They are easy to bypass to get yourself home if needed.
MRBF Terminal Fuse Block
Added inline fuses to all the smaller gauged wires and found an unused 50 amp megafuse in an existing fuse panel to run the main power feed back inside to the original fuse panel.
All buttoned up and should be easy to work on if needed in the future.
I like the MRBF fuse blocks because they're reasonably field serviceable and work well for the higher amp loads, I use these on the hot rods when I remote mount the batteries right on the positive terminal.
They are easy to bypass to get yourself home if needed.
MRBF Terminal Fuse Block
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Thanks for sharing, electrical is an entirely different animal. This makes perfect sense.
- Thread starter
- #46
Glad it makes sense, it's hard to keep these little build threads going and I struggle to come up with something interesting to take pictures and write words about.
If we were starting from scratch I wouldn't have done any of this but given the circumstances this is going to be a good safe solution and will be easier to service if needed.
Carbeque is a real thing if you do it wrong enough.
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- Thread starter
- #47
I just finished up for the day and came into my office to catch up and realized not much of this makes sense with the pictures I posted, I’m updating this thread from my cell phone out in the shop and looks different now that I see in on a computer..
Let me try to tie all this together quickly..
When I started the main battery cables were smashed between the battery box and inner fender plus several smaller wires were un-fused ran directly to the battery terminals like the bright red 6 gauge wire running from the rear battery all the way back to the rear of the pig cargo area, this un-fused wire snakes through front fender openings into the interior under carpet and scuff panels then into the rear quarter panel. None of this was on Don’s list but it had to be addressed so I just tore it all out and tried to make it better for minimal time and money.
They did have two fuses (1) was a 50 AMP fuse that tied to the original Pig harness but it was behind the battery and not easy to get to, this is now tied into an existing 50 amp fuse that is part of the GM engine fuse box. Fuse (2) was a 150 amp fuse after the smashed main cables and ran to the alternator, it was buried down behind the battery mounted on the core support. None of this was the end of the world and technically would have worked just fine but I was addressing some other issues that required removing all the wiring and batteries so I wasn’t going to put it back this way and replaced this with the MRBF fuse I talked about earlier.
So I’m done rambling on about wiring and moving on to some more important issues like whiskey and ice!
Let me try to tie all this together quickly..
When I started the main battery cables were smashed between the battery box and inner fender plus several smaller wires were un-fused ran directly to the battery terminals like the bright red 6 gauge wire running from the rear battery all the way back to the rear of the pig cargo area, this un-fused wire snakes through front fender openings into the interior under carpet and scuff panels then into the rear quarter panel. None of this was on Don’s list but it had to be addressed so I just tore it all out and tried to make it better for minimal time and money.
They did have two fuses (1) was a 50 AMP fuse that tied to the original Pig harness but it was behind the battery and not easy to get to, this is now tied into an existing 50 amp fuse that is part of the GM engine fuse box. Fuse (2) was a 150 amp fuse after the smashed main cables and ran to the alternator, it was buried down behind the battery mounted on the core support. None of this was the end of the world and technically would have worked just fine but I was addressing some other issues that required removing all the wiring and batteries so I wasn’t going to put it back this way and replaced this with the MRBF fuse I talked about earlier.
So I’m done rambling on about wiring and moving on to some more important issues like whiskey and ice!
hazard ????
Excellent detail to examine for a quick minute, as the setup pictured is more or less the dual battery trend with 55s currently - two batteries (main and “house”) sitting together on the passenger side (or whatever, point being they’re in the engine bay). The main battery taking care of starting/engine, and chassis related circuits - the “house” taking care of any multitude of accessories, especially related to the camping aspect. Both batteries are usually tied together for charging via a DC/DC charger or something along those lines.
So then the question is - what is the best and most optimal wiring route to get voltage to the rear of the vehicle?
1) Through the firewall and down along the passenger side sill plates
2) Underneath along the bottom of the tub then back through one of the grommets leading into the passenger side rear quarter panel
3) Other?
Pigeaten
GOLD Star
And he has some great whiskeys, ice didn't seem that good till whiskey poured over it
- Thread starter
- #51
This pig was wired with two batteries in parallel so no main/house, just battery..
If I was starting from the beginning on this pig and had the same budget we would 100% use a Perfect switch (dual battery/dual rectifier/ dual battery isolator) Dual Rectifier 100 to 300 AMPS - Perfect Switch - https://perfectswitch.com/isolators/dual-rectifier-100-to-300-amps/
Good chance it would have a AGM start battery and a lifepo4 house battery on a DC/DC charger.
Given those choices I would go under, much easier to route the wires without going through sheet metal but along a smooth frame and if you did have an issue on the trail it's going to be way easier to fix if you don't have to pull out your burnt up carpet to get to it!
- Thread starter
- #54
Ideally! Inside the frame rail would be Perfect. Just don't tell anyone you had to Drill holes to do it
Take an ohm meter to those Bojack fuses and make sure they are good. I used the same fuse on my latest boat project and couldn’t figure out why my graphs wouldn’t power up. Turns out the fuse was not made correctly and didn’t make contact across the bridge, like it was blown, but it wasn’t.
Nice to see the loose ends getting tidy Jim 
- Thread starter
- #57
Yeah this is a real thing anymore unfortunately, it doesn't matter how much you pay or what name is on the bag... Dead on arrival is almost preferred to dying 15 miles from home!
Thanks for the reminder!!
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Not what I said.
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- Thread starter
- #59
We've talked about this several times and I've assumed the Dobson springs kill caster just like the Old Man Emu springs.
We can now say they both kill caster almost exactly the same.
Because of some other issues caster shims aren't an option for us on this so a cut and turn is in our future if we want to make this drivable.
The formula to figure caster angle on this setup. ±20° turn: Multiply camber difference by 1.5, that gives us 0.15° caster and we have a target of "4° to 6° degrees positive".
We can now say they both kill caster almost exactly the same.
Because of some other issues caster shims aren't an option for us on this so a cut and turn is in our future if we want to make this drivable.
The formula to figure caster angle on this setup. ±20° turn: Multiply camber difference by 1.5, that gives us 0.15° caster and we have a target of "4° to 6° degrees positive".