Too much strain on the electrical system?

[pilotsareplanecrazy]

I am thinking about putting a Lowrance Nav system in my FJ62, and wanted to hard wire it in to the truck's electrical system. The PO did the H4 headlight upgrade and tapped them straight in to the battery with in-line fuses.

Would it put too much strain on the stock electrical system to add a Painless 7-circuit fuse box and run the headlights(constant hot wire), 12v power for the Nav, and 2 additional cig lighter plugs(all ACC)?

 

[soggy60]

The strain 'could be' how you tie the fuse box to the source of power....
- -thru regular harness & ign key switch wiring ?
- -fuse box directly to battery ?

 

[pilotsareplanecrazy]

Fuse box directly to battery is what i was planning.

I am new to wiring, is there a better way?

 

[FJ40_owner]

I am thinking about putting a Lowrance Nav system in my FJ62, and wanted to hard wire it in to the truck's electrical system. The PO did the H4 headlight upgrade and tapped them straight in to the battery with in-line fuses.

Would it put too much strain on the stock electrical system to add a Painless 7-circuit fuse box and run the headlights(constant hot wire), 12v power for the Nav, and 2 additional cig lighter plugs(all ACC)?

Wire direct to the battery. You could consider a second battery and run all accerories from the number two battery.

 

[lovetoski]

Would it put too much strain on the stock electrical system...

It depends.

Simple answer is that if your alternator has sufficient output for the loads you wish to run, then you're not straining your electrical system. However, if your alt does not produce enough amps for the loads(s) applied, then your battery will do it's best to make up the difference. (A battery can produce lots of amps, but not for long - eg startup.) If the battery gets called into play, then you'll see a voltage drop, and the longer you keep the load applied, the greater the voltage drop. Eventually if you keep this up the battery will be dead.

Your stock alt is 80amps, but that's max output, not at idle. It's probably 1/2 that at idle. When will you run these additional accessories? What amps do they draw? What else will you have running?

I'm sure that if you are mindful of the different loads you "could run" off of the stock wiring and the second circut box, you can make this work just fine w/out "straining" your electrical system. You'll need to keep in mind what you are running, and observe the volt meter. If it drops, and stays down, you have too many loads on the system.

Also, all of the above assumes that you've done a good job in installing the second fuze box. Clean connections, good ground, proper fuzing, etc.

If you post up the amps of the items you want to run, it might help a little.

 

[lovetoski]

Fuse box directly to battery is what i was planning.

I am new to wiring, is there a better way?

This is the best way to add additional circuts.

 

[Tinker]

If the Lowrance system is simply a GPS the load is negligible.

 

[pilotsareplanecrazy]

The Lowrance has 5" color screen and doubles as an mp3 player. I also want to hard wire an FM transmitter to broadcast to a certain signal.

I want to keep the interior as stock as possible, so i am keeping the factory head unit and can't tap in directly.

 

[WAVEPIMP]

That stuff will hardly make a difference. Now when you start installing mutiple lights and a couple of stereo amps for the people two streets over to hear your music, thats when you need to start thinking about second batteries and bigger altenators.

That Lawrance thing will hardly make a dent in your cruiser. You could use a good size relay (30 amp should be good) and use that to tap into the ignition system and the new fuse box. It will give power to the fuse box once the key is on. Or you could just go straight to the battery, but you would have to turn off the lawrance thingy everytime you got out the vehicle. Its up to you, but that lil thing won't be no problem.

Laters

 

[WAVEPIMP]

also the fm transmitter uses very little power as well.

If you do a straight run to the battery, the fm transmitter should have a positve wire for constant power and a wire for remote power. Hook the remote power one to a wire that only works when the ignition switch is on. That way it will turn off when you kill the vehicle, and not stay on and run the battery down when you are not using it.

Good luck

 

[sandcruiser]

Your stock alt is 80amps, but that's max output, not at idle. It's probably 1/2 that at idle.

is the fj62 alt really an 80amp alternator? I thought stock in a 60 was more like 45 amps?

 

[dogboy2]

Would it put too much strain on the stock electrical system to add a Painless 7-circuit fuse box and run the headlights(constant hot wire), 12v power for the Nav, and 2 additional cig lighter plugs(all ACC)?

No....the Painless Circuit Boss kit is the easiest way to add additional circuits safely to your existing electrical system. And, it is "painless" to install -- very simple, just follow the directions kind of stuff. Painless also has very good customer service/tech support and can walk you through any particular difficulties. You will be able to run all of your stated accessories off of these new circuits without a problem. To Lovetoski's point, you'll want to make sure that your alternator can produce enough amps to meet the current demand of all the things you plan on operating at any given time.

You may want to consider running the H4's on their own independent wiring harness designed specifically for the task. ARB/IPF makes one as well as some others -- there are some good posts to this effect if you run a search...

HTH,
-dogboy- '87 FJ60

 

[pilotsareplanecrazy]

I'm sorry, I should have been a little more clear on the H4's. They are the IPF units that have thier own fuse blocks and harness and damn are they bright.

 

[Tapage]

is the fj62 alt really an 80amp alternator? I thought stock in a 60 was more like 45 amps?

not sure about gas engines .. but my 2H engine comes only with 60 AMP altenator from factory. A good one, but poor .. for our aplications ..

 

[lovetoski]

is the fj62 alt really an 80amp alternator? I thought stock in a 60 was more like 45 amps?

Not sure about early 60's, but later 60's are around 55 amps. 62's (with the 3FE) are 80 amps.

 

[Spook50]

You may want to consider running the H4's on their own independent wiring harness designed specifically for the task. ARB/IPF makes one as well as some others -- there are some good posts to this effect if you run a search...

HTH,
-dogboy- '87 FJ60

Wayne Tangen and I built our own harnesses off of a design that he did up. I did up a schematic in PDF form that shows exactly how we did it, and there's a notes page as well with comments from both of us on making the harness. A bit of work and a little spendy, but a VAST improvement over the stock headlight harness.

 

[Tapage]

In lighting way, I change my sealed beams, for H4 Boshc system .. with new cables ( #10 ) and relay to the lights ..

 

[esh]

Not sure about early 60's, but later 60's are around 55 amps. 62's (with the 3FE) are 80 amps.

62s are 80 amps. Remember most of them come with power windows/locks/etc.

I second the Wayne Tangen harness for FJ62 headlights- works great! If they're not floating around in a thread, you can register on the 3FE Yahoo group and get them.

 

[Spook50]

62s are 80 amps. Remember most of them come with power windows/locks/etc.

I second the Wayne Tangen harness for FJ62 headlights- works great! If they're not floating around in a thread, you can register on the 3FE Yahoo group and get them.

It's in the tech section here too. I forgot to mention that in my post

I Love the Hella euro spec H4s that I installed using that harness. I'd love to install a pair of HID lights, but they're still way too expensive to even bother with (IMO) at this point.