Slick 60's

Today I re-wired under the dash of Aggie.

I removed about 20 feet (literally) of excess wire, un-tangled a bunch of wires that looked like a raven wove them together. Removed like 5 inline fuseholders. Big tangled mess.

I put in a 6 fuse block from Napa. With the modern blade fuses.
A big problem when I was doing the wiring in the first place was the absense of a good distribution point inside the cab. The ign switch is good, but it's of limited use, with short terminals and whatnot. So I had ran 3 separate wires from the starter relay for various appliances.

One ran my radio

one ran my turnsignals and 12v outlet

one ran my tach and a crappy hour meter I put in after my eng swap, and I didn't have an odometer

What a mess!

I still have an absense of a positive ground point. I have ground wires screwed to all sorts of random places. I need to figure out a good alternative.

Had a similar problem re-doing the lil'red pick-em-up, silly stuff I've added/redone since getting the truck, then the pecker-headed thief wrecking things.
I mounted a 10 position terminal strip in, extended the ignition switch wires to it for run & acc, & re routed everything to this. Got to looking for a common ground point, I am going to use the bolt that holds the flasher mount. It is under where I mounted the term strip. Just mount a couple 12 ga lugs to it & add grounds as needed. I am done with adding stuff, it's just a matter of cleaning up. Much more logical layout for me, inputs on the left, outputs on the right, Vcc from the top, ground on the bottom.
Looking at the mess I've made during the re-wiring, there's solder & lugs & insulation & heat-shrink residue this deep in the floorboard... My little butane soldering torch has sure gotten a workout the past few weekends.

PJ

What is the Flasher Mount? Is that the twisted chunk of shiny tin strapping screwed to the clutch/brake assembly? haha I actually have my fusepanel bolted to that... I probably ought to move it. Where/how did you mount the fusepanel???

those little butane torches sure are nice! Did you use a solder iron accessory, or just the fire? Mine has a tip for soldering, but for some reason, it doesn't work too well. I typically resort to plain ol fire. But undder the dash would be a very delicate place to do that.

Aggie doesn't have any carpet right now, so my mess is easy to deal with. wow, heat shrink tubes even, I've never used much of that, although it would make things nicer than electric tape....

Yep, that twisted chunk on the brake/clutch mount is my plan... I have the terminal strip laying on the brace running from the cowl to the steering mount directly above it, straight up, straight down, an insulating layer or two or three of rubber & tie-tied for now. It is a straight shot with a Phillips to work on it with the inst panel cover removed ( I have the round head cluster).

The iron I got is a true butane iron, not a butane lighter with a special cover. I am honestly surprised with its performance, being an electronics tech by trade when I use irons they are plugged in at a bench. This rig has a good portablility to it for small remote (automotive) stuff. Just watch the enviroment, it is an open flame. Use rosin flux (NOT acid), I have a flux pen from a specialty place, but any liquid flux is good. Use a tech/medicinal grade alcohol to clean the mess, or just be really careful. The old wires can be a bi--- er, pain to take solder, but the rosin flux (again, NOT acid flux) helps. Oh, yeah, did the soldering with the butane lighter before, NOT pretty...

Heat shrink I find at a local electric supply house, 3' length of 3/8" or 1/2" is a buck or two. Sure makes it look better, & makes me feel better too.

I'll try & take pics & post to my album this weekend... if I can get away from Dad's barbeque (& the other obligatory functions that crop up)... one does have to have priorities you know...

PJ

you go into so much depth about the rosin flux... I don't find it to be a big deal, just get the twisted wires nice and hot, and melt some flux core lead solder all over the joint. I've soldered the hell out of LOTS of old wires, some of which have some sort of old sticky substance in the strands, never had any trouble, as long as I got a decent means of heating it. A bic lighter does NOT do a good job, nor does the soldering atteachment for the torch, but a good soldering gun or just plain ol torch does pretty good.

I used my butane torch to do my headlight relays. I just waved the very point of the flame on the joint. It burns the insulation just a bit, but was NOT a big deal. Worked real slick. Obviously, I couldn't have done this up under the dash.

So, you need to post a pic. I don't understand entirely how you got this set up. So your termination block lies ontop of the brake/clutch head, is that also your fusebox? Seems if that IS also your fusebox, it would be next to impossible to change a fuse, without pulling the dash out. Fuses always seem to find a bad time to blow, and in a bad time, you probably don't want to have to pull your dash panel out.

Heres a tip on the wiring when I redid mine. I replaced every wire from scratch using only the diagrams I could find. I rewired it from a bronco diagram from a bronco website. IT was wired like my f100 66. But I added a new fuse box that had a few extra blade fuses . What my tip is and I am really glad I did it was to add a bit of extra length to the wires going to the speedometer dash. I added enough so I could remove the speedometer dash and put it on the seat or on the top of the dash. It really worked out great working on things behind the dash. You have the room to do something and don't have to worry about the dash scratching the paint. And when you put it back in it just curls up . I used wiring tubing and wire tied the hole wiring harness.

that's good thinkin. a few of my wires are a bit short, well, I guess the ones I put in are long enough, but the factory wires don't allow that.

And The Speedo cable is hard to hookup/disconnect, and my oil guage has the stupid plastic hose to it. I probably out to nuke that and get an electronic one, but then it wouldn't match the voltmeter....