Re-wire projects - Rainy day things to do

[Ferrit]

I am going to start 'planning' some re-wire projects on the Beta.  Rainy day things to do.

I was going to start with the engine loom from the ns side of the bay that runs to the starter (relay already fitted) and engine oil/water temps etc.  I also have a very good used fuse box and I am going to look at reversing the mods my previous owner made which I am assuming because the current fuse box has issues.

Question: (and I am not very good at this) what size cable should I be buying, plus is thin-wall a good idea?  I still have not found some of the odd colours yet, but will keep looking once I have the sizes.  My wire work and soldering is pretty good as I had a misspent youth fitting alarms for people on the weekends BitD

I will move the starter relay and fuses to a new location and box on the ns inner wing

Any words of previously learnt wisdom is much appreciated.

MF

[WestonE]

Hours of fun ahead! Firstly try to get a spare loom you can copy without trashing your car. Use high quality crimps with slide over insulators not soldering except where essential. Because Soldering creates brittles wires that break. Avoid pre insulated terminals (those red, blue and yellow things that fall off far to easily). Avoid basic single pivot crimping tools so you consistently make great crimps. Always tug test every terminal after you have made a crimp connection. The terminal blocks on our cars are AMP blocks that use standard crimped insert terminals. Thin wall is fine. It is the conductor wire size that matters expressed by amp carrying capacity by nice folk like vehicle wiring products and polevolt. I originally bought a kit from vehicle wiring with the terminals all over our car and a great double pivot crimp tool. Not sure if this kit is still available. You might need to by the terminal kit and tool separately.

With great double pivot crimps and high quality wire strippers it is remove insulation from the loom you will copy with cable ties loosely holding it in form and at junctions. Then you really can build it 1 wire at a time by replacing the existing with new. Note for Battery and charging Wires and terminals I find the marine cable to be far easier to work with because it is so flexible. I bought cantilever hex crimps and plenty of adhesive lined heat shrink for these bits. The dual black and white power wires to the fuse box are undersize for their load so red thin wall/ marine cable replacement can take no more space and solve the issue. I went with high quality high load black and red at the battery not the weird both sides low amp green OE approach. There are various picture in my car build on here. 

Get the earthing points clean and shiny and if in doubt test with your trusty multi meter.

Enjoy.           

[peteracs]

Hi Mark

I used Vehicle Wiring Products for wire etc. They have wide range of colours, and yes use thin wall.

https://www.vehiclewiringproducts.co.uk/collections/thinwall?page=1#d4519113344af5415e5d3c51c0a5433f

Peter

[Nigel]

I agree with Eric and Peter here, although in one or two spots
I did solder.
I used the hydraulic press, with made-up dies, to crimp the battery cables, the exception
being the two at the car-length cable ends which I soldered. 

The AMP block connectors I found easy to source, the 6 way was what
I needed. But found that the terminals supplied didn't have the retention tag
so had to substitute from, luckily, existing stock.

I found I had to go to several suppliers to achieve the
correct colours, one I could not find anywhere! I had to use a
logical substitution, can't recall which one now.

But this was wipers and indicators, so may not affect your project so much.

Nigel

[Ferrit]

Excellent.  Thank you.  Off to Vehicle Wiring Products I will go.  I have a few tools and crimp sets (which are d@% pooh rubbish).

My first steps will be new engine compartment loom as described, move the solenoid relay and fuse it as you described before Eric.  Maybe move it and the fan relay which is outside the main fuse box to a new fuse box location on the front wing, or reverse eng. it back into my new old fuse box.  I have a really nice fuse box and I will try to reverse engineer this back to as was.   I will just tidy this Summer.  Baring my little light issue everything is working, but at some point I need to sort this out properly.

As soon as I get my new workshop built (in time for next winter) I was going to do exactly as you said Eric and pin it up and rebuild a donor loom.

Relays wise I currently have:

External - inside the engine compartment:

rad fan
starter
dipped beam

Inside the old fuse box:

High beam
HRW
Horn

Under the dash:

Indicator flasher
Int wipe

What should I be using a relay for thats currently missing?

I will go and re-read your build Eric.  I wonder how much of the behind the dash spaghetti is not required if simplified?  Are there any other Forum users who have rebuilt a std cars wiring extensively?

Mark

[Ferrit]

ahh Nigel you have reminded me, wiper needs a relay, on which setting is that.  My wipers are currently okay (amazing), but I want to do this right this winter.

[Ferrit]

what do these do?  I am assuming they make live optional extras?  I will need to trace back

[Nigel]

what do these do?  I am assuming they make live optional extras?  I will need to trace back

They are optional positions, yes, but I've never worked out why they are there. Perhaps this
fuse box was used on another vehicle at the time, or, as you suggest, extras on the Beta,
or even a later variant that never happened.

As for an extra wiper relay, I don't have one now that the cables are all replaced.
Fitted on mine are that standard flasher relay and the intermittent relay.

N.

[WestonE]

The relay on the wipers is to get full speed when selected on the stalks. Both the Beta and Monte suffer from too much resistance in the switch at full speed selection so you get 2 speeds the same not a fast top speed. Given our Monsoon type rain storms we now have I do like having a fast top speed on the wipers.