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Part 12: Wiring
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Now it is time to finish off the wiring of the beast. This area is under the seat base and is going to save the old man contorted up trying to mount this on the firewall and under the dash. I had to take the time to carpet the entire area after installing hot rod blanket everywhere I could, the secret to a quiet and cool/warm street rod before installing the wiring. It is hard to tell from the pic, but I had made a 4 inch drop in the floor to get the battery low enough to fit below the seat base. This is an Optima Battery that has both top and side posts which worked great. No corrosion -- no fumes! The big control panel is fed and grounded from the top posts and the main ground and starter feed come off the side posts. All the panel to under dash wiring fed through plastic channel glued to the floor and ran up behind the left kick panel to instrument panel, switches, A/C, radio, interior lights, etc. This time around, I made plug-ins for the instrument panel insert. The instruments were epoxied into the panel years ago -- ugly under the dash, but clean where it counts. I made this panel so the instruments fit in from the rear for a cleaner look.




Talk about a rat's nest! This is what I got into trying to preserve the original ignition switch. Only two wires go to the old switch that is only designed to carry about 10 amps. The red wire is hot, of course, and the blue wire goes to a relay that powers a buss bar that in turn powers a series of relays for the A/C, sound system, fuel pump, EFI, wiper motor, electric cooling fan and the push button starting circuit. All this mess was cleaned up as the wiring progressed.




I had to take a break from the wiring to make this dash extension. There was no way I could mount everything on the old dash so I had to do some metal bending and some wood working/finishing before completing the wiring. Simple switches/buttons from left to right: horn button, head light switch, starter button, steering column drop, then toggle switch to control electric cooling fan. Not added is the wooden drop that houses the center A/C vent and the sound system control head. Under dash lights are mounted on this dash extension. More stuff in this pic that has not been previously covered is the old Gennie shifter that was installed in 1990 and adapted to the 700R4. Also you can see some of the new metal floor.




Here is the easy way to install a brake light switch. No levers, adjusting arms, etc. I did install a relay so that the switch is only dealing with .025 amps (I'm running halogen bulbs in the rear that have a high amp draw so the relay makes the switch last longer.




Click here for Part 13: Fuel Pump


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