"Painless Wiring Harness" or fuse panel (fuse box) breaker types?

[class87]

From: 70winnie  (Original Message)
Sent: 10/12/2004 12:17 AM

Somewhere down the line I'd like to replace the fuse panel in my 1970 D22 (1969 Dodge chassis) with modern blade-type fuses.  I just discovered the Painless Performance univeral wiring harness, which comes in a 12-circuit and 18-circuit version.  See here:

http://www.painlessperformance.com/

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has experience with these universal harnesses.  They're pretty expensive at about $350/each but considering it comes with (supposedly) all the wires needed, pre-printed for easy identification, I wonder if it's not worth the money (assuming I come up with it).

Barring that, I've also seen new fuse panels in 12-circuit and 18-circuit versions from Painess and others online (esp. ebay).  These run a lot less (about $100+) but of course don't include the wiring.  Any thoughts on those?

I should mention that much of the wiring of my winnie, especially under the dash, is a terrible mess.  Someone along the line decided to do a lot of partial replacements and/or repairs, and as a result there's a lot of electrical tape and wire nuts under the dash!  And the worst part is, as I've been working in the cab area tearing up and replacing the floor, some of those connections have separated and I have a few wires dangling that I have to figure out!  Arrrgh!



From: HeavyHaulTrucker
Sent: 10/12/2004 12:51 AM

Have you considered the use of truck-type breaker panels?  The breaker panel out of a Freightliner FLD-120 is nice & flat, and just about the right size to put in where the stock panel is in a Winnie.  The advantage of breakers is that, unless one goes bad, you never have to replace them.  If one 'pops', it will reset when it cools down -- no more crawling under the dash & standing on you head to replace fuses!

This is one of my future "improvements" to my Winnie.  I guess I got spoiled when I was trucking, never having to change fuses when I overloaded the wiring -- but it is oh so convenient!!

John
 


From: Bill_Rowles
Sent: 10/12/2004 6:39 AM

Two years ago I went through the same decision process. Since most of my wires were good all I needed to do was get rid of the stuff people added and relocate the fuse panel, so I just bought the updated panel and installed it on front of dash near the trans shift lever. With the chassis wiring diagram and a volt / ohm meter and spare time for the summer I went through the system labeling each wire with a piece  of masking tape . The result after terminating each wire to the new panel is great and the fuses are now on front of dash where I can see and work on them if one blows. Suggest you take out the front seats and take out dashboard panels cause you will spend many hours of your life in this area till done . Good luck,
Bill Rowles



From: 70winnie
Sent: 10/12/2004 10:16 AM

John - I haven't seen the breaker panels, of course I've only been looking online.  Any recommended sources of the panels and information online?

BTW - anyone know why fuses are still used in automobiles instead of breakers?  Seems to me breakers would be better, or am I overlooking a good reason to keep fuses in cars?  Maybe Bussman has a very powerful lobby in Washington?

Bill - What brand of updated panel did you use?



From: WalterHynson1
Sent: 10/12/2004 11:48 PM

rip the wiring completly out and rewire the unit entirely  WCH



From: daved27c
Sent: 10/13/2004 12:34 AM

Walter;

Hello, and welcome to the group. It's not often that we get a new member with such strong views. Most of us are not ready to rip out all of our wiring and start fresh..Although in some cases it may be a good idea! Tell us about your Winne, and post some pictures. We would love to see your rig.

Dave



From: HeavyHaulTrucker
Sent: 10/13/2004 10:48 PM

Andrew, I guess the best places to point you towards would be a truck junk yard for the panel and your local Freightliner truck dealer for information.  The nice thing about the breaker panels used in big trucks is that -- while car fuse panels use pre-assembled wiring, all nicely crimped -- truck breaker panels use screw terminals.  All wires have a crimp-on ring terminal, which is connected to the screw terminals in the panel.

In the case of the Freightliner FLD-120 breaker panel, it has a central buss bar that goes down the middle that feeds all circuits.  Ignition-switched circuits are fed by relays that are in series with the breaker for that circuit; your ignition switch feeds from the main buss bar through a breaker, and your ignition-switched circuits are then wired to the coil terminals of their respective relays.  The switch for each appliance (wipers, heater, etc) is fed from the ignition, and only controls its own relay -- power for each appliance thus comes directly from the battery through the relay's switched terminal.  In short, when you are done, you will have no high-current switching in your dash whatsoever; everything is switched by relays, and all high-amperage power is handled directly by a high-amp relay fed directly from B+ through a breaker.  If you have a problem with a particular circuit later, such as the heater, you just need to check for power to the relay coil (evidenced by the click of the relay when you turn on the switch) -- if you have power, then the heater motor is bad.  Diagnosis of problems is much simpler with this sort of system!

Everything feeds off of a double-wire battery cable feed from the battery; in your case, you would only need to run a single 4/0 cable from the starter relay to feed it.  Then, all of your connections would come off of the panel -- much shorter wiring paths, since the panel will be only inches from everything in the dash.

There would be some circuits on the truck breaker panel that would be meaningless in a Winnie as they are labeled.  You can use these for whatever you want, and just use a fine point paint marker (white) to label the new use on the panel.

I have to confess, the swap sounds much more daunting than it really is; once you see the breaker panel, you will realize how simple and straight-forward it really is.

You do not need to alter the engine wiring except for one point; on the Dodge chassis, your cabin is fed from the alternator's field lead.  B+ originates at the alternator's field terminal and leads to a 5 or 6-way splice on the right side of the engine; all of these branches feed engine appliances (ignition control module, ballast resistor, voltage regulator) and one winds its way around the engine and up through the floorboard into the fuse panel.  When replacing your fuse panel with the FLD-120 breaker/ relay panel, you would remove this branch from the splice to the 4-pin plug that feeds the ignition switch & dash; this branch would take its feed from the breaker panel's "Ignition" breaker.  I suggest you use a 12 gage wire for this new feed.

On the Dodge chassis, high-current is fed to the ignition switch through 2 10-gage wires (a black one & a light blue one in a 2-pin connector) that normally come from the fuse panel; these would not be changed, simply being fed from the "Battery" & "Accessory" bus bars of the breaker panel.  The output from the igniton switch would lead to all of the other circuits; I would suggest using two 12-gage wires for these outputs (to connect from the ignition switch plug to your ignition-related & accessory-related switches).  Then you will have one or more B+ wires back to the relay panel from each dash switch (items like the wipers & heater, which are multi-circuit appliances, will use 3 relays each.  Each position on the dash switch will connect to a relay, and the high-amp feed from each relay will connect to each position on the heater motor's resistor pack (that is what gives you multiple speeds))

Yes, you will effectively be re-wiring the entire dash; but you will come out with a wiring system that is 200% more reliable and infinitely more simplified.  And you won't have any of the "negative" features of the Dodge wiring system to deal with.  One real improvement that you will see immediately is that the charging system will more readily sense & compensate for appliance current draw; the Dodge system is notorious for not sensing high current draw from headlights, heater, etc.  This system, where everything draws from the battery, allows the charging system to immediately sense the current draw and increase voltage output accordingly.

And that last statement is a partial answer as to why big trucks are wired like this; cars, which do not have the same extreme operation environment, are designed differently.

Good luck with your project, Andrew!

John
 


From: 70winnie
Sent: 10/14/2004 7:19 PM

John, thanks much for the detailed explanation.  If I find the money and guts to tackle this project, it will definitely come in handy!



From: cooneytunes Sent: 10/17/2004 8:56 PM
Gee John, I wish I lived closer to you, you should see mine. Looks like a blind drunk monkee got loose under the dash, with a roll of electrical tape and a knife. Some of the things the PO did, either he was on drugs, or needed some. I've been working on mine now for about a week, with no end in sight, not too sure of the beginning either !
That breaker panel sounds like a good idea for starting from scratch, because that's where I'm headed....PO's got wires pulled from original harness and just taped off where he had something else there and remove whatever, or he didn't like the color......then he combined all sorts of stuff on the same wire. Finally got the wiring all done for the charging system, ran almost all new wire, 1 to 2 gauge bigger than what wiring diagram called for, all heat, and shrink wrapped  so it's water protected too. Now to conquer  the dash and fuse panel, which is just hanging, by probably the wires that feed it. It's a real mess, I'm suprised anything works. Which only about half does.....So you say that's an, FDL-120 breaker panel, from Freightliner, correct? I think I'm going to attemt the change over, anything would better than where I am right now.  Not even seeing the results right now, I can see the simpicity in that system compared to what would have to be done to reharness, and put system back to as original as possible. Hope you stay close by, I may need some 411, hopefully, not 9-1-1, as I get going on this project........
Timmy



From: HeavyHaulTrucker
Sent: 10/18/2004 12:45 AM

Sure, Timmy... no problem on the help!  I'm just an email away.

Yes, the model number the panel comes from is an FLD-120; but actually, any of the "conventional cab" Freightliners (except for the Columbia & Century models) will work; they had the breaker panel in the center of the cab, mounted on the firewall right above the floor.  You know, now that I think of it, the breaker panel from a Kenworth W900 would also be a perfect fit -- in fact, it is even the same size as the existing panel in the Winnies.  The Freightliner panel is a bit larger, but still small enough to fit in the existing space.

That may be the way to go, in your situation.  Like I said, because the truck-type wiring system is a modular system, it is much simpler.  And it is more reliable, because it doesn't put the high-current appliances into the "dash switch" loop; they are run by relays designed to take the current, instead of by a switch not designed to take it.

Feel free to give me a shout if you need any info or help, ok?

John
 


From: Bill_Rowles
Sent: 11/2/2004 5:38 AM

I purchased 2 universal fuse blocks with clip-on covers from JC Whitney in Chicago (catalog item) and mounted them beside the shift lever. One has the battery loads from the left side of the OEM block and the other has the IGN loads from the right side of the old block. I left the old fuse block where it was and it still is the home for the turn signal and emergency flasher units. The original wires come through the dash panel in a large existing hole near the new fuse blocks (some wires were lengthened by soldering short piece on as needed to reach new termination) and final bundle is tie- wrapped so it appears neat. The work was many hours but the result is worth it since the electric system is reliable, understandable and if I have trouble the factory wire diagragm is usable (unknown wires are removed) and I am trained and experienced by the self-taught school of hard work (PRICELESS ! ).
Good luck,
Bill Rowles



From: Moondisc1
Sent: 11/2/2004 8:38 AM

I've used Painless harness in hotrods before. Quaility product.
But EZ Wire is just as good, and half the money.

My wiring was worse than a drunk monkey on crack. It was done by an engineer from IBM! hehe



From: wendell
Sent: 11/2/2004 11:48 AM

This is great information.  My next project is to re-do my fuse panel.  It is so messed up I may never get it sorted out.  I have no instrument panel lights and no horn.  I'm sure that the fuse panel is to blame.

I actually have two fuse panels.  One mounted on the outside of the carpet covered kick panel and when I removed the kick panel to get at the wiring, lo and behold I found another fuse panel.  I don't know if a PO tried to rewire or what, but it makes for a very confusing mess.  I have a battery drain and I suspect that this is to blame for some of it.