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are all hots born =? (before I screw something up...)

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    are all hots born =? (before I screw something up...)

    Full story below. Short question here.
    Basically, I have a W/P wire that's hot in the accessory or run position, and it's only showing 7 volts. I think it may be throwing off several gauges that do/may run off of it as reference voltage. I don't trust it any longer.
    I want to take the yellow power wire for the radio, which I believe is also hot in the accy/run position, use that to switch a relay, and tie the straight-from-battery hot to feed the W/P wire with a full 14V. I don't see any problem? There's nocritical reason in fact that the radio and these gauges should have been fed by different wires? Maybe only practical considerations of where each wire would be going to.




    I changed a whole bunch of stuff all at once, so I never quite knew what went wrong, where. Been sorting it out over the past couple of weeks.

    Specifically, I added 4 sunpro gauges and a trigger wire for an electric fan onto a W/P (white with pink-purple stripe-- although it looks more like pink with a white stripe) wire coming off of the cluster of wires in the big harness under the steering wheel.
    This wire is hot on accessory and in run.
    This wire is responsible for all sorts of gauges that are on in accy/run; I've got the wiring diagrams...

    Now, initially after tapping into it, my sunpro voltmeter (accurate, btw) read 10V. Meaning, of course, 10V on this line. My brake warning light was on very dimly. My gas gauge, since doing everything (so it could have been some other screwup), won't go past 3/4 full, although it reads empty in close to the same spot. I didn't put 3 and 3 together at first however.

    10V is not good, obviously my sunpro oil gauge will read low with a low reference voltage, so yesterday I f*cked with it some more and added a relay switched by the W/P wire to send power from a 10gauge wire straight from the battery to my gauges. Much better.
    Now, oddly, the brake warning light was on in full brightness...

    I checked voltages again, and for whatever reason --I've gotten the wire as firmly in the harness as it will go, although I'm not ruling that out; and I trust in my soldering skills-- that W/P wire now has only SEVEN volts.
    This is the reference voltage for several gauges.
    Actually, I can't figure out how this W/P wire is related to the brake light, and I even glanced at the wiring diagrams, but when I unplug the 3-wire plug from the brake fluid reservoir, the W/P wire actually loses all voltage. Very strange; I thought the W/P wire was being fed FROM the ignition switch, and I haven't yet found in a diagram where it ties to the brake fluid reservoir, which has different wires coming immediately from it.

    Anyway, doesn't seem coincidence that I have the feed wire for my fuel gauge, oil gauge, and a couple other things, and it would seem indirectly for the brake indicator light too, showing 7V; and having a problem with my fuel gauge never showing more than 3/4 full, and my brake light out.
    I'm thinking about circumventing the W/P wire and feeding it with battery voltage switched from the radio hot, instead of using the ignition switch out of the steering column harness.

    #2
    For my gauges I tapped
    off of the circuit breaker for the wiper motor. Easy to do, and no soldering required

    Comment


      #3
      Ok, cool-- circuit breaker is just in the little fuse box by the parking brake? (nvmd, I'll look).
      I still worry that the wire I tapped into, which now only has my relay as added load, is still showing too few volts. Maybe the damage is already done; fiddling with the harness and my solder joints, who knows where the other 7 volts are off to!
      So I'm interested in putting that W/P wire onto my relay also.

      What concerns me is that there is a main hot from the battery to the steering column box, and then this W/P wire is fed hot through the ignition switch. Being tied into my relay, it now has ground through the relay. So WHY would it show 0V when I disconnect the brake fluid reservoir? It makes no sense. I need to clear that up before I do what I'm thinking of doing; is the current for some reason actually being fed the other way, the (+) going TO the steering column and not from it??

      Comment


        #4
        If this is a box there are is a connector near the steering colum one row has greay connectors and one row are green connectors. One set is hot all the time one is hot with key on/run. This is the best place to connect 12v accessorys. There should be a few empty spaces on each row. Connectors needed to plug into them can be cut from vehicles in a junkyard. you can even keep the connector colos corredt that way just leave enough wire to splice onto the connector. You can seperate the connector and wire but its a tricky operation to solder a wire and end back togeather.

        There is also a plate above the side of the drive tunnel across from the gas pedel that a bunch of black wires attach to with spae clips. Thes are grounds. There should be a few unused ones there too that grounds can be run to.

        There are wires most running to ECM stuff and factory gages that dont use 12v but more like 5v.
        Last edited by turbo2256b; 09-16-2011, 10:36 AM.
        Scars are tatoos of the fearless

        Comment


          #5
          /\ I second these slots - I found them when Installing my passenger power seat. Sure enough there was an empty slot next to the wire for the drivers seat

          You could use one of these to power a relay, triggered by a key-on signal (I used the radio's) to power the goodies.
          I used my cig lighter wiring power for mine, and stole the ashtray illumination wire while I was at it.



          If you have a lot of goodies, a (or several) barrier strips can help minimize the spaghetti/spiderwebs
          I wish I had used one in the console itself when i made it... They made things easier to remove too

          Pete ::::>>> resident LED addict and CFI defector LED bulb replacements
          'LTD HPP' 85 Vic (my rusty baby) '06 Honda Reflex 250cc 'Baileys' 91 Vic (faded cream puff) ClifFord 'ODB' 88 P72 (SOLD) '77 LTDII (RIP)
          sigpic
          85HPP's most noteworthy mods: CFI to SEFI conversion w/HO upperstuff headers & flowmasters P71 airbox Towncar seats LED dash light-show center console w/5 gauge package LED 3rd brake light 3G alternator mini starter washer/coolant bottle upgrade Towncar power trunk pull underhood fuse/relay box 16" HPP wheels - police swaybars w/poly rubbers - budget Alpine driven 10 speaker stereo

          Comment


            #6
            Thanks for the photo! I'll be looking for that harness on Monday.

            I found out what I did:
            I was looking for a white wire with a purple stripe and tapped into that.
            When in fact, what I'd tapped into was the wire that comes from the brake reservoir warning switch, which is --wait for it-- purple with a white stripe!
            As soon as I unplug my relay that powers my gauges via this wire (until Wednesday, it was hard soldered, no relay), the brake light went right out.

            Granted, if I'd found the white wire with the purple stripe, THAT goes to a voltage regulator (which then sends 5V to various factory gauges), and that could have been a very bad idea anyway.

            Comment


              #7
              I done forgot about those funny slotty power distribution blocks. Barring finding used bits, I wonder if that site I bought my relays from sells that style connector ... I see something called fuse block terminals, but nothing offhand with the plastic thingy that keeps things separated.

              www.repairconnector.com
              2012 Mazda5 Touring | Finally working on the LTD again!

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