Thanks for taking the time to detail all the thought that needs to go into these jobs. I have wired a couple of cars from scratch and I enjoy doing bit as it's a nice clean job and can be done quietly and thoughtfully. It makes a change from the fabrication and oily stuff. Mart.
I hope this true, because I don't know squat about wiring ! I hope the instructions from Painless wiring are goof proof ! I will reading this whole thread , thanks for sharing
That sounds painful....Rooster, scroll up to thread tools, click on, then scroll down to subscribe to thread, it will redirect you to subscribe, choose subscribe then it will send you back to the thread automatically
Please show a picture of the terminal crimpers that you use. I use the aviation crimpers . I have seen so many terminals that fall of because of pliers or cheap crimpers that were used. With the correct crimpers they will never come loose.
Kline or ideal crimpers from an electrical supply store work great and are not too expensive. I think Home Depot carries Kline also. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I got my Kline crimpers @ Home Depot here in Canada. Huge improvement over using the ones on the wire strippers.
The crimper I use dates to WWII and isn't made anymore, but here's about the best 'basic' manual crimper out there these days... http://www.idealindustries.com/prod...3&l1=crimp_tools&l2=wm_9-3-4_multi-crimp_tool Note this one has three sizes, and only does uninsulated crimps (which is what you should be using) unlike other models. You should be able to find this for under $30. Kline doesn't offer anything like this, theirs has just one 'one size fits all' crimp jaw. T&B has one like the Ideal, but it's more $$.
Lawson Products out of chicago has the good ones as well ! Lawson has all the good stuff any hot rodder could need .
Steve does the crimpers from ideal tell you the proper way to use them? IE; crimp the side that the gap is at. Many people do not realize that if crimped wrong will allow the wire to come loose. The Ideal crimpers look like nice crimpers for bare terminals. Like elba, I prefer to use aviation crimpers. The right crimper for the splice and is almost a perfect repair, not over/under crimped. Depending on the crimper you can crimp insulated or non insulated terminals. Steve once again, keep up the good work informing everybody about wiring. You really are doing a good job. Mark
Could you show a photo of correct way a crimp should look? I mean you say the proper way is to crimp the side the gap is, does that mean the indent should be where the gap is or the indent should be on the solid side?
Realize also, that the bean counters want the cost as low as possible so, lots of "factory engineering" specs are minimum. That means it could be better/ last longer but, to keep costs down it is good enough and not as good as it can be.
Can you over crimp a connection? How does one test their crimps? How much weight should a crimp hold off the ground? What are the tests that wire people do to make sure things are safe and lasting? Bob
I am at work and I don't have a way to post pictures. The indent/crimp is on the gap side, or the side where the two sides come together after wrapping around the wire. A crimp can be over tightened. If it is over tightened, then the wires will be crushed. and it will result in premature failure of the crimp. You will start suffering from broken wires at the crimp. If you put heat shrink over the terminal end, and you have broken wires, your troubleshooting job just got a lot harder. Under crimping is just as bad, because the wires will pull out of the terminal. I do not know of any way to test the crimp by hanging weight from the wire. At work we just do a good pull test by hand. More often than not, this is a good baseline test and with sufficient results. With time, you will be able to eye ball a crimp and be able to tell if it is over/under crimped. As a side note. it not a good practice to keep splicing wire together. There comes a point in time when you will just need to replace the wire. On the airplanes, we are only able to do 2 splices per wire run with a minimum distance between splices. this will eliminate resistance from the splice and other possible problems. Most wiring problems occur at the wire terminations or the splices and terminal ends. I hope that this helps. Crazy steve is doing a great job trying to educate/inform the group. Mark
This is what we use at work, but unless you do this stuff for a living, it's way too expensive... http://www.dmctools.com/store/catalog.asp?KEYWORD=dmc1186 http://www.dmctools.com/Products/standard_adjustable_crimp_tool.html
Tjet, we use that same equipment at work. Very nice stuff. I would like to get a Af8 and af8m crimpers for my personal use. Even evil bay is running more than I want to pay. I would also like to get me a set of the insulated crimpers red/blue and yellow/white, along with a pair of environmental splice crimpers. That would keep me happy for a while.
Hi all, I'm a noobie at this guys, so excuse my ignorance. I read through the entire thread, fascinating read I do have one question though that's been confusing me, and didn't find anything relating to my query ......... maybe it's because it's a dumb question ! I have four headlights on my car, low beam consumes 4.5 amps, high beams consume 5 amps,they're individually wired to 4 relays ( one relay for each lamp ), the cable is rated at 16 amps, yet my lights are quiet dim. I'm considering on buying an upgrade loom, that cable is rated at 25 amps. Now, my question is, is the amperage of the cable a sum of all the headlamps added together to get the overall wire gauge ? Thanks T4 Bob
First, this is the best wiring thread I've ever seen on any tech site, so to the OP- THANKS!!! I've wired a lot of cars, houses, motors, signs, lighting etc... and can't imagine the work you've put into getting all this knowledge down for everyone to see. A great resource and a must read for everyone, even those of us with a lot of experience. T4 Bob- assuming the lights are run as pairs, meaning only high beam or low beam on at one time, not both on at the same time then the higher of the two would be 10 amps(high beams) the 16 amp cable is big enough. If they are all on at once then you have a load of 19amps and the wire size needs to increase. If the lights are dim it isn't because the wire is the wrong size. FIRST- check all of your grounds as that is the most likely culprit. They should all have good contact, clean connections and be of the same wire size/rating as the feed. SECOND- How many amps are actually being provided? Check that and verify that the correct amount of power is being delivered. If not then that's your issue, not the wire size. If the number of amps supplied is good, then the lights should be bright regardless of wire size, but if the wires are too small they would get hot.
You've got something weird going on... Why there is four relays I don't get, unless the original installer was very confused... What kind of car is it? Is this an American car or 'other'? Do you have a floor-mounted dimmer switch, or one on the steering column? Do you have four 'standard' 5.75" round headlights in a 'set' (two low/high lights and two high-only), or is there a mix of sizes? If the lights are wired correctly, on low beam the two outer lights will be on and the wiring will be connected to the higher-resistance filament in the lamp for your 4.5 amp load at each light for a total of 9 amps. On high beam, the low beams will be disconnected, and the high beam filaments in all four lights should be on; at 5 amps each, that's 20 amps total load. So your '16 amp cable' is too small, voltage dropped to the lights is excessive which is what makes them dim. Re-read posts 34, 63, and 85 for clarification on voltage drop/ampacity/wire sizing. Without knowing the full circuit wiring, I can only give some 'general' advice. One, your current wiring should be more than adequate to operate the low beams (two lamps) and no relays should be needed; the wire size should be at least #14. Your high-beam circuit is too small. These need to be powered through a relay with a separate power feed rated for at least 25 amps, and should use a #10 wire. As to how many relays are needed, you only need one but it also has to be rated for the 25 amps.
Great wiring info here from Crazy Steve--lots of excellent info. I have wired many cars and my background is high voltage electrical work (60-500KV). He provides info that many don't think about and I learned many things as well. Correct crimpers, an Ohm/volt meter and clamp on DC amp meter are your friends--Great Job !!!!
Hi Steve, Many thanks for the quick response. I guess what I'm trying to get my head around is this 'current draw'. To simplify things ...... two headlights drawing 5 amps on each cable, why is the current draw added together if they're two different cables carrying the load ? The original vehicle comes with dual Filament H4 bulbs 55w/60w, factory wiring is 16amp no relays in system. Result is major voltage drop I'm getting about 11 volts to the bulbs, hence the reason why I'm upgrading the lights. Nobody makes an after market quad headlight system for this vehicle, that's why I'm designing one. T4 Bob
I've updated the ampacity numbers in post #34 to reflect metric equivalents for those who don't have AWG wire available. In conversation with T4 bob, I found that British automotive wire suppliers are just as uninformed as most here are, with inflated amp ratings that can lead you astray....
Hi all, There are no direct equivalent cable sizes when converting from metric to the American Wire gauge size as I have discovered in my research, from what I can tell anyway. In Europe, wire and cable sizes are expressed in cross sectional area in mm2, and also as the number of strands of wires of a diameter expressed in mm. For example, 28/0.30 which means 28 strands of wire each 0.30mm in diameter, and a cross sectional of 2.0mm2. The rated amperage can be either 17.5 amp for standard PVC insulated or 25.0 amp for Thinwall cable ( GXL as you guys would call it ). After reading this tremendous thread and with Crazy Steve' help, most if not all the research I have done to date has all been bogus ! I appreciate that there are very little differences between one particular gauge wire to another, especially for my proposes, but I need to get this right. I'm designing some quad headlights and will be supplying the upgrade looms, so they need to be right and of very high quality, as there's enough tat out there already. 14AWG seems to be what I'm after as it matches the above, but it's only rated @ 15 amps ! I'm sure the answer' here, so I'll continue re-reading Steve' info till I find it. PS, Why do they call him 'Crazy Steve' ....... he seems OK to me Cheers guys T4 Bob
Great thread, I've wired several cars including converting one from one style of engine management to a different type. (computers) I have also done some trouble shooting on old relay logic machine tools, but I've never had any formal schooling in electricity and did not know that 2 smaller wires won't take the place of one larger one. (I've done it and gotten away with it) Thanks to this thread I won't tempt fate nearly as much when I wire my next project. Thanks for your hard work Crazy Steve!!!!!!!!
CS, Thanks for doing these posts. I always appreciate threads like this that explain the 'why' behind doing something. Read the whole thread yesterday. Planning any more posts to this series, or do you consider it complete? Scott/Gotta56forme
The Jalopy Journal
