Technical Rebel Wire Harness diagrams and wiring info

Instructions for the Pertronix Flamethrower coil specifically mention that no ballast resistor is needed. The alternator is a Tuff Stuff #7078 Ford 3 wire 70 amp unit, externally regulated. I would appreciate the diagram.

 

We have a shop in town that will make up professional looking battery cables to meet whatever needs we may have. I would expect a lot of automotive electrical shops can do the same.

 

I know nice battery connectors. They are not really heavy duty, but they look very nice and clean. And they're cheap . I don't know if they are available in US, they are from european/korean Daewoo.

 

This should work for it, just the bottom alternator diagram. This one is also in the instruction manual, showing an indicator light. The indicator bulb goes inline in the white exciter wire and then runs out to the I post of the regulator. It's also easier to junction the power wire at the battery post of the alternator, so you can run a wire from the regulator to the alternator, then with a ring terminal bring the charge wire from the alternator battery post over to the battery side of the solenoid. Don't worry about the "horn" wiring note. We've got it covered in the kit.

So you'll just make up a couple short pieces of wire to run from the regulator to the alternator. S to stator, F to field, A to battery on the alternator and Battery power on the solenoid, and ground both alternator and regulator. Or check out that little regulator that bolts on the alternator I posted earlier and do away with the regulator wiring.

 

Stupid question - does the "excitor" light have to have a minumum amperage draw for the alternator to recognize it ? Could I use a small LED bulb?

 

It does, around 3 watt from what I've seen on most alternators. The LED won't draw enough to make the alternator start charging. In my experience

 

In the back of my mind I know I've seen testers that use a buzzer instead of a light, but couldn't find an example with a quick search. You could probably rig something up pretty easily with a relay using 87A so it energizes once you kill the phantom draw. Then you'd only have to listen, instead of watching a light from inside the cab.

 

I have one I made from an old seat belt buzzer with leads

Sent from my 9024O using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I have the exact same thing hanging above my electrical bench. As I detest the sound of those buzzers it motivates me to find the problem as soon as possible.

 

The light by itself won't do the job. Ford installs a 10 or 15 ohm 5 watt resistor in parallel (the size varies by year for some reason) with the light on the alternator cars. The 10 ohm one seems to be the most common, I'd go with that except that I'd use a 10 watt version. No resistor or wrong value, you'll have to rev the motor to get it to start charging. The further off you are, the higher you have to rev it, although once it starts charging it'll work until you shut it off. Learned this one the hard way.... You can try a diode but if you do make sure the positive lead goes to the ignition switch side of the circuit. No guarantees it'll work.

It's a PITA to install that resistor under an existing dash. There is an alternative way to wire these that eliminates the idiot light, but you'll need a voltmeter to monitor the charging system.

 

eBay carries a lot of marine application cables. This is a sample, there are tons of them.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-0-GAUGE-AWG-WELDING-LEAD-CAR-BATTERY-CABLE-WIRE-COPPER-BOAT-INVERTER-RV-SOLAR/263445377029?hash=item3d56917005:m:mw3vDbMeEbNUt0c3UmQswPg:sc:FedExHomeDelivery!11795!US!-1&var=562467820738
I had a local speed shop make mine while I waited, they used my sketch. 20 minutes and $40 later they were done. Picture loaded in the wrong spot, but they came out nice. I use eyelets on both ends with Quick Car clamps.

 

Crazy Steve,
Thanks for the detailed information. Much appreciated !
-Bob

 

Had a few headlight switch, blown fuse questions lately and thought I'd post a little on that. Both actually on Shoebox Fords, so let's start with a diagram

So let's say you pull on your switch and you pop a fuse. The first thing I would check is "are you blowing the fuse on the first click of the switch or second?" This would point to either a running/dash light issue, or a headlight issue. To save fuses, you could always put a test light or other 2 wire bulb in place of the blown fuse and just start pulling bulbs, then disconnecting wires until the test light went out. When it goes out, you know you've found your short to ground.

Bulb in place of fuse, showing hot on one side and grounded on the other side (bulb lights up)


When you find the short and disconnect it, the bulb will go out. Saves a lot of money on fuses, and you can just throw that bulb in your toolbox for next time. Keep in mind that bulbs can fool you, because you can get a reading to ground through the bulb filament, and it not actually be a problem. So if you pull all the bulbs and still have a short, go back and check the sockets. I have seen new sockets with little pieces of metal down inside them, creating a short, so sometimes it pays to check your sockets, new or not.

 

Hope you can help me. Just picked up this NOS 1957 Dietz 12v turn signal switch. Directions are at bottom left.


I have your 9+3 rear mount panel.
How would I hook it up and still have brake lights? Now I have both brake lights fed together from the brake switch. Also, do I Just do away with the flasher and inline fuse?
Thanks for starting this thread. It's a great idea!
Bill

 

I just want to say something about the service I received from Jeremy and Rebel Wire. I have been on the fence of which harness to use, I've been looking at various ones on the 'net and when I was working selling GM Performance Parts a couple of years ago ones displayed at those events like Goodguys and NSRA shows. Due to the quality of the components, the fact of the kit being US made and the involvement with this group and specifically this forum I went with their product.

I called at about 4 P.M. in Tuesday. I needed a couple of things changed, one was the turn signal connector that would work with my Ididit steering column, the other was my request of a 12ga wire for the HEI feed. He said that I should see it by Friday. The harness kit arrived this afternoon.

Need to get some wire loom tape and some brass terminals and the project begins.

 

This type switch isn't set up for brake lights. The only way to make this work will be with a 'trailer convertor' installed for the rear lights.

 

Just an awesome thread,for me as a professional auto spark specialising in pre 75 classics ,hotrods and kustoms here in Australia I find it very interesting and full of useful "stuff"my main job is installing new harnesses to all and everything , I too find Rebel wiring to be amongst the best
I'm a great believer in it's never to late to learn something new
Thank you very much !!!

 

Crazy Steve is right, If you want to use dual filament bulbs in the rear, like 1157's you'll need to put a trailer light converter box inline in the rear turn/brake wires (the rear turn wires act as brake and turn) and something has to sort that out. Usually the turn signal switch, converter box in this case

Something like this:


You have a couple options on your flasher. The flasher that came with it is probably a 3 pin flasher, with terminals X (power in) L (load out to turn signals) and P (output for pilot or indicator light). If you want to use the indicators in the body of the switch, the 3 terminal flasher would work best, since it has the extra P terminal for that. You would just need to decide if you want to wire it as a keyed hot or constant. I'd probably go with keyed hot, since it looks like that switch doesn't have a hazard button. Then just use one of the extra keyed hots in the fuse panel to power the flasher X terminal or red wire that says to ammeter.

If you do decide to use the 2 pin flasher in the harness, this is how it would work. If you're running dash indicator lights, just don't use the P wire coming off of the switch. The indicators in the switch wouldn't come on at all.

If you want to use the indicators in the switch, you would tie the P and L wires together and connect them both to our purple turn flasher wire (keyed hot). The only drawback to doing that is the indicator light in the body of the switch may glow faintly when the key is on, then blink like normal when you use the turn signals. You would't use the brown hazard wire in the kit at all, just pull the flasher, or insulate the end of the wire.

Then the switch part is wired, and just wire in the converter box inline in the 2 rear turn wires (yellow and green on the harness) and take the brake light wire into the box. So you'll have left rear, right rear, and brake lights coming into the box, and only left and right rear leaving the box going back to the rear lights. Some boxes will include tail lights, but you don't need that. The tail light wire can just run straight back to the tail lights, bypassing the converter box. All we're sorting is brake/turn.

When you get back to the rear bulb wiring, all you need to know is which wire coming off of your bulb is tail, and which is turn. If you need to, bench test the bulb with a battery to find out.


Your dim light will always be the running light (tail or park) and your bright light will always be the turn signal. If you're using LED's remember that they're polarity sensitive, meaning the ground has to be ground and the hot has to be hot. I've also seen some aftermarket assemblies that on one side: red might be turn, and black tail lights, on the other side it was black is turn and red is tail lights. So it pays to bench test before you make connections.

I know this has been a long response, but I figured I'd cover some options in case other guys were doing it too.

 

Thanks very much! Great help! It has to be simple for me to grasp it. My brain freezes and my eyes glaze over trying to deal with wiring.

 

I know what you mean! Sometimes with wiring it's better the less you know about it. You just connect the wires and it works, you don't worry with why or how it works. If you need help with any of it, just let us know

You're really just sending power from point to point: (battery to ignition switch,ignition switch to fuse panel, fuse panel to flasher, flasher to turn signal switch, switch to bulbs...) It just goes looking for a ground, no ground, no power flow. You can get into amp draw, wire size, resistance, whether it's flowing from positive to negative, or negative to positive, all that... but it's more fun to just wire it and drive it!

 

Thanks! Here's a shot of the back side. It has a push button switch that looks like a flasher switch. Since the turn switch has screw terminals, seems like wires to converter could be easily switched out or added to.
I just hate diving in to a newly running car with completed wiring.

 

Nice, that would be easy enough to run the new wires all the way into the switch, and still use the 3 pin flasher if you wanted. Does that push button act as a hazard? connecting the lefts and rights together? I've never seen that before

 

Best vendor thread on this site. New information comes on a regular basis with pictures.
Hats off to Rebel wire.

 

From the way that it's wired, the push button does look like it could be a hazard. Once I grab a converter, I think that I'll make up a mini test circuit and check things out before I go cutting and splicing the main harness (particularly in my retarded state of electrical ability).
Don't want to let any smoke escape.

Thanks for your help and making a positive contribution to the HAMB.

 

I'm not alone? Really, you don't understand this stuff either, we could form a club of finished but not wired projects. Bob

 

Glad to do it, I hear that smoke is almost impossible to put back in once it's out. That's what I thought about the push button, If you turned the switch either way and then hit the push button that it would act as a hazard switch, sending a flashing signal to all 4 corners. If the switch was off I don't think it would do anything, because of no continuity to the flasher wire. Let me know how the test goes, it sparks my curiosity

 

"sparks" my curiosity...…

He'll be here all week, folks! Remember to tip your waitress.

 

If you guys don't have any questions, I'll probably just post information as it comes up in tech calls and emails to keep the ball rolling, but feel free to chime in with anything. Had a call about LED's for turn signals. Pretty common, they come on when using the switch, but don't blink. The reason is that the LED's don't pull enough load to work the flasher. I've also seen electronic flashers that don't work with LED's. It all depends on what all you're using. If you run a combination of LED's and incandescents, odds are the flasher will work, because the regular bulbs are drawing enough to work the flasher, and the LED's are just along for the ride. I've posted these videos before, so some stuff is going to overlap, but once you get it down, that's how wiring is, a lot of the procedures and installations overlap. Another thing to mention, when I was swapping these flashers around, I checked to make sure my flasher wiring stayed the same. X power was still power, L load was still load, and the terminals were indexed the same way on the different flashers.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1865827533512058

Also keep in mind that LED's are directional, meaning that they will only wire one way as far as hot and ground. Not like an incandescent bulb that can really wire either way and still work. The LED is a Light Emitting Diode, and diodes are directional.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2070528899625991

All I'm doing in this video is switching the hot and ground wires. The regular bulb still works, but the LED will only work one way. When working with aftermarket assemblies, bench test them to see which wire is your running light and which is turn signal. Also don't take for granted that the same color wire is the same function on the other lights, go ahead and bench test them all and just go by what your test tells you. Most of these assemblies are made overseas, and color codes don't mean much

 

We're not supposed to talk about LEDs here.

 

remember snitches get stitches