Now onto something that makes most people squirm when it comes to working on trucks.......wiring.
For some reason, a lot of people are scared ******tless when it comes to working with the wiring in vehicles. They will bolt/weld all sorts of stuff to their vehicle, but for some reason will not want to touch the wiring at all.
I don't have that problem, so while I had the truck on the lift, I decided to do some wiring.
I had gone to NAPA this week and picked up a little over 30 feet of 7-wire cabling. It is the same stuff they use to wire up trailers. 7 wires is likely more than I need, but I would rather have more than less.
I ran the cable from the engine compartment, down through the frame and all the way to the back of the truck.
I am planning to install some rear lights and other "accessories" near the back of the truck, so this will make things easy when it comes to wiring them up.
I only installed one accessory today, as I haven't decided exactly how to setup the other stuff yet. While it might seem stupid to some, I installed a backup alarm.
I think all of us have seen it, but it seems as if people today are becoming less and less aware of what is going on around them. Distracted by cell phones, tablets, drinking coffee, etc, they are a dangerous bunch. While having backup alarm still won't help when it comes to some people. It should at least help.
Now while it would be pretty easy just to hook up the backup alarm to the reverse lights, so that it comes on every time you put the truck into reverse, I didn't want that. I only wanted the backup alarm to come on when I want it to come on. I also want to be able to turn it on even when I am not backing up, so hooking it up to the reverse lights simply wouldn't work. I wanted to put it on a switch so that I could turn it on/off at will. Luckily I had just run a wiring harness to the back of the truck to connect it up to
So back up to the front of the truck where the next couple of hours were spent.
I brought the lift down and took the truck off.
Next step was to work on the location of the switches in the cab for my wiring. After sitting in the truck a bit I decided the best place to put it would be head liner console. Forgot to take a picture before I did the work, but this is pretty much exactly how mine looks.
In the upgraded models of the truck, the panel at the front of the console would have a temperature gauge and a compass in it. But mine just has a blank panel. Perfect place for adding switches.
So since I had made sure to buy a lot of wiring, I pulled the headliner down a bit and ran some wiring from the engine compartment up to the console.
Then I took the blank panel and did a lot of measuring so that I could drill some holes for switches.
They are not lined up perfect (even though I tried really hard to get it perfect). But is good enough.
Then I put the panel back into place. Looks good.
Now I know a lot of people go with the nice looking rocker switches, but I used these instead. Mainly because I already had these switches and second was that the big rocker switches are....well big. And I likely wouldn't have been able to fit 6 of them in there like I did these switches.
Next was time to work on the wiring under the hood. When I started off the wiring I took a good look at the engine compartment and found that the best place for all the wiring was on the passengers side on the firewall. To make things easier to work on, I temporary removed the fender support so that I had lots of room.
Lots of room for stuff here. You can see the wiring from the back of the truck and the cab already sitting there waiting for me.
Next thing I did was to install a power distribution panel. I got this out of a military CUCV that was being scrapped a while back. Though for some reason I can't find the upper terminal cover at the moment.
Bottom row will be for power (+12v) and the top row for ground (-GND).
This will make it very easy to send power where I need it without sending a million taps off to the battery. Nice, clean and organized.
Next step was the relays. I try to add relays whenever I can. This will help not only protect the truck wiring system, but could also prevent a fire from overloading. Some people simply put a switch between the battery and something like a light. While this might work for a small light, a lot of the time the lights will draw a lot of power and could melt the little switch you put between the light and the battery (and could cause a fire).
I use a really nice set of relay connectors I buy from a local store. They are nice for the fact that they lock together to form a chain then can be screwed in place. Most relay connectors rely on the fact that the relay itself has a little tab for mounting. I like this way better, as you can remove a relay as needed very easily. The relay connectors even come with relays, but sadly I have learned to throw out the relays when I open the package. The relays are some cheap Chinese made crap and will only randomly work here and there. I just throw them out and get some real Bosch relays instead.
So after a bit more work I had the relay mounts in place and the wiring all connected. I also put the fender support back in place.
Yeah it looks a bit messy. That is because I am not finished yet. I still have a couple things I want to connect up before I clean up the wiring.
Then I went to work on another little project under the hood. Most GM vehicles come with a light under the hood that works on a level sensor. When the hood is down (flat) the light is off. But as soon as you lift the hood, the level sensor turns the light on. This is great.....when the truck is new. After a couple of years, most of these lights either get smashed (from someone working under the hood who accidently hits it) or the level sensor in the light goes bad and either leaves the light on all the time (where it eventually burns out) or it will not turn the light on.
Mine didn't have either problem. My light was completely missing. Likely it broke and someone took it out to find a replacement and never got around to it. Instead of installing the same type of light I decided to go with a done light with an integrated switch. That means I would be able to turn the light on/off whenever I want. Installation was pretty easy and straight forward.
Much better.
Then I went to work on the final wiring project of the day. This one was even more simple than the hood light.
I have a basket winch which I bring around with me on my adventures (yes going to the store to buy bacon may not require a winch, but I still think it is a great adventure!). This basket winch just slips into the receiver on the rear hitch. On my last off road/expo truck, I also had a receiver in the front bumper which would let me install the winch on the front of the truck too as needed. To power this winch, I have a long power cord with a set of quick-disconnect Anderson connectors. When I initially got the winch, it came with standard battery clamps on the end of the power cord, but I wanted something more permanent. So I removed the clamps and installed battery terminals. I installed the same setup on this truck.
So when I need power, I can just leave the Anderson connector sticking out from under the hood and connect up to it as needed without having to mess around with the clamps (which always seem to pop off the battery terminals). I also have a set of jumper cables where I removed the clamps and installed an Anderson connector on the end to make boosting another vehicle very easy. When I don't need it, the connector just sits under the hood beside the battery. I was tempted to mount the connector in the grill for an even faster connection, but that would leave it vulnerable to damage from rain/dirt/mud/snow/me smashing into it/etc. And since I rarely use it, I thought it better just to have it sit under the hook till I need it.
That was my wiring fun for the day. The fuel leak fix only took maybe 45mins to complete. The wiring took me nearly 6 hours. It is not hard, just long.
