Imp wiring, fuses, relays and upgrading to modern style safety part 1

[John A. Ross]

Over the period I have restored the cars the wiring system i have employed has been constantly developed and improved on lessons learned.

I plan to publish the latest itteration as a series of Artciles as imp wiring is getting old, very tired and quite frankly unsafe, especially wiring that has been disturbed at some pint by monor repairs.



Fuse 1 is a mega fuse to protect any issues on alternator or a dead short on a high current wire, this feeds the solenoid and starter
Fuse 2 is the return supply from the alternator so next time you short the wire out to ground or snag it you dont put the loom on fire !
Fuse 3 is a live supply which will be switched by relays to supply an ignition switched 12V
Fuse 4 is a split supply, one for side lights and dip/main beam and other for things like horn, heater, front screen heated etc.
Fuse 5 is the other for things like spotlights and so on.

As all feeds come direct from the battery and go directly to point of load via realy, switch wear, cable loss are all kept to a minimum and all cables are rated way above what is needed so that voltage loss is fine even at 70-80 deg besde heater hoses.

This is part of a whole new wiring system I designed for DDG220C based on what i have done before in other imp restorations and lessons learned. Sometimes you never stop learning

The first articles will be based on a complete rewire, it will not be a stock rewire so if you want to do a true restoration, its not for you.

The latest itteration includes facilities for things like heated front windscren, heated rear windscreen, electric fuel pump, spotlights, fog lights, reversing lamps as well as auxilliary connectors in bonnet and engine bay with courtesy lights.

These will be based on standard binnacle dash structures as that is what I am most familiar with. Saying that it is easilly modified for any other instruments as it is only the instruments that change, senders and so on are always the same on an imp engine.

As a snippet here is a quick screen shot of the battery/interface to car, these are all fused and if fused correctly can protect the rest of teh car to a certain degree, certainly better than stock.

This first modewhich will follow in the reply uses standard parts and if done along with an alternator update make for a very easy to fit fuse system.

Watch for more and comments are welcome

[John A. Ross]

Just a note

My plan is to publish this in bits every few days with a view to doing a full article by end of February to allow me to take pictures of the work actually being fitted to a real car (DDG220C)

Example Part one, battery connections, second part rear controls, third part in car 9body) routing, third part dash binnacle (folks can swap as needed) fourth part under bonnet control, fifth and final part lighting and front end.

There will be an extra 2 surprise parts in between, keep the curiosity going !

A final surpise is I will also be adapting one for the K series bike engine, a full car rewire based around the BMW engine as well as an example of easy wire into a standard imp (from K series with motronic)

With each part I will publish parts lists, sources and costs for all the parts as well as reaons they were picked.

So as they say, check back later for the full story !

not all articles will be published to Facebook although many will, if anyone else wants to share them to facebook as they like the posts, thats what the share buttons are for to the left of the post

FINAL NOTE : This is based on metal chassis vehicles, Clans, ginettas, Nymphs and othe fibreglass based cars require additional considerations, specifically on return path loads and wiring as no chassis exists so a really low impedance ground return will be required. These are special cases and if anyone wants to run with a clan and genetta version feel free.