Thread: Wiring an EDIC motor and relay?

Will be making lots of notes!

I recently saw a car with a home made loom, which looked sensational. It had a hidden (but easy access) panel that all the main wires ran through. There was a board for permanently live circuits, another for ignition switched and everything ran off a neat bank of relays. It was all protected by blade type fuses. The guy even had a holder for an A3 sized laminated circuit diagram that he'd made up for the car. The really nice part was that under the bonnet everything looked standard.

I'd like to do something similar, perhaps using some of the generic components they make for hot rods. With a bit of planning it should be possible to vastly improve on what's there now.

Sounds awesome - got any photos?
The wiring on mine is the only thing I despise about the whole car as I know its going to bite me in the bum at some stage.
I've let the smoke out of it twice now, but thankfully nothing too serious yet.

Would love to rewire from scratch with modern plugs/fuses and everything positioned logically etc, but think it would have to be a ground-up rebuild to work properly.

Steve

Sadly I have no photos as yet. I expect I'll see the car again and will try to take some. I think a full rewire would be a huge job and you'd want to do some serious pre-planning. Some in depth reading would help unless you're an auto electrician, which I'm not.

Then again, at the end of the day it is just a collection of circuits that need to be laid out in an organised, systematic fashion. Plus you would be free from the constraints that accountants and production line assembly methods dictate.

Aging wiring, especially aging, butchered, English wiring, is never going to be ideal. I reckon a new custom loom would be time well spent.

Originally Posted by steveG

Ideally you'll be able to find one of those twin/triple connectors that you can just plug into. Worst case, you should be able to find something to connect to even if its a case of cut/join/solder into an existing wire. Not ideal, but I know the sort of crap you mean with an old butchered loom. Sometimes you've just got to make it work the best way you can.
Make sure its either really obvious where its connected to, or make some notes for later down the track or you'll be sorry!!

Steve

Job is finally done. I did extensive and frustrating testing of every ignition switched wire I could find, but every single one carried some current after the ignition was switched off. I was going to give up and call in an auto electrician to sort it, but decided to take the quicker, practical approach of just breaking the circuit with an on/off switch. It works for now and I'll put it on the list of things to sort out when I rewire the vehicle.

Only 51 items left on the current list before I can start using it

Good work Dave.
I'm definitely no auto-elec, but sounds like an issue with your alternator wiring and the alternator output is feeding into the switched side of the ignition somehow.
What sort of alternator are you running - externally regulated one like a standard Landy setup, or internal reg one?
What does the heavy output wire from the alternator connect to?

Steve

Steve, I'm not sure about the alternator specs, but seriously doubt it is standard Land Rover issue. The vehicle started as a V8. I don't plan to spend any more time on this until I get the vehicle up and running and in regular service. It will do a full rewire in a while and I want to make the loom myself if at all possible. I suspect this little issue will be just one of many I'll have to work through. I reckon I'll need to get a consultant auto electrician to check my work though.