Where do I hook up power

[Dylan Galvin]

In my very very limited electrical knowledge that will soon grow, I have located one wire on the 66 Monaco that I assume is the ground cable for the battery, and cant find squat for the positive cable. I want to get power going through the system so I can test out what works and what needs a fixin before I slap the engine and trans in soon. I have a pic of the wire and where it ends up on the firewall. So is my guess correct? Where should the positive cable be? I dont know, and would really appreciate some aid. thanks in advance

 

[LocuMob]

The positive cable has the big wire going to the starter, and the smaller wire you show, going to the relay. I think, pretty sure.

I can take some pictures of the harness from my parts car when I get off work in the morning.

 

[Dylan Galvin]

The positive cable has the big wire going to the starter, and the smaller wire you show, going to the relay. I think, pretty sure.

I can take some pictures of the harness from my parts car when I get off work in the morning.

Sweet I’d love some pics. It’ll be a real help knowing what to look for

 

[LocuMob]

Do you have harnesses for under the hood? One for the wiper motor, one for the engine and it's accessories, and one for the headlights/signals.

 

[rkrochen]

You have your hand on the fusible link. This is a power supply. Get yourself a good test lite put the lead to the ground terminal or a good body ground and use the lite to locate power. Do this and test both ends of the fusible link to make sure it’s good. Also see where that blue crimped on terminal is going and relocate it to a proper power source. These terminals can cause issues later on and if it causes problems at the ballast resistor you will be dead in the water.

 

[413]

The unit on the firewall is the starter relay. Battery positive goes to that large threaded stud. The wire in your hand goes to the battery terminal end or an small wire coming off the end of the battery cable. So connect that to battery positive for your test.

For your test you need to run a ground to the body for anything to work for your testing.

Before hooking up the battery you need to find the terminal that hooks to the output of the alternator, it has a round terminal on a wire sized like the one in your hand. Tape that off so it can’t touch ground, it will meltdown your wiring if it touches metal.

When car is complete the large battery cables Go negative go to front left of cylinder head and Positive to starter motor. There should be a smaller ground from right rear cylinder head to the firewall for the body.

 

[Dylan Galvin]

Here’s some pics, it seems like a decently complete setup. I can get more pics of other areas or whatever you guys would need after class. Like I said, my knowledge is quite limited in Thais department and I have no clue if I have those specific harnesses

 

[413]

Here is your factory ground wire. It’s painted turquoise with insulation cracking. This is the factory body ground wire the goes to the rear of pass side cylinder head. Attach ground from your battery to this wire for your testing.

 

[413]

This is the wire to the alternator. For your testing Tape this over so it can not touch ground or you will melt things down.

 

[Dylan Galvin]

Awesome, thanks. I’ll keep this at hand while I try to send some juice thru the system tonight

 

[Mr C]

Where is your battery tray?

 

[Dylan Galvin]

Where is your battery tray?

Its still outta the car because i want to paint it and the weathered area under it. Was just gonna use a jump pack for this

 

[Dylan Galvin]

A couple signs of life! Open door lights and brake lights come on strong. All I could get

 

[Gerald Morris]

Dylan. you got the basic stuff right! Congratulations. Advice from a fellow who rewired significant portions of his 66 Chrysler:

1. Go 2 AWG numbers heavier with all the key conductors. Where you had #10 AWG for the alternator charging and the main feed from the battery to the starter stud, go with #8 AWG. I also ran my headlights in #10 AWG and good Tycho-Bosch 40A contactors, fed by the OLD HEADLIGHT WIRING, which was done in #16 AWG.

2. Use LEDs for all the lights behind the headlights. They use only 1/10th as much current for the same luminous output. I even added a brake light bar in the center rear top window, feeding it from the brake light switch leg on the rear drivers side. I recently added small 3 LED ribbons in amber immediately below the turn signal indicators on the front fenders. These make it visible to traffic approaching from the side you're turning into, thus informing them of your intent. Use Philips LED bulbs for the tail/brake lights. They're US DOT accepted, unlike all the sino-sewage pumped over here. I did very well with the license plate light with an admittedly asiatic bulb got through superbrightleds.com It works beautifully, though its so bright I had to tape most of the old lens over in aluminum foil tape to avoid blinding drivers behind me. LEDs WORK WELL NOW!

3. Grounding/bonding jumpers back to the negative battery terminal help assure GOOD CURRENT FLOW and AVOID DAMAGING PARTS! Run at least some #12 AWG from the battery, lugging to the front radiator support near the headlights and horns, and connect these directly to the jumper as well as the steel sheet body, which may be rusted to a degree that prevents decent current flow. This eliminates worry on that score! Run a bond along the top of the engine, on the intake, picking up the coil/distributor stuff, then the wipers, heater/defrost/AC blowers and such as you bond to the firewall. Then run under the car to pick up the gas tank sending unit, tail lights, reverse lights et al. After 55 yrs, all this stuff will at best be just barely bonded to the body by the original terminals and small wires used. Your bonding jumper will permit you to keep a lot of the old wiring in the back, so long as your grounds go to the jumper as well as the aged sheetmetal.

4. The original fuseblock may also suffer from serious corrosion and contact issues too. There IS a fellow on eBay who sells new contacts for these old blocks if you need this, or you can try cleaning up stuff yourself. Use a fine steel wire "toothbrush" and some emery boards. If the contacts haven't utterly corroded, this should work. I try to retain the old glass AGC/SFE type fuses, as these were designed and regulated by serious minded folks. The modern stuff is cheap in every sense of the word.

Good luck! Buzz me if you need further details.

 

[Dylan Galvin]

Dylan. you got the basic stuff right! Congratulations. Advice from a fellow who rewired significant portions of his 66 Chrysler:

1. Go 2 AWG numbers heavier with all the key conductors. Where you had #10 AWG for the alternator charging and the main feed from the battery to the starter stud, go with #8 AWG. I also ran my headlights in #10 AWG and good Tycho-Bosch 40A contactors, fed by the OLD HEADLIGHT WIRING, which was done in #16 AWG.

2. Use LEDs for all the lights behind the headlights. They use only 1/10th as much current for the same luminous output. I even added a brake light bar in the center rear top window, feeding it from the brake light switch leg on the rear drivers side. I recently added small 3 LED ribbons in amber immediately below the turn signal indicators on the front fenders. These make it visible to traffic approaching from the side you're turning into, thus informing them of your intent. Use Philips LED bulbs for the tail/brake lights. They're US DOT accepted, unlike all the sino-sewage pumped over here. I did very well with the license plate light with an admittedly asiatic bulb got through superbrightleds.com It works beautifully, though its so bright I had to tape most of the old lens over in aluminum foil tape to avoid blinding drivers behind me. LEDs WORK WELL NOW!

3. Grounding/bonding jumpers back to the negative battery terminal help assure GOOD CURRENT FLOW and AVOID DAMAGING PARTS! Run at least some #12 AWG from the battery, lugging to the front radiator support near the headlights and horns, and connect these directly to the jumper as well as the steel sheet body, which may be rusted to a degree that prevents decent current flow. This eliminates worry on that score! Run a bond along the top of the engine, on the intake, picking up the coil/distributor stuff, then the wipers, heater/defrost/AC blowers and such as you bond to the firewall. Then run under the car to pick up the gas tank sending unit, tail lights, reverse lights et al. After 55 yrs, all this stuff will at best be just barely bonded to the body by the original terminals and small wires used. Your bonding jumper will permit you to keep a lot of the old wiring in the back, so long as your grounds go to the jumper as well as the aged sheetmetal.

4. The original fuseblock may also suffer from serious corrosion and contact issues too. There IS a fellow on eBay who sells new contacts for these old blocks if you need this, or you can try cleaning up stuff yourself. Use a fine steel wire "toothbrush" and some emery boards. If the contacts haven't utterly corroded, this should work. I try to retain the old glass AGC/SFE type fuses, as these were designed and regulated by serious minded folks. The modern stuff is cheap in every sense of the word.

Good luck! Buzz me if you need further details.

I 100% wanted to go with LEDs, need people driving their modern snooze boxes to pay attention. I’ll definitely look into your recommendations. Thanks Gerald

 

[Gerald Morris]

I 100% wanted to go with LEDs, need people driving there modern snooze boxes to pay attention. I’ll definitely look into your recommendations. Thanks Gerald

If you circuit according to my recommendations, you will be able to run an absurdly over-powered headlight array, if you wish to. I actually went total Old School Incandescent for mine though; finding a CASE of 12 Union Carbide Everready* 4000s for the low beams, and a pair of old GE 4001s for high beams. Both deals were ABSURDLY CHEAP. I would NEVER recommend buying NEW incandescent PAR sealed beam bulbs, as 1.) The factory tooling for these is at best 50 yrs old and disintegrating and worse, 2.) it got grabbed by chinese capitalists. Shillvania should be avoided at any cost.

With adequate CURRENT to POWER the old bulbs, they light the road beautifully, at a spectrum carefully chosen by a once powerful U.S. D.O.T. as being optimal for human eyes, UNLIKE THE UNREGULATED DANGEROUS CRAP PERMITTED NOW!

While I concede LED headlights might be capable of greater luminescence, this comes at the cost of destroying your own night vision, as well as the vision of other drivers. So I opted to set a good example in this matter. I LOVE LED lighting in every other part of our cars, and had researched using low power h4 bulbs inside some 5.75 inch sealed beam shells of the sort made in Europe, and foud one vendor that made them, but every other h4 I could find used MORE power than the old stuff to make excessive, blinding light rather than make EFFICIENT light. THAT DECIDED ME FOR THE OLD SCHOOL PATH.

Of course, I have extraordinarily good eyes too, and mean to keep them. Folks not so blessed might benefit from more light. I wear my Wayfarers in heavy traffic.

Best Wishes!

* Westinghouse made these for UC/Everready. Did YOU KNOW that Once Upon a Time, Union Carbide was a WORKERS COOPERATIVE COMPANY?