My fuse box swap thread

[ftillier]

Hi folks,

The cabby's fuse box and connectors have a couple burnt plugs:

The most burnt plug is the one for the heater blower fan. With the rainy season coming up, I really need to fan to be able to defog the windshield.

My first idea was to rebuild the burnt harness, replace corroded connectors, and clean up the fuse box to get things working again.

The topic came up recently and Ron mentioned in this post that the a westmoreland fuse panel can be spliced into the early wiring harness for trouble free operation. This was exactly what I wanted to hear, and off I went to the junk yard and picked up a fuse box:

I got as much of the harness with it as I could, though I'm likely to just wire it without any of the connectors I got. For comparisson, here's a front and back shot of the german and westy fuse panels.

As an other benefit, I will get to switch to blade-style fuses. I'll be documenting the process, including which wires go where and so forth. I'll be soldering everything and insulating with heat shrink wire.

- Fab

[dieselfolk]

wurth makes pins for those plugs,,i have them,,and ive been there
what i did is extract the pins,and cannabalized another bunny harness for good plastic connectors,and spent a fun time with solder and new pins
its doable what you are doing,but theres other options
run stuff thru relays to take the load off the fuse panel
mine had a sorta burnt headlight circuit,but that one is easy to relay


Modified by dieselfolk at 10:29 PM 9-13-2006

[jonny_breakz]

wow...worthy cause but talk about exciting....Have fun...

[PoorHouse]

Looks like a fun way to spend a rainy Saturday or 20.....

Way to get after it, looking forward to progress updates.

[ftillier]

Quote, originally posted by dieselfolk »

wurth makes pins for those plugs,,i have them,,and ive been there what i did is extract the pins,and cannabalized another bunny harness for good plastic connectors,and spent a fun time with solder and new pins

Yeah, though it takes two to tango - the pin in the fuse box is pretty charred too, and replacing the fuse box is $100. Not to mention that finding unburnt plastic connectors can be difficult. The fuse box from the westy rabbit, along with all that wire, was $20 at the junkyard. With the amount of the wiring harness that I got, I won't have to splice anything to the steering column, which is nice.

Quote, originally posted by dieselfolk »

its doable what you are doing,but theres other options run stuff thru relays to take the load off the fuse panel mine had a sorta burnt headlight circuit,but that one is easy to relay

Yep, the headlights are on relays. However, putting every high-load accessory on a relay because the stock fusebox can't hack the load isn't really that great. It actually complicates the wiring, requires a bunch of inline fuse holders for each relay, and so forth. Plus, the cost of adding more relays is more than the westy fuse panel and the heat shrink tubing.

Anyway, I totally agree that there are other options. I'll see how this comes out, but I think it will be the most cost effective (assuming I don't account for the time).

- Fab

[fat biker]

I have a similar situation with my '82 Convertible.

Here's my plan;

Part 1 - fix the dumb thing
new fuse panel
used/serviceable wiring harness connector shells (junkyard)
remove all un-damaged pins from existing harness ends - install them into the replacement connectors
cut/splice only the burnt/overloaded pins with pigtails into the existing harness

Part 2 - make it so this never happens again
aftermarket fuse panel + relays for all high current loads
in other words, move the high current/troublesome circuits from the OE wiring to a custom (stout) relay/harness

Think of it like relaying the headlamps and the fuel pump and the rear defroster and the heater blower...

That's my plan anyway.

Good luck with your approach, please keep us informed.

fat biker

[ftillier]

Quote, originally posted by fat biker »

Part 1 - fix the dumb thing new fuse panel used/serviceable wiring harness connector shells (junkyard) remove all un-damaged pins from existing harness ends - install them into the replacement connectors cut/splice only the burnt/overloaded pins with pigtails into the existing harness

The weak link in the harness isn't the wire, it's the connector at the fusebox. The westy wiring harness has all the same color coded wires as the german wiring harness, so splicing shouldn't be too difficult. I'm eliminating the weak link altogether.

Granted for headlights the head light switch can also be a weak link, so relays for them is good, especially if running stronger than stock bulbs.

Quote, originally posted by fat biker »

Part 2 - make it so this never happens again aftermarket fuse panel + relays for all high current loads in other words, move the high current/troublesome circuits from the OE wiring to a custom (stout) relay/harness Think of it like relaying the headlamps and the fuel pump and the rear defroster and the heater blower...

That's going to be a lot of extra relays, just to work around the weak fusebox connections. Anyway, I'm using the harness from the race bunny as a model so I can figure out where everything goes. When I get to the cabby, I will be cutting all the connectors to the fusebox out. I'll save them for you if you'd like.

- Fab

[F0xz0r]

Bst of luck to you. I'm really considering doing the same this winter. Though with mine I'm just going to trim all the crap that isent used.

My setup is carbed and is using a later westmoreland FI setup, so there is a ton of crap to be trimmed.

Best of luck dude.

[ftillier]

So I had some time (and no rain too) to work on the car today. Not a lot of time, but I cleaned up the engine bay wiring. The headlights had been relayed, but the installation was a bit of a hack job. I also wanted to move the cooling fan circuit since it's a single speed fan - no need to have the wires run all the way to the fuse box and back to the fan just for a fuse.

First came the radiator fan wiring. You can see the positive lead to the fan thermo switch from the fuse box:

and here where it comes out in the engine bay:

I cut the fusebox connector and pulled the wire out the front:

Splice an inline fuse holder to the wire:

And then spliced to the headlight relay wires:

With the radiator fan circuit shortened (fuse relocated), I moved on to clean up the headlight wiring. The relays are actuated by the driver's side headlight circuit, so the passenger side was not connected. The wiring from the relay to the passenger side headlight was zip tied to the core support, with some nasty crimp fittings on the headlight connectors (no insulation!).

Since the passenger side headlight circuits are not used with relayed headlights, I decided to pull those wires from the fuse box and splice them to the relays, thereby reusing the original wires and connector to go from driver's to passenger side.

The passenger side headlight relay is on plug C in the fuse box, solid yellow and white (the driver's side is yellow/black and white/black). There's a plug like those used in computers for supplying power to hard disk drives that connects the lights from the C harness to the A harness:

I cut after the connector (rather than at the C plug):

You can see the yellow and white wires in the engine bay at the tip of my thumb. Note also the "high-tech" connection from the original headlight plug to the control wire to the relays (the mess wrapped in electrical tape):

I pulled the wire through:

If you've ever soldered, it's a heck of a lot easier if someone holds the wires while you man the iron and solder. Lacking a helper, I devised a simple wire holder that let me stage the wires nicely:

Works great - hold wires:

Add solder:

The end result is that the yellow/black (driver's side low beam) and white/black (driver's side high beam) wires from the fuse box now is spliced directly to the blue wires supplying the relays (relay pin 85), ground out of relay pin 86. Power from the battery goes to relay pin 30, and the wires from relay pin 87 are spliced into the original headlight plugs. All solder joints where covered with heat shrink tubing (don't forget to put the tubing over the wire *before* you solder!).

The net result of this is I've eliminated three circuits form the fuse box. Next up is making the connections between the fuse box plugs that normally go through the fusebox, and then splicing the westmoreland fusebox into the remaining wires.

- Fab

[-teknien-]

awesome idea...

[Digital-K]

why not swap the harness over to ce2??

[ftillier]

I don't actually want to pull the harnesses out of the car. Or do you mean splice in a CE2 fusebox into the existing harness?

What does the CE2 fusebox look like? This car is unlikely to ever have an engine swap - I just need the electrical stuff to work, and the German fuse box is toast.

- Fab

[dieselfolk]

darn i had a pic or 2 of the box in my 91 jetta,thats ce2 isnt it??
lookin good on the upgrade man
make yourself a little wiring diagram too,so if you have to ever go in there again,you can trace out stuff easier

[F0xz0r]

Lookin groovy. Though albeit a little scarry lookin. I'll have the pics of mine up shortly. I spent the last week cleaning up the crap from the harness, rewiring some stuff, and deleating the sealtbelt interlock.

[Digital-K]

[ftillier]

Does it fit and fasten in the standard rabbit fusebox location? Did you put the CE2 harness and just splice in the connectors at the non-fusebox end? Or did you splice the rabbit harness at the CE2 connectors?

Looks like a nice way to go!

- Fab

[ftillier]

Ok, so I think I have all the wiring figured out. The only odd part of the cabby's wiring harness was that D5 was connected to something - it supplied power to the horn relay. I haven't seen any wiring diagrams that use D5 to power much of anything.

Anyway, there are 15 fuses in the German fuse box. My westy fusebox has 16 fuses. The big difference is that the german fuse box has fuses inline to circuits, while the westy fusebox has the fuses between the power source and whatever circuit is powered. Take the rear defogger for example. In the cabby's original wiring, power goes to the defogger switch, then to the fuse, then to the defogger element. In the westy power goes to the fuse, then to the defogger switch, then to the defogger element. Having the fuses as the first link in the electrical system actually makes a lot more sense. Due to how the fuse prongs are setup, there is only one fuse in the westy fusebox that is an inline fuse - that is, neither side connects to power. This is the fuse for the instrument lights. The german wiring doesn't put a fuse for the instrument lights. I tried to devise a way to get that to work, but I could only protect 3 lights out of all the different instrument lights. The other oddity is that there are no fuses for the headlights in the fuse box. This poses a problem since the german headlight fuses are inline to the headlight circuits.

Ok, so rather than blabbing, let me break down the fuses on the two setups:

German
S1-4: low and high beam, left and right.
S5: rear defogger
S6: brake, hazard
S7: interior lights
S8: turn signals
S9: backup, horn
S10: heater fan
S11: wiper/washer
S12: license plate lights
S13-14: side marker, parking, tail lights
S15: radiator fan

Westy
haz/stop
dome/clk
lighter
horn SW
heater-A/C
R. defog
F. wiper
R. wiper
turn signals
radio
backup
rad fan
park lps
horn relay
inst lps
fuel pump

Main differences in Westy vs. German:
- single fuse for all side markers, tail, and parking lamps.
- backup lights and horn are split up.
- dome light + clock are split from cigarette lighter

There are a few fuse locations that aren't used:
- radiator fan: the cabby has a single speed fan and I put an inline fuse right off the batter. No reason to run the radiator fan circuit to the fuse box and then back to the fan.
- rear wiper: no rear wiper on the cabby
- instrument lights: no point in trying to wire it into the german harness since the lights are on a variety of different circuits.

The radiator fan and rear wiper fuse locations only produced a single prong, the instrument lights provided two. This gave me enough fuse prongs to setup two locations for low beam/high beam circuits feeding the headlight relays next to the battery.

Up next is pictures of the different fuse/relay locations on the fuse box, along with which wires go where.

- Fab

[ftillier]

Turn Signal Relay:


Green/Black wire to D1 + E3
Black/Green wire to D12
third prong is ground.

Load Reduction Relay (X Relay):


Only one connection to the harness, Black/Yellow to D7.

Horn Relay:
Main difference in the horn relay wiring is the change in polarity for the relay. The horn relay in the cabby closes the ground connection - the horns have constant 12V, the horn relay terminal 86 is powered from D5, the horn switch connects between horn relay terminal 85 and ground, ground wire from horn goest to relay terminal 87, and relay terminal 30 goes to ground. The westy wiring puts the relay in the supply side of the horn. The horn switch still brings the control side of the relay to ground.


Black/Yellow is power to horn, A11.
Brown/Blue is connection to horn switch, E11.
Ground from horn is A7

Note that as an optimization, it would be possible to just gound the horns to their mounting bracket and spare the wiring back to the interior. Not sure why they didn't just do that.

Wiper Relay


E20 and E7 where originally bridged in the harness. E7 is not connected to anything, only E20.
From the F. Wiper fuse is a Black/Gray wire. It is connected to the Black/Gray wire leading to the wiper relay (left prong) as well as to C13 + E15 (+ D5). Since D5 powered the horn relay and we've already covered that, I'll leave D5 unconnected - hence the parentheses.
The picture of the terminals isn't great, but here's where things go:
Middle prong, Green/Black to C9
Bottom prong, Green/Red, two wires from this terminal, one each to C17 and E20.
Right prong, Green/Black to E16
Top-right prong (small), Brown/Black to E8

Rear Defogger

Black/Yellow from fuse to E13

Heater/AC
The cabby doesn't have AC, but this is the pin that burnt out (see first post in thread for pictures). This is the whole reason for all this work.

Black/Red from fuse to D19

Cigarette Lighter

Black/Green from fuse to D14.

Dome/Clock

Red/Gray from fuse to F14.

Hazard/Stop Lights

Two wires from fuse:
Red/Yellow to A14 (stop lights)
Red/White to D21 (hazards)

Backup Lights

Green/Blue from fuse to A15

Park Lamps (and side markers and tail lights)

There are two wires from this one. I couldn't figure out where the second one went (the Red/Black one). I will eliminate it or connect it and the other one in parallel (in case I figure out where it goes later).
Gray/Red from fuse to D3.

Note that this is a change from how the cabby is originally wired. The original wiring has unfused power through D3 to the light switch, and then return from the light switch to the fuse box to the fuses for the left and right tail light fuses (S13, 14). The westy fusebox has the fuse before feeding power to the light switch, and no fuse inline to either side. The wires that connected to/from the original fuses are bridged, but I'll get to all the bridged connections later (I have a table of these).

Seatbelt warning/interlock


From left to right, top to bottom:
1: Bridged to 3.
2: Ignition switch (Brown/Red). Connects to 'su' terminal
3: To seatbelt switch (White/Violet)
4: Red/Black, to A10 + C10. Note jumper to 10
5: To ground
6: empty
7: Black, to circuit 15 (switched power)
8: Brown/Gray, to door switch
9: White/Purple, to seatbelt light in dash
10: Red/Black, to E17. Note jumper to 4.

For those of you with seatbelt interlock relays, jumpering 4 to 10 bypasses the interlock relay.

Fuel Pump
Normally, the fuel pump relay is on a separate relay holder that clips into the top of the fuse panel. There's a relay spot with the same pin locations on the fuse panel for the oil pressure warning relay. Since the cabby doesn't have one of these, I decided to consolidate and put the fuel pump relay in this location.

Note that the pin layout is rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the way the fuel pump relay normally sits. I just moved the wires from the modular relay plug to this location. From left to right, top to bottom:
1: empty
2: Red wire from fuel pump fuse
3: ground
4: Red/Black, to C19 + D15
5: empty
6: Black, circuit 15
7: Black/Green. Two wires, one to A8 (fuel pump), the other to the Aux Air Regulator and Controp Pressure Regulator.

Note: the german fuse box has pin 4 go to A3, which loops to A5, which then connects to C19 through the fusebox. The above setup removes connections to A3 and A5.
D15 is the tach, so cars without a tach may not have a connection there.
The Aux Air regulator and CPR connectors in the cabby have a T-connector from A8. I eliminate the T and use one of the two wire to connect directly.

Turn Signal

Black/Blue from fuse to D20

Ok, next up is the table of all the circuits wires from each harness plug...

- Fab

Modified by ftillier at 12:09 AM 9-29-2006

[ensone]

been there done that
ask yourself.. wouldnt you rather have a simple fusebox where you know everything without a book?
hotrod harnesses is where its at

[ftillier]

Quote, originally posted by ensone »

been there done that ask yourself.. wouldnt you rather have a simple fusebox where you know everything without a book? hotrod harnesses is where its at

With the hotrod harness, you have to either eliminate the stock harness and rewire from scratch, or splice into the stock harness. The latter requires figuring out where to splice everything, which still requires the books to figure out where to connect what. I don't see how the hotrod harness is any better than what I'm doing - it does cost more, but other than that.

- Fab

[ensone]

man.. i got the ezwiring harness and i thought it was gonna be hard
all you gotta do is use common sence and your original diagram to help you wire the stock switches and get some relays + fuses... all it is; is a power distribution board.. thats it
you can use your factory harness and all that.. just no pin searching.. and eazy maintanance

[ensone]

this is what it was a week ago

this is what it was before

i couldnt find the finished look of either one but beleive me im pissed off for ever messing with the vw fusebox

[ftillier]

yeah, if I were to tear the car apart I'd try to do it a bit better. For now I just need my heater fan and stuff. I've been driving the mk3 GTI and I miss the cabby. I'm not allowed to tear the cabby apart until I get the racecar finished.

I'll be wiring the racecar custom. Not sure what I'll use for a fusebox yet, I might try to get another westy box and just wire it my way from there. It's really not that bad, the weak link in the harness is the connections to the fusebox, so once you eliminate those you should be golden.

- Fab

[tolusina]

Impressive write up! Excellent!! The write up looks to have been almost as much work as the swap itself.

I like the clothespins, elegant simplicity!

Since you have spare fuse locations and relayed headlights, hopefully the high current part of your relayed headlights are fused at or near the relays, use one of the spare fuse locations to fuse 56 to protect the rest of the headlight circuitry, a 5 or 10 amp fuse should be plenty, only high or low headlight relay coils will draw at any one time.
__________

Quote, originally posted by ensone »

been there done that ask yourself.. wouldnt you rather have a simple fusebox where you know everything without a book?........

No book is needed with this swap either, the end result is totally maintenance free. Only failed relays ever need attention, fix water leaks and those will be rare.
__________

I feel a touch of Deja Vu about now.....

[Muffler Bearing]

Quote, originally posted by ftillier »

great idea, ive just always used one of these

im gonna need to store this idea away in the archives because i know it will come in handy.

-j

[ensone]

you know you can throw new pins into that connector elimintating the nessecity of the soldering.. right?
i shouldnt be one to talk my car is running on crimped connections
edit:for now


Modified by ensone at 4:27 AM 9-29-2006

[ftillier]

Quote, originally posted by ensone »

you know you can throw new pins into that connector elimintating the nessecity of the soldering.. right? i shouldnt be one to talk my car is running on crimped connections edit:for now Modified by ensone at 4:27 AM 9-29-2006

Nah, the fuse box pin is also toast, and a new german fusebox is $100. So I'd need a new fusebox, new pin, and a new blue plastic connector housing to replace the molten mess.

My goal was to have reliable electrical with minimal invasiveness to the car.

- Fab

[ftillier]

Quote, originally posted by Muffler Bearing »

great idea, ive just always used one of these im gonna need to store this idea away in the archives because i know it will come in handy. -j

Yep, that's what gave me the idea. I had one of those as a kid (actually it was my brother's) for modeling, but it's on the other side of the country. This was free, since I had the clothes pins and the superglue on hand.

- Fab

[ftillier]

Quote, originally posted by tolusina »

Impressive write up! Excellent!! The write up looks to have been almost as much work as the swap itself.

Thanks! Taking these notes so that I could write this up has actually been a lot of work. In fact, I haven't actually done the swap yet! I wanted to post things while I was still able to hold the fuse box in front of me to cross reference the pictures with the wiring. I'm hoping to wire it into the car this weekend.

Quote, originally posted by tolusina »

Since you have spare fuse locations and relayed headlights, hopefully the high current part of your relayed headlights are fused at or near the relays, use one of the spare fuse locations to fuse 56 to protect the rest of the headlight circuitry, a 5 or 10 amp fuse should be plenty, only high or low headlight relay coils will draw at any one time.

Yes, the headlight relays have fuses between them and the battery positive. I thought about putting a fuse inline to the supply to the headlight switch, but that would require digging into the ignition harness to re-route that. I managed to get two spare fuse locations out of the terminals I wasn't using (rear wiper gave one, radiator fan gave another, and instrument lights gave two), so I have two fuse locations that I'm connecting like the original wiring for the driver's side low and high beams. This will keep all the fuses in the fuse box.

- Fab

[ftillier]

Ok, so I finished up the swap last night after staying up stupid late the night before (ran out of heat shrink tubing at 1:30 AM), only to be woken at 5AM by screaming babies...

Once the wiring was done and the fuse box tucked back into place, I hooked up the battery. No big sparks when the connections where made, so I knew there weren't any problems (yet). Try the high beams (with the car off) and they work. Then turn on the ignition - oil and alternator warning lights come on. Cool. Turn the headlights on, everything looks good. Blinkers - also good. Crank the engine and it fires right up. Actually idles better cold than before, not sure why. Brake lights work too. Dome light doesn't work, though, but it didn't work before the swap. I'll investigate later. Didn't try the horn as it was late. Tried the heater fan on all three speeds. Works like a charm. So I had accomplished what I had set out to do - get the heater to work again.

Here's a sample of the splicing I did, with heat shrink tubing and all.

I did all the connections that went between harnesses first (no connections to fuse box). As I cut the wires, I labeled those that had to go to the fuse box.

Here's the remains of the A plug:

I left the wires probalby longer than I could, but it made maneuvering the soldering iron a lot easier. Once all the splices where done, I made all the connections to the fuse box and ended up with this:

Here's all the cutoffs and removed tags:

It was a bit of work to push all that wire back behind the fuse box connector, but once done it looked like it came from the factory that way:

Here's what my work environment was like.

I kneeled in the door opening, the door constantly closing on me. I have a bit of a bruise on my calf where I was leaning against the rocker. My right pinky and ring finger are very sore from wielding the wire strippers and various tools. Typing at the computer all day has made my pinky joints really sensitive, and my hand cramps up easilly.

I drove the car to work today and decided to try the horn. Nothing. This made me sad, as the horn is an invaluable driving aid. So many morons on the road. I checked the relay when I got home today, swapping it for another. No luck. Then it dawned on me that I forgot the fuse for the horn switch circuit (a 4A fuse). Popped that in and the horn works like a charm. So the only thing left to investigate is the dome light. Maybe this weekend, but it's really not that imporant. Oh, and the rear defogger doesn't work any better than before. The warning light in the dash works, but the heating element doesn't heat. That's a problem for another day too.

Anyway, here's the list of what wires go where. Where connections go to the fuse box, check the post above where I detail the fuse box connections. If you label the fuse box like I did with what harness wires go to which fusebox wires, you can apply similar labels to the harness wires as you cut them. Then it's simply a matter of reading comprehension. Leave grounds (circuit 31) and power leads (circuits 30 and 15) until last, then find all wires of the same type and splice them into the fuse box. I forgot a few and had to cut the heat shrink off and redo a few connections.

Ok, in alphabetical order by plug, ascending order numerically:

A1: None
A2: D4
A3: None
A4: C2 + D2
A5: None
A6: E19 + F19
A7: Ground
A8: Fuel Pump Relay teminal L14 (Black/Green)
A9: C7 + E1 + F9 + F13 + F15
A10: None
A11: Horn Relay terminal 87 (Black/Yellow)
A12: Circuit 15
A13: None
A14: "Haz/Stop" fuse (Red/Yellow)
A15: "Backup" fuse (Green/Blue)
A16: F20
A17: F18
A18: connect to inline fuse, then other side of fuse to D10 + D22 (high beam)
A19: connect to inline fuse, then other side of fuse to E10 (low beam)

C1: D8
C2: See A4
C3-4: None
C5: Ground
C6: E18
C7: See A9
C8: None
C9: Wiper Relay terminal M19 (Green/Black)
C10-11: None
C12: D19 + G9 (Blue/Black oil pressure sender)
C13: "F. Wiper" fuse (Black/Gray) + D5 + E15
C14: None
C15: Circuit 15
C16: E21
C17: Wiper Relay terminal M20 (Green/Red) + E20
C18: E22 + F16
C19: Fuel Pump Relay terminal L12 (Red/Black) + C19 + D15

D1: Turn Signal Relay terminal N22 (Green/Black) + E3
D2: See A4
D3 "Park Lps" fuse (Gray/Red). Note this had two wires from the fusebox. I wired them in parallel.
D4: See A2
D5: See C13
D6: None
D7: Load Reduction Relay (Black/Yellow)
D8: See C1
D9: Circuit 30
D10: See A18
D11: Ground
D12: Turn Signal Relay (Black/Green)
D13: None
D14: "Lighter" fuse (Black/Yellow)
D15: See C19
D16: F10
D17: None
D18: See C12
D19: "Heater/AC" fuse (Black/Red)
D20: "T/S" fuse (Black/Blue) - note, "T/S" means Turn Signals
D21: "Haz/Stop" fuse (Red/White)
D22: See A18

E1: See A9
E2: Circuit 15
E3: See D1
E4-7: None
E8: Wiper Relay terminal M26 (Brown/Black)
E9: None
E10: See A19
E11: Horn Relay terminal 85 (Brown/Blue)
E12: F12
E13: "R. Defog" (Black/Yellow)
E14: None
E15: See C13
E16: Wiper Relay terminal M21 (Green/Black)
E17: None
E18: See C6
E19: See A6
E20: See C17
E21: See C16
E22: See C18

F1-8: None
F9: See A9
F10: See D16
F11: None
F12: See E12
F13: See A9
F14: "Dome/Clk" (Red/Gray)
F15: See A9
F16: See C18
F17: None
F18: See A17
F19: See A6
F20: See A16

Note that some of the grounds in the wiring harness actually go to the ground clips next to the steering column. These can be used to wire the grounds from the fusebox. The fusebox came with one fairly thick wire with a crimp eye terminal on it that I put under one of the ground connectors next to the steering column.

The hardest solder connection was the battery supply wire to the fuse box. These wires were too thick for my lowly soldering iron, so I used the creme brulee torch but had it set a bit too high and charred some of the insulation. That's all under heat shrink now, but that was a bit of a bummer.

This swap seemed daunting for a bit, but I'm really happy with how it came out. Many thanks to Ron (tolusina) for the private IM feedback and support provided. Hopefully this will help someone else with similar problems out. Note that if you have other accessories like a rear wiper you'll have to do a bit of homework. This was done in an 80 Cabby.

Happy motoring,

- Fab

[jonny_breakz]

Awesome job on the swap..it looks factory!!...clean and simple..

a couple for you!!

congrats

[tolusina]

Deja Vu!! On the radiator fan fuse too!

Do you now have two fuel pump fuses?

[ftillier]

I have two fuel pump fuses. I don't have a non-fused fuel pump relay, so two fuses it is. I didn't want to bypass the fusebox fuse in case I someday have to put a non-fused relay in there.

[lagmywagon]

oh fuse box woa's....

nice work

[tolusina]

We went about things differently, you studied thoroughly and made copious notes, tagged each wire, I just flipped back and forth between schematics, had a helper, then cut/spliced each circuit.

So, studying, note taking and tagging aside, how long did the actual swap take you? I suspect your tagged wires made things go quicker than the 6 hours my method took.
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If ensone is still following this thread, Mike, is this very much different than the street rod harness, other than this is VW based, the street rod kits are GM based? This way has to be less $$.