1963 Us Navy Dj-3a

Well, then…

Hurry on up to Minnesota to do mine! Food and drink provided, even.

OK. I kid. I have a 20-circuit harness waiting to go in. Was gonna drill the firewall last night to mount the fuse box but it was supper time. That’s today’s task.

Jon B.

 

X2

 

Worked on the grill wiring last night.

H4 headlights installed:


The original headlight wires are heavy 12ish gauge and still pliable, so they will work for the H4's. However, I want to move the terminal block to the passenger side of the Jeep. This meant switching the buckets left to right so the long wires are on the driver's side. I would have just switched the wires themselves, but the ground wire is riveted to the headlight bucket.

I also added Rivnuts to the headlight guards because the bottom nuts inside the grill were impossible to access when the Jeep is assembled. That will make it much easier to work on the headlights in the future.

Since I'm moving the terminal block to the other side, I needed to make yet another bracket. Here it is ready for paint:


I could do in-line wire connectors for grill removal, but I kind of like the look of the original terminal block. Its important to have some sort of break in the wires for easy grill removal. Removing the grill is the only way to work on the radiator or front of the engine.

Here is where the terminal block mounts now (which, of course, required disassembling the headlight bucket again):


Next is running the park/turn wires to the terminal block and bundling all the wires nicely. After that, it's mounting the Alternator maxi-fuse to the fender and making yet another bracket to mount the relay box.

I also need to drop the gas tank at some point. The wire from the sender has zero conductivity to ground.

 

out of curiosity, what amperage fuse and what gauge wire are you using between the HOT leads coming from the battery/alternator and the rest of the system? I still need to source this for mine, alt is rated at IIRC 65 amps. Im running a 10ga lead between ALT and the starter solenoid, and 10ga to the HOT terminal on the ign switch from the solenoid (using a Ford solenoid on the firewall under the battery as the junction point). Both leads are about 3 foot long tops, so should be able to handle 60-70A over that distance.

 

It will be getting the 8 gauge wire and 150A fuse the Painless kit came with:


As you note, 10 gauge should be fine for your 65A alternator. A common protection the OEMs use is a fusible link. A fusible link is run in series with your normal wire and overheats/fails like a fuse before your normal wire melts. You size them 4 wire gauges smaller than the wire you are protecting, so a 14G fusible link would be appropriate for your 10G setup: https://www.amazon.com/Dorman-Help-85620-Gauge-Fusible/dp/B000COD0TW

If the Painless kit didn't come with the fuse, I'd probably go with a fusible link myself.

 

I was busy doing yard stuff all day Saturday. By the time I was ready to work on the Jeep after dinner I was already tired and grumpy. Rather than start a big project, I decided to swap out the (unknown and un-hooked-up) two wire oil sending unit on the engine for a single wire sending unit compatible with the idiot light in the cluster.

That went terribly. The housing of the sender rotated on the base. Then the hex at the base stripped. Adding heat and using vice grips did nothing to loosen it. Finally the fitting snapped off at the block.

The is after using a vice and some big vide grips to get the sender out of it:


That was a bad choice of project to do when I was already in a bad mood. Luckily the remaining adapter bushing came out of the block. I ordered new fittings from Summit and went back to the house for a drink.

I also ordered a new oil gauge line from Summit while I was at it. This is the current setup remove from the Jeep:


It consists of a 90 degree elbow to copper line with a double flare on one end and a AN flair on the other. Then there is a rather large AN line that ran along the intake manifold to a bulkhead fitting in the firewall. Finally, there was a smaller AN line under the dash that went to the gauge. That one had only one swivel end so you had to take it apart in the right order.

Hard to imagine something more complicated. That mess is going away and It's getting one of these single braided line setups like I have in the '71: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/AAF-ALL46110-60. I'm not a fan of either the copper lines or the plastic ones.

I had better luck last night. I got all the grill wiring done and tested. I used some of that cloth-style wire loom tape. All the lights work jumpering power the correct parts of the terminal block:


The next step is deciding how to mount the relay box and making some brackets.

Maybe horizontal:


Maybe vertical:

 

More brackets last night.

From the bandsaw:


Bent up and holding the relay box in place. It needs to be spaced off the fender for wire clearance on the back side:


I was 90% of the way done with it when I realized one of the bolts was going to go right through the fender brace. I flirted with redoing the brackets to mount it up like this for easy access:


Then I realized I'd have to start over from scratch. I drilled/ran the bolt through the fender brace so I could move on to other things. Need to keep moving if I hope to ever get this thing running again.

 

Worked on wiper wiring last night:


Wrapped and routed where the old vacuum hose went:


I also swapped a new motor into the washer bottle and wired it up. The only right size hose I have for the washer is blue. Oh well:


Wired to the switch. It just needs a ground wire and power to the connector next to the hornet's nest:


After testing, the washer pump and both speeds of the wipers work, but park does not. There must be an issue with the parking circuit internal to the wiper motor. Maybe I'll look into it some day since the wiring supports it, but I'm fine parking them manually for now.

 

Looks like there is an old wasp's nest hanging under there.

 

Any of them I find, I hose down with brake clean…. If I see’em, they signed their own death warrant…..

 

Dropped the tank last night to look at the fuel sender:


The previous owner was trying to get the fuel gauge to work but failed. He clearly had the tank out and ran a new wire all the way to the front of the Jeep. He must not have had a multi-meter because the fuel gauge itself was burned out and there was no continuity through the sender.

I pulled the sender out, and it seems to be a perfect picture match to vintage Willys truck senders, so I ordered a USA made one from Jeepsterman.

In the meanwhile, my curiosity won't let me leave things alone so I popped the sender apart at the swages and cleanup up the wiper and resistor with 600 grit sand paper. That seemed to get it working again. I forgot to take pictures of it while it was apart. Here it is after I put it back together and peened the swages with a punch:


It still had some extra resistance between the two pieces, so I cleaned it up with a wire brush and added some solder. It was herd getting a good wetting on such a big heat sink, but even though it's ugly, it seems well attached and dropped the resistance by 50 ohms:


The PO use aero gasket sealer on the old gasket and it tore to pieces when removing the sender. I made a new one made from some cork gasket material:


I found an old float bobbing around in the tank:


I added a ground wire to ensure a good circuit and made a pigtail that's easy to unplug for tank removal:


And things are looking good. 83 ohms with the tank at empty is just outside the spec but plenty close enough. It's at about 5 ohms in the full position. The spec is 73 ohms empty and 10 ohms full:


I'll probably run this sender for a while and put the new one on the shelf until I need it. It's pretty easy to get the tank in and out of this thing. Ran out of time to put the tank back in the Jeep last night though.

 

Fittings and oil gauge line showed up from Summit:


New fittings installed in block along with the one wire oil pressure sensor. Not the easiest spot to get to:


New braided line to oil gauge installed:


I also got the gas tank back in the Jeep:


Now I need to figure out where I'm mounting the fuse block so I can start running wires.

 

What’s the ETA of first startup?

 

No shield for the gas tank?

 

Hard to say. The wiring has me mired down in low motivation mode, Spring is here and the yard is starting to take up time, we have company in town this weekend, and I still need to rebuild the carburetor before it will run right. A couple weeks at least I'm guessing.

 

Not from the factory on a DJ-3. It's on the big list of skid plates, recovery points, and winch installations that need to get done once it's running again.

 

More wiring work last night.

I spent a couple hours re-bundling the harness from Painless to match the Jeep better. Then I needed to decide where I wanted to mount it:


I decided on middle of the firewall above the transmission tunnel vs the kickpanels, or the left/right side of the firewall a few reasons:

• Somehwhat easy access to fuses without breaking your back
• It's a good location for dealing with all the wires come out of the fuse block
• It won't get accidentally kicked by the driver or passenger.

The down side was access for drilling and Rivnuts. Luckily I have some really long drill bits since the drill doesn't fit between the dash and firewall. My large form factor Rivnut tool was a challenge, but I managed to snake it through the instrument cluster hole and just under the dash:




With the fuse box mounted, it was time to start running wires for initial fitting. For a simple Jeep, there are still a lot of wires. They will need to be partially removed for wrapping, but I want to make sure everything fits first.

Dash wire are through the cluster hole. Hmm, now that I'm thinking about it, I forgot to move the dome light wire to that bundle. I'm pretty sure it's still in the rear of the vehicle bundle:


The remaining bundles all go out under the hood:
'

• Driver side bundle:
  • backup light switch
  • brake light switch
  • high beam switch
  • horns
• Middle bundle to be routed on engine:
  • starter solenoid
  • alternator
  • oil sender
  • temp sender
  • coil
  • tach signal
  • choke
• Passenger side bundle:
  • to headlight relays
  • parking lights
  • turn signals
  • to/from accessory relays
• Rear bundle:
  • tail lights
  • brake lights/turn signals
  • backup lights
  • fuel level sender
  • emergency electric fuel pump power

You can more or less see the fuse box location here:


This is what you see when you poke your head under the dash from outside the Jeep. Access isn't amazing, but it's OK. All the wiring will get wrapped.:

 

Looks good
Mine looks like a mass of spaghetti that fell out of an airplane.

 

Organization at that level just leaves termination. Easy peasy.

What could go wrong?

 

You had to ask…….