1963 Us Navy Dj-3a

There really isn't a good accessible spot in a ECJ, and that's more or less where I ended up. How much did that Painless set you back? (If you don't mind me asking.)

 

It was $279: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/PRF-10102

Besides the fuse panel/harness, it also comes with 8 gauge wire for the alternator, dielectric grease, and connectors for headlights, turn signals, alternator, ...etc:


...and a 150 amp fuse for the alternator charge wire:


For the time it saves, and the benefit of having color coded wires labeled every 6 inches or so, it seems like a decent deal.

As you can imagine, the wires are more than long enough for a Jeep:

 

Painless setups are just that, PAINLESS.....

I went with a Chinesilum 14 circuit for mine, and it worked out great. I only need about half that many circuits, but it leaves room for future growth. Having the wires a standard (GM) color code, and labeled makes a huge difference. My harness was under $50, but it didnt have a lot of the goodies that Painless has with theirs, let alone the "quality" of a known brand. If I have to do it over anytime, I would go with a Painless harness. Right now though, I need it going and if I need to butcher something up, I dont want it to be the "good" harness.....

 

More wiring.

Re-routed the dome light wire and added a couple extra circuits to the Painless harness for future stuff, like emergency electric fuel pump, and front/rear offroad lights:


I'm going to try this fabric wire loom. I've never been a hug fan of the corrugated plastic stuff that looks like cheap drain pipes. This stuff seems pretty nice. We'll see how it holds up to heat and dirt:


Then I started to wire up my relay box. The design has completely independent wires for each relay rather than a single power bus that feed severything. I started to make a feed harness that starts with a single large terminal and splits five times to feed the six relays. Meshing wires for solder:


Soldered:


Heat shrink:


Then I gave up. Too bulky and too slow to make.

I started over by crimping size 12G wires into a terminal:


And adding solder:


And heat shrink:


I did make the signal ground wires with the previous method. In the end, I didn't do a very good job with my wire lengths and it didn't end up nearly as good looking as it did in my head. Having only one color of 12G wire didn't help either:


Whatever, it will get the job done.

Back in the Jeep. Relay power comes from the alternator side of the charging fuse, signal ground goes straight to the battery. I made the rest generic. The the six two prong plugs have the signal wire on the 'A' terminal and the relay output on the 'B' terminal. That way it doesn't matter which relay I pug into. Since I won't be using all six relays to start, it also gives me spare relays I can just switch the wires to. Each relay has it's own output fuse:

 

Mmm solder. Looks tidy to me.

I don't interleave the strands - I pick a butt connector that's large enough for the big side from my jar of uninsulated butt connectors, then solder. I used to buy Keystone connectors from Mouser but Amazon has no-name connectors now that seem ok.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=8+ga+uninsulated+butt+connectors

Even the factory used Y-crimps in their harnesses. They used a large-enough butt connector, soldered and taped them with what looks like duct tape. The whole mess was covered with fabric or plastic harness tape, or later with the corrugated plastic loom. Looks like you used fabric loom tape.

You can waterproof the Y with a blob of dielectric grease or ShoeGoo before heat shrink, or spritz with Fluid Film. Fluid film is particularly good on battery terminals IME.

Ivan from Pine Hollow solders wires end-to-end like that. He uses a neat wire holder that he made himself, and which I copied. Works good; tried putting two wires together a few times with it.



Copper wire and two alligator clips, the jaws padded with heat shrink.

 

i love how you did those relay connections, that might be getting shamelessly stolen for mine.

how do you like that wire rack? I'm assuming its this harbor freight one, seems like a good deal and pretty useful.

https://www.harborfreight.com/400-ft-wire-spool-rack-61527.html

 

Yep. It's the Harbor Freight rack. It seems to be the best deal in readily available wire out there. The quality of the wire seems good.

 

Regarding wire, I'd be sure it's 100% copper. There is such a thing as copper-plated aluminum wire that I would avoid. Seems to be a fairly recent thing - cheap fat speaker wire is often plated aluminum. You also find copper-clad, which is steel plated with copper. I have some very long BNC cables that are copper-clad. Very nice wire - high-quality teflon insulated coax, but the core is copper-clad and magnetic. This is more common in component leads; solid copper leads is a premium feature for discrete capacitors, resistors and such. Not so much an issue today, where most components are surface mount.

I have had good luck buying packets of wire on close-out at RockAuto. I wonder if you could buy one of the imported harnesses just for the wire.

 

My messy work space while wiring up the harness to the relays and front lights:


One branch done. I'll probably do the engine harness next:

 

I see plastic tape there.
There is fabric loom tape which would likely match your fabric split loom well.
You could wrap where the loom branches and make them disappear.
https://www.amazon.com/wire-loom-harness-tape/s?k=wire+loom+harness+tape

 

That is the exact tape I'm using.

 

Didn't get much time last night, but did make some progress.

Putting connectors on the 6 gauge wire from the alternator to the MIDI fuse. Crimped with a hydraulic crimper, soldered for good measure, and heat shrinked:


After that, I wrapped in corrugated loom to prevent chafing.

Alternator feed wire installed to the fuse, and ground wires to battery ran to the ground lug on the alternator:


It's starting to get busy in this corner of the Jeep, but there are a coupe more things to add. Next is running the positive battery cable to the starter so I can make the final alternator line between the fuse and the battery.

 

Looks like that oil sender project was a bit of a pain. Glad you’re getting everything sorted though! For the relay box, both options could work. It depends on where you have the most space and ease of access for wiring.