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Hi Guys,
I've been pondering for a while completly re-wiring my car. Background is, its a 1987 Mini with a Suzuki Swift GTI engine running on megasquirts. As with most older cars the wiring has been messed around to add in Cd players, halogen head lights, Fuel pumps etc. I do have a good few electrical bugs so i was thinking over winter i may strip the car right back to almost just the shell and start fresh with the wiring.
However i think planning is the key to success with this one. I'd like to draw my own wiring diagram and select wiring colours and code before breaking out the heat shrink. Is there a drawing package (free preferably) for drawing car wiring diagrams? I also need to sit down and make a full list of all the various circuits and functions, head lights, side lights, indicators etc
Can anyone give any advice?
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1987 Mini with Suzuki Swift GTI engine
2005 BMW E91 320D Touring
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Jul 30, 2014 10:01:19 GMT
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I have a mini workshopmanual 1969 to 2001 up to x-registration. it has the electrical diagrams in it .
What i used to do was hang some plywood sheeting on the garage wall in the size of the car, on that i drew headlights taillichts and so on.
In the plywood i put some nails and went to the local horse grooming supplier for some mane elastic bands (dirt cheap and real small rubber elastic bands)
So on the plywood i have nails opposite of each other with a rubber band connecting the 2 nails with each other.
Then its sort of wiring the car on the plywood sheet en the rubber bands help keeps the wiring onto the plywood sheet.
Use plenty of nails for the wiring to hold up.
When done its a nice tool bord once you paint over it.
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Jul 30, 2014 14:28:55 GMT
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I have a mini workshopmanual 1969 to 2001 up to x-registration. it has the electrical diagrams in it . What i used to do was hang some plywood sheeting on the garage wall in the size of the car, on that i drew headlights taillichts and so on. In the plywood i put some nails and went to the local horse grooming supplier for some mane elastic bands (dirt cheap and real small rubber elastic bands) So on the plywood i have nails opposite of each other with a rubber band connecting the 2 nails with each other. Then its sort of wiring the car on the plywood sheet en the rubber bands help keeps the wiring onto the plywood sheet. Use plenty of nails for the wiring to hold up. When done its a nice tool bord once you paint over it. That's pretty much the way the pros do it  |
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Jul 30, 2014 15:16:39 GMT
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did you screw the new fuse panel on in a rough place and work from there? I assume you leave the cables much longer than needed and trim once its installed? My worry is not reusing the same colours or forgetting a item. I don't want to install it all then find i need to tap off bits and hack it around more. I was thinking of getting something like this  |
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1987 Mini with Suzuki Swift GTI engine
2005 BMW E91 320D Touring
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Jul 30, 2014 17:09:59 GMT
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I draw out the car onto the plywood, and screw the fusebox where i think it has to come, when you're wiring always make sure you have enough length.
Better to cut a wire twice because its to long, then come up short once.
Try to think logical with this, the plywood is a flat piece of sheet and you're car is not,so wire accordingly
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Last Edit: Jul 30, 2014 17:51:24 GMT by collector
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Jul 30, 2014 17:54:40 GMT
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I'd be tempted to buy a new Mini harness and attach that to the ply then adapt as necessary rather than starting from scratch.
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Jul 30, 2014 18:49:35 GMT
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I draw out the car onto the plywood, and screw the fusebox where i think it has to come, when you're wiring always make sure you have enough length. Better to cut a wire twice because its to long, then come up short once. Try to think logical with this, the plywood is a flat piece of sheet and you're car is not,so wire accordingly Reverse engineer. Remove the wire loom,fuse box ect,then affix to the ply sheet as mentioned above. Strip off the insulation and add /repair/subtract to the existing loom? Or if you want to make one from scratch,make note of how many different coloured wires you need,how many connectors,terminals etc and if any are a special type, Then find out the measurement of the longest cable run,(use string?) once you have that,as long as you use that as your minimum cable length you'll not have a ' I cut that to short' situation. Just a thought. |
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Jul 30, 2014 22:01:22 GMT
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Ryannn
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,421
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I'm doing a similar thing to my mini at the moment. I'm using a wiring loom from a one owner, old lady, type car (no modifications to the loom already) and I've bought original connectors from ebay and www.autosparks.co.uk/ . This way I've been able to add extra relays in the loom where I needed them using the correct 12V feed. I've also been able to replace melted plugs or where plugs have been cut off to bodge extra items in restoring the original look. I'm doing this on the car, this way I can check the length of every wire and not have to worry about feeding plugs through small holes, but I can also test each item I "repair". |
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