Engine Rewiring

[ISX]

I decided to rewire the engine compartment a few weeks ago. I cut every wire in there and took every piece of black tape and ribbed sheathing off and have been left with nothing but wires. My plan is to put the PCM/Fuse Box/Grid Heater Relay on the hood, right on the back drivers side corner. I don't think there will be any issue with slamming the hood and everything getting shock absorption. I have some plans to absorb it a little anyways, though I don't think anything will happen. The initial plan was just to take the ribbed sheathing crap off in lieu of braided nylon sheathing, like what the cruise control has on it going to the throttle. I was going to put it on every single wire. After looking at it some more, I decided to redo everything, every part of routing it. By putting the pcm on the hood, I can get rid of the entire loom that runs along the top of the firewall. I starred at it some more and realized I can get rid of the entire loom that runs along the top of the engine next to the valve covers. There will be hardly any wires on it now and they will be hidden. I am going to use the fuse box for now, but I have plans on getting rid of that big piece of crap as well. This thing has taken me a long time because of how many wires there are and how to run them and where to run them and.... but I finally got one ran to the passenger side headlight lol. I have been working a lot so I don't have much time to work on this thing but I am going to aim for one connection a night now, be done by 2012

[Heavyd1980]

Good luck man thats alot of wiring and thats just a 12v!!!:lmao:

[jlwelding]

[Mopar1973Man]

Nice job so far for head lights... I got to admit he's thinking way outside the box... As a matter of fact I think box is a few miles away... But I got to agree with him why be plain stock time to be different!

[ISX]

The thing about this is that there is no "it looks better than I thought it would" to go along with it because I had absolutely no idea how it would look. Compared to the stock headlight wiring that is zip tied to the bottom of the radiator, I would say it is 100x better. I was going to run it through the crossmember that goes over the top of the radiator, but the goal is to make it easier to work on. By easier I mean easier to work on any part of it, not just some things. So the crossmember idea went out the window since taking the engine or intercooler or stuff like that out, would require removing the crossmember and I would have to completely dewire the headlights/turn signals. By running it down through that square tube that runs underneath the radiator instead, my problems are solved.

I think this would be a lot easier if I had a wire labeler so I could just reconnect them. Right now I have to trace things back, but it's not too hard since everything is a different color.

Another reason I am doing this is because stock wiring is junk. The splices and dices they got going on is insane. I have no doubts anymore as to why you always hear about grounding problems.

I will keep you guys updated.

[ISX]

I finally got a weekend off so I got some things done. Well not too much, fell asleep part of the day :doh:I got the passenger side headlight/turn signal/airbag all pulled in so that is taken care of. The biggest thing I wanted to get done TODAY was putting the stuff on the hood. It actually was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I thought up a design to mount it and it is so solid that I actually only mounted it with 2 bolts rather than the 4 I was planning on doing. I could pull as hard as I could on just one bolt, so I made another one diagonal to that one to hold the plate in position and it is solid as a rock. I did some guesswork on where everything should be so it wouldnt slam down on the brake reservoir or stuff like that. After mounting it, I moved everything off the cowl and shut the hood, I don't think it could be any more perfect. The intake horn should fit where I have nothing mounted, hopefully giving me 4" or so clearance in case I want to mount stuff to that spot in the future. I want to get rid of that power distribution box but that will just have to wait. Going to try and get a lot done tomorrow.

[Mopar1973Man]

Holy Cow dude... That's going to be sweet when its done... Wanna do a 24V next?

[ISX]

Holy Cow dude... That's going to be sweet when its done...

Wanna do a 24V next?

I don't even wanna look at a 24V Keep your mess to yourself

I finally got the front end completely pulled in, Horns/Air Bags/Headlights/Turn Signals/Fog Lights.. That was the hard part so now I just have the easier stuff to do. I do still have to mess with the sensors on the engine, figuring out how to route them. I'm gonna kick myself to work on it every night and hopefully it will be done by a week from now. I really like how it is turning out so far.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AsxLrjFemQ

Oh and the bushings/grommets with the wires coming out worked good because I kept everything together, so each thing is in it's own category. They are drilled out like a pyramid, so here is what I mean:

[Mopar1973Man]

Dang... That's getting close to be wireless truck... Everything hidden, everything tucked away... Technically everything in a conduit...

[Wild and Free]

Heat shrink will neaten it up a lot vesus electrical tape. I Suppose you bought a 50 lb bag of butt connectors to do it all with too. Just a joke but hopefully not.

[ISX]

I don't even own butt connectors

Basically I am cutting the wires, and adding/removing as necessary. So the PCM wires are really long so I will cut them down, but the wires from the cab to the fuse box are short so I have to make them longer.

Everything is soldered and heat shrinked. The ends of the braided sheath are also heat shrinked so it will never "unbraid". The blue tape is just there temporarily to keep them from unbraiding.

I got 200FT of the braiding and 12ft of 3:1 3/16" heat shrink. I got a deal on some 14 and 12 gauge wire so I have 500FT of 14 and 12, black and red, or 2000FT. Hope its enough

I got some pics since the videos aren't the greatest.

In this pic (airbag sensor) you can see what I have been doing. I have a couple inches of the stock wiring, then a solder/heat shrink, then my wire. You can see where the heat shrink is, right before the wire turns into red wire.

Wires coming to common location by drivers side firewall. White spots are dirt from a battery I stuck in there to test everything

Wire going into the bushings.

Another shot of the wires by firewall.

[ISX]

Going to try and get it done this weekend. Already off to a bad start. I have been wondering what to do with the 3 connections on the drivers side firewall and decided to get rid of them entirely as some wires in each one just go straight to the fuse box wires and are spliced into it down there, so I am cutting them off and running everything straight up to where they need to go. The problem came when I started tracing out wires and couldn't find a bunch of them on the PCM side. They would be on the fuse box side but not come out on the other side of the connector. Upon closer inspection, dodge actually wires up crap I don't have like a trans relay, but they stop wiring at that connector, the relay is there, the wiring is there but the other side of the connector doesn't even have the contacts in for it. Which means I have a lot of wires going to nothing since I don't have an automatic. I'm ripping them out, relay and all. I have already ripped a lot out, interesting how many wires go to nothing.

--- Update to the previous post...

Not going to get done this weekend lol. I forget how hard it is to figure out where to run everything. The wires are spliced in bad spots and other wires are just a pain to figure out where to route. I did get rid of a couple relays that I think went to nothing. Got rid of the fuel heater relay as well since my heater contacts are fried.

I thought I would get rid of a bunch of wires by running the ones from the 3 big connectors into the fuse box that had been from the PCM, so basically the PCM to fuse box wires. Turns out there are only a few. Got them out of the way. Still got a lot to do. It's been over a month now that I haven't heard that thing start

--- Update to the previous post...

Figured I would do this for the nonbelievers lol. I will show that all you need to run a 12V is a few seconds of 12v power. I just jammed a wrench into the shutoff solenoid to hold it up. Woulda started faster if my idle wasn't so low, normally I step on the pedal a little. It also hasn't been started in a month.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjyzfZMEMRc

[Mopar1973Man]

I always loved how a 12V cummins would start and run without anything... Just need a bit of power to twist the starter and tank of fuel to keep it fed...

[ISX]

Got some more done today. I have been putting this part off because I didn't know what to do with it. I think it turned out really nice.

[ISX]

Sooo, uhh, I'm still working on this thing :ahhh:Was gonna get it done yesterday but that didn't happen. The more I look at it the more I want to stop and redo it all a completely different way, but I want to tear the dash apart too. It's still a lot better than stock, but now that I know how it is all wired I would like to do it a different way. I will finish this way up though and wait for another time. It would be so nice to have an identical truck to do that I could do the final draft of work on, save all the rough drafts for my truck so I could have a flawless other truck. This might not look too bad when it's all said and done and I get it all hidden.

[Mopar1973Man]

Come man... I want to see it run soon...

[Wild and Free]

OH NO.........I was hearing the phrases "I Hope" "I Think" and "It Should" a few times in the last video. Did I sense the Aprehension level rising and confidence level is falling a bit?

[Mopar1973Man]

OH NO.........I was hearing the phrases "I Hope" "I Think" and "It Should" a few times in the last video. Did I sense the Aprehension level rising and confidence level is falling a bit?

I understand when you get into a large project like this and it takes longer than you planed and then not having the time or the money to finish it your timeline tends to make these comments come forward... But I got faith in you ISX keep going!

[JOHNFAK]

I understand when you get into a large project like this and it takes longer than you planed and then not having the time or the money to finish it your timeline tends to make these comments come forward... But I got faith in you ISX keep going!

That boy aint ever failed on anything 12v related Keep going hard fella That wiring and sheathing looks nice

[ISX]

I have confidence that it will work and run and everything as it should, but the wires are just splicing too much. Dodge puts so many wires together that it is almost impossible to have wires that go from one thing to another. Instead they go from one thing to another making several pitstops. I have tracked all the wires down, fixing all that BS as best I could but some things are just tied into too many things. I know what needs to be done to fix it all but it will take a lot of time. I think I will just lower my standards a bit and call this good. I am going to be doing a lot of dirt bike riding and I already had to have the guy I ride with pull our trailer this last weekend. I have another one this weekend and I need my truck for it. I am so close to being done now, the hard parts are pretty well done. Well there wasn't really any hard parts, just parts that look crappier than others. I can hide it all but I don't believe in hiding stuff, I think the stuff behind the scenes should look just as good as the stuff in front of the curtain. Anyways I just got back from the dirt bike trip and will work on it little by little all week and hopefully be done by sunday. Thanks for all the support guys! It is definitely a time problem. I have money since I am working so much that I don't have the time.. I could have had it done weeks ago but I get bummed out on stuff that could potentially not go how I want (like this). I'll get it done though and hide it all and it should all be good. Not perfect, but good.