XR7-4.6’s disjointed build thread 2 Electric Boogaloo

[Ericv8thunderbird]

You can add green LEDs to the Autometer gauges, it will almost match the factory cluster at night, I don’t have a shot of my Tbird, but here’s a shot of my old F250 with the green LEDs.

 

[XR7-4.6]

You can add green LEDs to the Autometer gauges, it will almost match the factory cluster at night, I don’t have a shot of my Tbird, but here’s a shot of my old F250 with the green LEDs.

View attachment 14137

Those are the standard type illumination with the removable bulb socket. Sport Comp IIs(and ultra lite II, phantom II etc etc) are backlit with LEDs shining through the face like the gauges in our instrument clusters. The bulb isn’t accessible from the back in them, there’s just spade terminals for power and ground

 

[XR7-4.6]

Here’s how the back side of these gauges are for the illumination. Started working on the wiring, as you can see(which I think I’m just going to leave the illumination powered at with the ignition to keep it simple)

 

[Rodeo Joe]

Eric,

Do you remember where you got those green LED bulbs? I could use those on mine.

Joe

 

[Ericv8thunderbird]

Eric,

Do you remember where you got those green LED bulbs? I could use those on mine.

Joe

I got them from: https://www.superbrightleds.com/led...lb-3-smd-led-miniature-wedge-base+color-Green

 

[CDsDontBurn]

I got them from: https://www.superbrightleds.com/led...lb-3-smd-led-miniature-wedge-base+color-Green

I have used that style LED for some years on my Honda, and after some time they start to stop working for whatever reason.

Not sure if it just how they're made or what, but they stop making constant contact and begin to flicker after a year or two. It's super annoying.

The last set of LEDs I got I just stopped caring and now over half my cluster is dark .

 

[XR7-4.6]

I have used that style LED for some years on my Honda, and after some time they start to stop working for whatever reason.

Not sure if it just how they're made or what, but they stop making constant contact and begin to flicker after a year or two. It's super annoying.

The last set of LEDs I got I just stopped caring and now over half my cluster is dark .

That’s been slowly happening to a few of the 194LEDs I have in the interior. One behind the cluster, the passenger footwell one and the glovebox one all did the same thing.

 

[Grog6]

too much current kills them. They're probably going for brightness. Adding a resistor inline would help.

 

[XR7-4.6]

too much current kills them. They're probably going for brightness. Adding a resistor inline would help.

I’m pretty certain they have one internally, the LEDs themselves don’t seem to be the thing that does but something internal in them. I feel pretty silly replacing the still working 25 year old factory bulbs with them partly thinking “what an upgrade, LEDs never burn out!” lol

 

[Grog6]

Most bigger leds have current limiters, two transistors and a diode. Can you pull apart one that failed, and see if there's a circuit board?

 

[XR7-4.6]

Most bigger leds have current limiters, two transistors and a diode. Can you pull apart one that failed, and see if there's a circuit board?

The bad ones I just throw out, not like I’d bother fixing them

 

[Grog6]

True; I was curious about circuitry.

 

[XR7-4.6]

True; I was curious about circuitry.

I’ll take a hammer to the next one that goes for you

 

[Grog6]

If the led itself failed, there will be a black dot in the plastic.

 

[XR7-4.6]

I love wiring

 

[Chingon1]

@XR7-4.6 thats looking proper

 

[XR7-4.6]

Mostly loomed up to where it will be in the engine compartment, just got to run it around the engine to determine final wire lengths.



So you might be able to see the plan based on the remaining wires - water is blue, oil is yellow, and obviously red is B+ battery power and black is ground. I also added wires for a third autometer in place of the wideband gauge if I decided to do that down the road. Plan is I’m running it straight off the battery(well actually off the battery cable from the starter solenoid), grounding to the block and signal wires to the sensors, all uninterrupted(though I did add a fuse in the B+ circuit for safety sake) The relay is there to switch B+ to the gauges using a hot in start/run wire from the dash to trigger and those two wires sticking out in the middle of the loom by the fuse will be the new ignition/ground source for my wideband, which is kind of jerry rigged at the moment.

Should be a really solid circuit. If it weren’t for the catastrophic leak potential of mechanical gauges I’d vastly prefer them for dead on accuracy independent of electrical variance but setting up the circuit in this overkill manner is the next best thing (Plus as I said I do enjoy this kind of crap)

 

[massacre]

An idea i came up with was to use a hot in start and run wire from the ignition switch, to a relay which powers a 6-circuit fuse panel.
That way i can add 12v fused power to 6 circuits that come on with the key.
Your wiring looks very neat and tidy- nice job!

 

[Grog6]

That looks much better than the last two techs I worked with.

 

[Chingon1]

That looks OEM! Nice work. My wiring looks atrocious compared to this haha

 

[CDsDontBurn]

Mostly loomed up to where it will be in the engine compartment, just got to run it around the engine to determine final wire lengths.

View attachment 14243

So you might be able to see the plan based on the remaining wires - water is blue, oil is yellow, and obviously red is B+ battery power and black is ground. I also added wires for a third autometer in place of the wideband gauge if I decided to do that down the road. Plan is I’m running it straight off the battery(well actually off the battery cable from the starter solenoid), grounding to the block and signal wires to the sensors, all uninterrupted(though I did add a fuse in the B+ circuit for safety sake) The relay is there to switch B+ to the gauges using a hot in start/run wire from the dash to trigger and those two wires sticking out in the middle of the loom by the fuse will be the new ignition/ground source for my wideband, which is kind of jerry rigged at the moment.

Should be a really solid circuit. If it weren’t for the catastrophic leak potential of mechanical gauges I’d vastly prefer them for dead on accuracy independent of electrical variance but setting up the circuit in this overkill manner is the next best thing (Plus as I said I do enjoy this kind of crap)

You should make these as a kit to sell

 

[Grog6]

I've used the same wiring colors on my stuff for 40 years: Red=+ , black ground,other + voltages red shades,- voltages shades of blue. Signals I use yellow orange brown, etc. You know roughly what you should measure before you look.

 

[XR7-4.6]

This is tangentially related to the gauges but I’m in the midst of rerelocating the battery back to the stock front position…



Now I have the challenge of finding a clean cougar trunk carpet in 2025, yay

 

[CDsDontBurn]

But why?

Clean engine bay is not so clean anymore.

 

[CDsDontBurn]

Now I have the challenge of finding a clean cougar trunk carpet in 2025, yay

Also why don't you shift that challenge to making it?

Auto Trunk Mats | Car Trunk Mats | Car & Truck Interior Carpet

Update your worn or torn trunk mat with ACC replacement carpets Get great discounts off of retail and fast shipping directly from the manufacturer.

www.ocautocarpets.com

 

[XR7-4.6]

But why?

Clean engine bay is not so clean anymore.

There are a few reasons

#1 My rear mount setup was very NHRA illegal without an external kill switch, alternator cutoff and/or battery box/rear firewall, and I’d really really like to take it to the track again.

#2 Electronically speaking the battery should be grounded to the engine block for everything from spark plugs to sensors to have a reliable path to ground and it was not in my previous configuration, grounded only to the chassis. Has this caused issues for me? Not really, however every electric component that grounds through the block has a tortured path back to battery ground 10 feet away and that did bother me in principal(and running another 10 foot long cable front to back to accomplish that annoys me too for the extra weight and safety measures)

#3 I want the trunk space and not have to worry about accidentally shorting terminals tossing a folding chair or something back there.

#4 the current battery is an Optima and the next battery will not be, and it’s currently 7 years old. I had the tray positioned in such a way in the trunk that would have required me drilling yet more holes through the trunk floor so a standard group 65 would fit, AND would need the aforementioned battery box with vents to outside air as well.


Aesthetically? meh. Is that corner of the inner fender apron all that much to look at anyway? Maybe it’s because I’m just used to it being that way but having a battery there looks more suited to fill the dead space to me.

Also why don't you shift that challenge to making it?

Auto Trunk Mats | Car Trunk Mats | Car & Truck Interior Carpet

Update your worn or torn trunk mat with ACC replacement carpets Get great discounts off of retail and fast shipping directly from the manufacturer.

www.ocautocarpets.com

I’d really need to see how they looked first, if they fit anything like ACC interior carpets, hard pass

 

[XR7-4.6]

So here’s where the tangential relationship between the battery re-relocation and gauge harness comes in place



As you can see I’m running the harness starting from the lower DIN slot(duh) and along the bottom of the glovebox where it will then take a hard turn towards the firewall about where I have my zeitronix controller mounted(of which you can see its leads dangling, and if you’ve been paying attention can see where I intend to attach them!). Where it passes through the firewall is where I HAD heretofore run the battery cable through. Now that it’s conveniently out of the way I can run the gauge wiring through much the same path.

 

[Chingon1]

That black dash is super dope! Did yours come like that or you swapped? Take it off and ship it over

 

[XR7-4.6]

That black dash is super dope! Did yours come like that or you swapped? Take it off and ship it over

 

[KevinVarnes]

I like the battery back up in the engine bay. Battery in the trunk is racy car cool, but I've never wanted to deal with running cables all the way back there. Your engine bay looks very clean and I don't think having the battery there detracts from it at all.