Electrical Wiring of Wolfgang's CMC

I'm going to be doing to electrical on Wolfgang's CMC. He as a "Painless 12-circuit ATO Fuse Center" that he wants to use. I have the instructions for it, which recommends wire-sizes for each circuit. It seems *fairly* self-explanatory... but I haven't started yet. I was going to make a wiring harness based on what's in the instructions. My guess is that the first one will be a "tosser" and the second go-around will be perfect.

Does anyone have any suggestions or resources that might be useful? I don't know much about cars, so I'm not really sure what wiring has to be done to the "engine parts".

Since we're making a custom harnesss, and we have a non-stock fuse center, it seems that we could put the fuse box anywhere. Since my only experience is the Hoopty, where everything is uber-accessible, my thought would be to put it under the hood and NOT under the dash. Thoughts?

Teresa,

Doing a harness from scratch is a time consuming pita.....
By the time wire connectors etc. are purchased (additional time) you can buy any prewired fused panel that more than likely will have the relays and flasher prewired.
Any street rod harness will work, all that needs to be done is to split the harness open and isolate the wires that run to the motor flipping those wires to the rear harness for a speedster...Greg can eBay the old fuse panel..... Or splurge for a VS easy peasy harness. ~Alan

Having made my own harness from scratch on Pearl (which only took about two weeks!!) I would STRONGLY recommend the VS harness, too. Greg's loaded and can easily afford the right one.

If you really, really want to home brew it, then get a fuse panel from West Marine for either tab fuses (best choice) or cartridge (glass tube) versions.

Why not use the Painless harness??

My fuse/relay/breaker panel is in the trunk area. I like it there....easy to get at and all that stuff, but other things get in the way - make sure it has a safety cover.

gn

My thoughts too,
Greg?

Greg already has the relays and fuse panel built into the fuse center.

The only thing I would be constructing is the wire runs. Since I have plenty of crimp-on connectors and I have access to gobs and gobs of wire, I figured I'd just make one. That way it has the exact right number of conductors, in the right color, labeled correctly, running to the right places.

Maybe there's something to it that I'm not seeing, but it seems easy enough:
- there's a wire that runs to the battery to power the whole she-bang
- there's a couple of wires that run all the way to the back of the car (for ignition stuff, starter, alternator / regulator, cooling fans, rear-end lights, etc)
- there's a couple of wires that run to the dash / console for gauges, turn signals, brakes, wipers, radio, etc. (and also wires that run TO the gauges for temp, pressure, fuel, etc)
- there's a few more wires that go to fuel pump and other things in the front of the car (like lights and horn)

Seems like by the time I get someone else's wiring harness, I spend as much time taking it apart as I would to just build it myself.

I once had the VS harness - it still had the old VW open ceramic fuses - all 6 of them with the relays floating loose. Plus ya still had to run separate grounds. The Painless is a proper circuit block with switched accessory circuits (more than needed but then there are fog lights, oil cooler fan, radio, seat heater) and the relays are on the circuit block. I do also have 2 West Marine fuse blocks but again the relays would be loose (I got them to try to replace the VS fuse panel but they weren't designed to split a few for accessory side). Painless didn't seem to have a harness for VW - GM/Ford were available so my thinking was wires would not be long enough for rear engine and again the grounds needed. I did fiberglass short pieces of 3/4" pvc to body to run wires thru. Thought was to run loose wires to about where they should go - label each end with Brother labeller. The start soldering/shrink wrap terminals at fuse block end -- dress off wires, tape, cover with split conduit, tape again then solder terminals for lights/etc at the end.

Just thinking about it used up my 40 hour CMC sales brochure alloted build time!

Typing from experience on many cars, think about running at least two extra 12-14 ga. wires from the dash area to the engine compartment, and another two or more extra from the dash to the front of the car as "spares".

You may not have a need for them now, but years from now you'll thank me for suggesting it.

BERT
The Samba has scans of all the old Beetle wiring harnesses, and much of what you are doing is identical. Might be a good reference page for ya.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/info/wiringt1.php

Gordon - good call on the spares. I'll run a few!

Carey - Thanks! Will come in handy!

THXs Cary - the one for a 72 looks pretty clean and direct. Found plotter at work and printed off poster size version.

You may want to check the wiring diagrams in CMC manual on line here.

I made a single page composite of the CMC diagrams I can email if interested.