Lockleaf Posted May 15, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2016 Still working on wiring. The engine bay is getting closer to finished, but the dash is still a complete joke. And I haven't even started building a stereo harness. Baby steps, right? But I drew these up last night. I have always hated the fusible link setup in my 720s, and now the same one is in my wagon. I think I've come up with an excellent upgrade to that design, but may be wrong, so feedback is appreciated. Relocate battery under rear seat. Install high amp breaker right next to battery. If long battery cable ever shorts to ground, it trips, hopefully preventing any real damage anywhere. Breaker also has manual switch, so I will use it as a kill switch. Run cable up to engine bay. Install power distribution block on shelf where OE fuse block sat. Batt cable splits in two directions. One directly down to starter. One to maxi fuse block. Install maxi fuse block on OE fuse block shelf. Wire car harness directly from that box in place of fusible links. Now I just need to figure out the proper amperages for the fuses. 1 Quote Link to comment
banzai510(hainz) Posted May 16, 2016 Report Share Posted May 16, 2016 Datsport sold a remote battery set up to prevent the + batt cable to ground if in a accident. I used to have a link for this. Another place in USA sold a kit that does just what your doing. madeelectrical.com partnumber TM1 uses a Ford seliniod 2 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted May 23, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2016 Thanks Banzai. I will have to look those up, see if I can improve on my thoughts. I pulled the complete dash frame out of half pint tonight. It's time I finally figure out how to really route the wiring along the firewall. I pulled the heater/blower assembly tonight as I also need to modify my harness a little so that it can properly connect to the fan and blower motor resistor. Pile o' dash parts. I'm likely going to repaint the metal portion of the dash cap while this is all out . And I finally got around to removing the hood prop bracket from the hood. Now, with a little prep and welding I can finish relocating the stock hood prop. Not really an interesting photo, but here you go. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted May 24, 2016 Report Share Posted May 24, 2016 Why not just do a gas strut conversion instead of the stock hood prop? 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted May 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2016 I actually hate gas supports. The mechanical parts don't really fail. I've had too many hoods and trunks fall on my head when those things are going out until I've just turned against them. Plus this makes me happy and I'm nearly done. All the hard stuff is over. 2 Quote Link to comment
WAGON JON Posted May 27, 2016 Report Share Posted May 27, 2016 This project is coming along very nicely. Keep on going! 2 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2016 Not much done in the wagon of late. I did figure out a decent wiring path for my harness I think. 720s have a few of these awesome wiring hoops that screw in place. I'm a fan. I'm hoping I can get these in place under the dash screws as I put the dash back in. 3 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2016 I'm working on the last major circuit on my wiring conversion (I think). I'm working on the blower motor circuit. And it's slightly confusing to me so I just need to make sure that I understand it's function correctly. So I drew up this diagram of the two circuits trying to clarify my understanding to help ensure that I wire the 510 blower motor and blower resistor correctly to the 720 harness. So as I understand it, 510 is very straightforward. Power from fuse goes through motor in to the resistor, then gets grounded variably through the switch, selecting different paths through the resistor. Ground switching in standard format. The 720 uses the relay. As far as I can tell, the relays purpose is to send power to the circuit without it all passing through the ignition switch. Whenever the vehicle is on, the heater circuit relay is energized and the power from the battery gets connected to the circuit. Power passes through the relay in to the motor. From motor it goes out to resistor, but also has a bypass that sends a full 12 volts around the resistor completely. Like the 510, the switch changes the resistance of path to ground to change the motor speed. Am I understanding this correctly? Here is the reality of the 510 blower and resistor wiring. I think just drawing this diagram and typing this message might have finally helped me to understand what is going on here. If I understand it, then I can wire it right. So here we go. Power goes in to motor via blue wire. Power leaves motor through the black wire and goes out to resistor. Black is tied directly to blue white, effectively bypassing the resistor and going out to the switch on fan high speed. Otherwise power goes in to resistor through black, then out via blue/red and blue/black. Hmmm..... Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2016 I edited my wiring diagram to more correctly reflect how the wiring is actually done in the 510. Now I've edited it one more time. I believe this reflects the exact same pathways for electricity, but I've re drawn it to visually appear like the 720 circuit. Someone let me know if I made any errors. If this is on point then I got this bad ride figured out. Any thoughts? I also copied all of this over to a new thread in the electrical section in hopes of getting some more hits. http://community.ratsun.net/topic/69691-understanding-my-heaterblower-circuit-do-i-have-this-right/ Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 15, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2016 Thanks to everyone who answered my questions in my other electrical thread. Anyone interested in the answers can follow the link above to see them. Laecaon posted a link to a guy who rehabilitated his entire heater/blower box. I was inspired and decided to follow suit. My valve was stuck and parts had fallen off it. I took it totally apart and reassembled it with the stock parts. They were all still there just jammed sideways in the valve. Valve now functions at about 90%. When closed, it leaks a little in to the heater core, but I think this will have an insignificant effect on interior temperature. Then I cleaned and painted everything. When I reassembled it, I installed new foam on all of the doors and connections, so that everything seals properly. The old foam would disintegrate when I touched it. The valve to core got a new chunk of hose. The other side had a pipe that is destroyed, so I need a new piece of pipe and a hose for over there. It was also missing the spring clips that hold the plastic to the metal body, so I improvised. These are factory hose clamps, stretched a little. They hold tight and lock in place. They are also hidden so I don't care that they are a little cheesy. Almost ready for reinstall. I scored an elephant oil cap. I love these things. I even own the t-shirt! (Not me, model from website) It's awesome. I also cleaned, painted, and installed both ignition coils. I drilled one extra hole, they share the center mount point. I'm quite happy with how it looks. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2016 Been finishing up all the random little wiring things in the engine bay. Distributor had this stupid connection box to connect to the car (not a fan) So I snagged a 3 wire connector from a parts pathfinder I have. Disassembled it, then shortened the wires about a foot and put in the connector. I "fabbed up" a mock up fuse block to get all my main power wires cut/lengthened as necessary. I had the wires wrapped around the screws originally... Finished up the markers and turn signals too. 720 wiring has a ground built in to it, so I added a ground to the housings, because why not. Also installed new contacts/wiring in them and connected it all to the connector for the 720 harness. New guts Here's the bundle of joy that is my blower resistor wiring. I'm pretty sure I got it figured out after those diagrams I posted. One of the 720 wires was extraneous because it already existed more compactly on the fan/blower. I repinned the resistor connector, lengthened a wire, and added it to my connector. Then turned an old resistor in to the other side of the connector. Not really all that happy with it. Likely going to do something else... And lastly, I swapped my tiny view port sight glass from my 720 carb out for one of the big glass ones from a 620 carb. Serves no purpose except that I think they are awesome. Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2016 Finished up the last piece of my heater box redo. This hose that passed through the firewall was destroyed. So I cut one out of an old egr pipe I had laying around. Then I cleaned all carbon out of it. Picked up a new hose bend as well. Both pieces are a little different than the stock pieces, but they are closer enough to work just fine. Got that installed, then refoamed the ambient air vents. All I have left to fix in the air system now are the connections from the heater box up to the defroster vents. Mine are competely destroyed so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I finished what I hope are the very last of the wiring modifications. Completely. I need to make mounting points for a few relays and establish some solid grounds for the wiring. I installed a number of grounds today, hooked up everything, and decided to try installing a battery and testing the system. Mostly a fail. At first, with the key on, I got nothing at all, anywhere. Accidentally bumped the harness and saw my volt meter spike quickly. Shook the harness and had power, at least on the volt meter. Turned on my headlights and they worked. But nothing else seems to. No lights on my gauges, no oil or charge lights, no response from fuel gauge. No blinkers or hazards. Working alone so I couldn't see to test stop lights. I'm sure I'm missing some grounds somewhere. Or maybe the grounds I have just aren't any good. I don't know. I will try again tomorrow. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 21, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2016 Wiring is tiring. I spent a few hours last night sketching out various individual circuits, trying to make sure I really understood where electricity was going on each one. Today I spent a couple of hours out at the car. I ended up basically removing all the fuses, then reinstalling one and trouble shooting the entire circuit for that fuse. Some issues I found weren't quick fixes so I just noted them and moved on. I have a short in one of my marker lights. It kept blowing the fuse. I disconnected everything from that circuit, plugged in a new fuse. Then hooked up my volt meter at the fuse and hooked up each piece until one made my volt meter show 0. Disconnected that one again, put in a new fuse, and hooked up everything else. No other issues, so I need to see what's up with that. Headlights are always on brights. I had to repin a couple of connectors for the flasher/turn signals, but after that both systems function great. I also got my brake lights working. I still have nothing going on on my gauge bezel, so I'm checking all those circuits. Charge light circuit seems to show power on both sides... not sure what that means. Park brake light switch doesn't seem to work, but manual grounding the circuit illuminates the light. Forgot I haven't wired in one wire for the oil pressure sending unit, so that circuit is disconnected. High beam indicator doesn't light up, possibly related to the high beam always on issue. Fan works brilliantly though, so that's awesome. Electricity seems to be 75% of the places I need it now. That's major progress in my book. 2 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 I seriously have the best friend in the world. As much as this dude swears he hates elecrical so badly it makes his soul hurt, he and his help today are the only reason I could diagnose and correct the wiring issues on my car. He knew things I didn't and did things I couldn't, and major progress was made today. Only a handful of circuits left to diagnose. Headlights always on high - two problems. 1. I had to rearrange the wires on the low beam headlight connectors. DMike warned me about this early on and I totally forgot. The square 720 headlights put the ground in the same place but the high and low beam wires switch places. Not correcting this was backfeeding power into the wrong circuits. Without this backfeed, the high beam light on the gauges appears to work correctly now too. 2. My high beam switch doesn't work. The 720 wiring harness runs both high and low beam headlights through a relay. Default on the relay is high beam. Actuate the relay, it switches to low beam. My switch doesn't connect, so the relay never actuates to low beam. When I manually bypass the switch, I can switch between high and low. Once I have a working switch, I will have to determine if I need to repin the relay so it defaults to low beams. This might be necessary to keep the high beam switch from working in reverse. Charge light - issue at my alternator. The blu/wht wire wasn't grounding. The connector on the alternator was broken, and may require replacing or at least rebuilding the alternator. Manually grounding that wire illuminated that light. Oil light - switching out from the gauge sending unit to the light sending unit made the oil light work. Pretty sure I have a short inside the gauge sending unit causing all sorts of weirdness. Need a new gauge sending unit. Temp gauge appears to be fine. Fuel sender may have to be cleaned or replaced. I get infinity on my resistance meter when measuring across its posts. But maybe when the tank is 20 years empty, that's just what it reads. But when I manually connect the wires at the sending unit, it pegs the gauge, so the wiring is correct. Need to put gas in it for further testing. Illumination - The gauge illumination lights wired directly to ground function fine. Those wired through the dimmer switch do not. I do not understand this circuit well enough yet. Wipers with intermittent - The 720 harness already has intermittent wipers. I also already swapped a 720 wiper motor on to my 510 (ok, so I have to connect it to the wiper arms still, but it's in there, it fits and everything), so I'm just missing an intermittent wiper switch. Somewhere along the way, someone pointed out that some 620s had intermittent and the switch would fit and look right. I got very lucky recently and another ratsun member sold me one for a very good price. The wiring connector has been cut off, but since it has to be customized to my harness anyway, that is meaningless to me. Very excited, should get that early next week. Then I can test and finish that circuit. And lastly, the actual ignition. I need to see if this engine actually sparks. 3 circuits to repair. 3 more circuits finish and/or diagnose. Now that im getting this close, I would just like to say, Holy shit, it freaking worked! For me, this is a big deal. And I'm very happy. 1 Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted June 25, 2016 Report Share Posted June 25, 2016 Good going! I love making other stuff work. Quote Link to comment
LenRobertson Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 Great thread! It is pretty much a how-to on fixing wonky wiring (which nearly all Datsuns have). When I first got my 510 and the gas gauge didn't work, I had to pull the sender out of the tank and clean the sender coil with spray carb cleaner. It was almost black with varnish. But try everything else before you do this. I don't know what sort of seal a goon tank has at the sender. You don't want a gas leak you didn't have before. Len 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 26, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 Thanks Len. I can't believe how much I've been forced to learn doing this wiring swap. Many late night hours on the couch with a few wiring diagrams, a note book, and access to the internet sitting next to my wife while she watched tv and put up with my incessant unintelligible chattering to my self. I think best out loud. :) she is a fantastic woman. And so it continues! Got this today from Dozenhundred. My 620 intermittent switch! The wiring next to it came with my 510. He had told me that the wiring was jacked up, so I had some work to do. With no connector attached, I had no simple way of identifying which wire was which. A little research led me to the 1200 wiki, which had this info. With that info, now I have a way to identify wires. With my multi meter in hand, I put the switch to "off", which the wiki diagram shows will connect 3 and 4. Then poked around until I found 2 wires with continuity. Wasn't sure which was which, but I had identified 3 and 4. Pulled switch to intermittent. Diagram shows 3/4 connection as well as a 2/L connection. With 3/4 identified, I probed the rest until I found continuity again. Now I had the 2/L pair identified. Next click, slow position. 2/3 connection. I knew 3 was one of 2 wires, and I knew 2 was one of two wires. A little more probing, find continuity. Now I've identified 2 and 3. Which means I've identified 4 and L by elimination. Next click, probe 2 and one of the remaining. And there's 1 identified. Just to be sure everything was ok, I probed 2 to the last wire, 6, and when I actuated "wash" I had continuity. Every position of the switch works correctly. Every wire is now identified. I've been using this 510 diagram quite a bit as it shows exactly what is connected to what when the switch contacts a position. It has helped me all over the place. In this instance it helped me understand how the guts of this switch works. Which helped me figure out the 620 switch, and will allow me to correctly wire the switch into the 720 wiring harness. I didn't realize that these switches had a fiber optic to illuminate them. My switch came with the fiber optic well, but the fiber optic was cut (that's the "wire" in my hand). So I'm using the 510 wiper knob. Switch came with the 620 knob, but I think it's ugly, and since I can't illuminate it anyway, I took it off. Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 27, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2016 I spent another hour or two figuring out wiper wiring stuff. Turns out the switch diagram for the 720 on the wiring diagram from Mitchell is incomplete. It doesn't show the connection to park the wipers and only half of the intermittent connection. Turns out that the intermittent 620 is exactly identical to the intermittent 720. So all I need to do is put the wiring together. Excellent. Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2016 Stupid Mitchell diagram also has the entire dimmer switch diagram all super messed up. So I found a partial FSM online that had the elecrical section in it. Which has led me to conclude that my dimmer switch has failed and is not grounding the circuit. If I manually ground it, the lights come on. Hooked up my turn signal indicators today. I rewired them with another connector from a pathfinder. I used a spare ground that I disconnected from the gauge bezel. Since I figured out my dimmer circuit problem, I rewired some gauge lights on the bezel, from direct to ground to part of the dimmer circuit. Thus the spare ground I used on the indicator lights. And then finished up the wiper switch. I got it wired to a 6 pin connector last night, pinned in the 620 layout. Then installed the other side of the connector and pinned it to match as well. Kicked it on, worked exactly as advertised! Excellent! I have intermittent wipers! Quote Link to comment
Draker Posted June 29, 2016 Report Share Posted June 29, 2016 I was in your back yard yesterday.. man it was hot! Stopped in Provo for some in and out and then straight to the airport. Then found the flight was delayed.. boo. Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted June 29, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2016 Haha nice. Yeah, it's been getting a bit warm these last two weeks. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted July 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2016 Made some small progress. Hit the junkyard the other day. Found a couple of perfect pieces for the wiring. Courtesy of a late 80s Saab, I found a small 2 post power distribution block with a cover. Perfect for what I want. Then I raided a 99 Sentra for a fuse block. Well, two actually, but one was a sacrificial lamb for the completion of the other. 4 circuits and a relay. It's bigger than I actually need, but it was the best I could find. I destroyed the other box so I could finish the incomplete circuits in the box I planned to use. All finished I will not be using the largest fusible link at this time. The relay will get repurposed as the choke relay. My current choke relay is awkwardly stuffed under the passenger side of the dash. I will be happy to correct that. And I still have to figure out the correct amperages for the fuses. I test fit the two pieces on the stock fuse block ledge, where I've been planning to mount this assembly. It looks like hell... So I promptly abandoned that horrendous idea. Round 2. Mount power distribution block to the underside of the fuse block. mount fuse block to back of strut tower. Mucho bettero. Now I just need to go back to the junkyard and get the mounting bracket for this thing. Either that or make one... which I would prefer to avoid. Now to wire it in! Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted July 13, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2016 I went back to the junkyard. Turns out the "mounting bracket" that fuse box was on was molded as part of the battery tray, which was made out of some highly fibrous composite. So I guess I'm building one :( . But I did more playing while I was there and scored more good stuff. I nabbed some parts for my DD 720 (wiper motor, fuel door latch thing), a bunch of random wiring connectors that had both male and female sides (to put in my wiring stash), a new dimmer unit for this car (all the illumination works now, and dims), and finally a different fuse box for use in the future. Out of a late 80s/early 90s Mazda B series truck. It has just the five fuses, no relay. And the wiring underneath it is fantastic. It just clips together. I love it. I will be using this for the fusible link removal in my DD 720. I did the modifications to the other fuse box already. Extended the wiring for the choke relay out to the box. I was able to use the 720 relay base and make it fit correctly in the box, so no wiring changes, just extensions. I also got the power distribution block mounted to the bottom and setup the power supply cable for the fuse box. So minus mounting and fuse sizing, that's ready to go. Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted July 13, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2016 My high beam switch doesn't work. The turn signals work fine, but that switch doesn't. So I decided to work around that problem. Chevy style. Floor mount headlight dimmer switch. Cheap and readily available. I don't think I could say either of those things about replacing the factory turn signal/headlight switch (but maybe I'm wrong). Depinned one of the three pins. I only need two. It's all wired in, tested and functional. Just need to mount it to the car. About here seems good. I love these floor mounted switches actually, so I'm ok with doing this mod. However, the way I wired it in, should I ever repair the column switch, I can use either one functionally, so long as the other is set to "open", which in this harness means set to high beams. Progress! 2 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted July 13, 2016 Report Share Posted July 13, 2016 I love these floor mounted switches actually Me too. Always wanted to do this to a Datsun. :thumbup: 1 Quote Link to comment
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