Complete Car Rewire

[Powers 13]

Hi. Here is a link to what I want to achieve:

 

http://www.mikadoracing.com/technique/doss...electrique.html

 

Its a shame it is in French!

 

Does anyone know of any companies in Europe that sell or build these?

Has anyone on here built there own?

Any tips and hind would be very helpful?

 

I know that I could source parts from Vehicle Wiring products and build my own, but i can just imagine it to be very time consuming and too be honest I just dont have any free time at the moment.

 

Cheers.

[niklas 1]

If you're going to ask a company to build such a panel for you it's gonna be way expensive. Build one yourself

 

I'm currently considering a complete re-wiring in my car too.

Main goal is to reduce all unnecessary wiring, making it lighter, cleaner and fully documented.

 

Are you going to use a CAD-program for wiring diagrams? If so which one? Looking for a good one myself

[base-1 17]

Several vehicle wiring specialists will do it, looking at well into 4 figures though from most good places that make this kind of loom for race/rally cars

Edited November 29, 2005 by base-1

[Powers 13]

To be honest i wouldnt even think about spending £1000 my budget is more like £400.

A good cad program for looms is Croc clip. I will try and find a link now...

[jonnie205 1]

Hi dude

 

Me and robbie built a few looms recently for rally cars but to be honest £400 wont even scratch the surface. Best off to do it yourself on that budget as that would not buy the material with one of our looms. Just built a loom for a super 1600 car and got it to weight and 1/8 of the standard loom. You planning on making an engine loom or just a chassis loom?

[Dream Weaver 2]

I've just made my own engine loom. It is time consuming, but is quite enjoyable and so far it seems to be working, sort of

[RobMGti 0]

Loving the "sort of" at the end

[pug_life 0]

Would imagine its very time consuming (looking at looms certainly is )

 

If your a capable auto electrician, then getting your head round it should be easy with peugeot diagrams to follw and so choose necessary wiring

[Ryan 99]

The free version of Eagle from www.cadsoftusa.com is quite good to drawing circuits.

[DrSeuss 0]

eagle is more for pcb layout, but its schematic editor would probably work ok.

 

Not really its proper use anyway. best bet is just to wire up in situ or create a flying lead loom.

 

But i'd not go ditching much of the in car wiring without serious thought. Certainly not reducing gauge sizes.

 

Though i estimate the standard 205 dash loom to be in excess of 15kgs. Probably closer to 20. Now you understand why canbus was implemented.

[Powers 13]

Cheers for the replies.

Hi Jonnie. I was hoping someone with your experience would reply. The loom i would be making would be nowhere near as complex as a super 1600 loom. As they have loads more electric trickery than my 205, as I have witnessed first hand!

The aims of the rewire are to get rid of the awful fuse and relay box, remove all excess wiring and tidy up existing wiring. Ideally with a dash mounted fuse and relay box. So just modifying the chassis loom.

 

Out of interest where did you buy the components?

[jonnie205 1]

Great idea alex. Yes having a propper centrally mounted fuse/ relay board makes loads of sense. There will be lots you can loose, ie radio, heted rear screen, rear wiper, interior light, central locking, electric windows, handbrake light, dimmer system etc. I am assuming this is a rally car. It is amazing how small you can get the loom and you can also make the routing of stuff much tidier. A master switch is a good idea too and best to use the smaller type blade fuses. Of course they may be stuff you want to add like spot lamp harness, trip meter, gear cut, map light, extra gauges. It mint on the pugs becaus ethe engine side of things is stnad alone, slightly harder on the ford due to the loom being all one thing

 

Not sure what your plans are for the car mate but cant wait to see it. I know how much time and money has gone into it over the past few years

 

jonnie

[davemar 16]

I made my own engine loom for my 205 Mi16 setup, which still runs with the 8v ECU. My old loom was getting pretty grotty and wanted something more reliable, and upgradable. If I do decide to change to the Mi16 ECU, or go for a custom setup it should be pretty easy to adapt. Also if there is an electrical fault it is a lot easier to trace and measure now. The only real problem I've had is the I went for a big multipole connector at the bulkhead (makes the loom very easy to remove!), but it wasn't a rugged as I hoped and started to disconnect itself. I've bodged a remedy for now with appears solid; but do intend on replacing it with something better when I get the time.

 

I found the cost of the connectors does mount up, particularly as I chose to have some parts of the loom removable, so has more connectors. Wasn't really an overnight job either!

[base-1 17]

Our rally cars are historics which run carbs or mechanical injection so there is only ignition wiring for the engine side of things, we have full car looms made by a "proper" firm rather than in-house charging by-the-hour labour - they cost us approximately £1500 each I think (retail to the customer is significantly more), but of course car spec's change all the time with new this and that, left or right hand drive, etc, which means guys coming in to carry out and record all the changes which also costs - hence the above average mark-up. Definitely go for the DIY option lol!

[Powers 13]

Well excellent news. I have managed to buy a complete 205 group A wiring loom complete with dash mounted fuses and relays, plus a WRC electric cut off switch. All for an awsome price. To say I am pleased is an understatement. I have just saved myself over £1k!

[Jonmurgie 2]

Hey that sounds about as jammy as Stew205 getting that T16 engine!! I though you were selling up though?

[Powers 13]

No. The 205 you came down and saw was exchanged for a 106 cup car. Not really to my taste but it is a very good package. Also looks like I will be taking up the navigating position, as well as servicing!

My other project is about 65% complete, maybe done in time for the FCS!

[Beastie 1]

I regularly have to make up my own looms on a professional basis - and it takes lots of time to do properly and tends to cost a fair bit of money. If you are doing your own loom here are a few things which I find helpful:

 

When you get down to the hands on stuff it makes the job much much quicker if you are *very* familiar with the circuit. For this reason I always draw the wiring diagram by hand - I then hardly need to refer to it when I'm working since most of it will remain in my mind.

 

Once you have drawn the schematic wiring diagram it's well worth drawing up a diagram of the wire groups and routing in the loom. A bit of thought here will make things look much neater and avoid the all too common fault of two sections of loom running alongside each other.

 

The cheapest way to group cables together is to bind them with pvc tape. Slightly more expensive is pvc cable sheath. Best of all is heat shrink tubing which makes a really neat and durable job.

 

It's well worth making a note on your plan drawing of cable colours. Make some effort to stick with standard colour and tracer schemes so that future repair work is simplified.

 

Take some trouble to find out which connectors are reliable and which are pants - there's nothing worse than finding your job is let down by poor quality components. I find that "Japanese Connectors" are particularly reliable and long lived. The old fashioned Ripaults connectors were okay in their day but these days are usually very badly made and are an absolute nightmare.

 

Making sub assemblies which attach with multiplugs looks neat, simplifies the work and makes future repair work easier.

 

If you are really pleased with the end result consider making a peg board which will contain your finished loom - you can then make replicas really easily in the future.

 

Hope this helps!