Happy Easter everyone!
Our wagon progress from this weekend, we finished up the interior lights. Here wiring up the rear light. The included pigtails were discarded to eliminate a butt splice, and our newly installed wiring made use of new lamp base contacts (W crimp) from Repair Connector.
The lens used in light fixtures like these are typically plagued over the years by overheating and then cracking, so we opted for a 1004 LED replacement. Should keep things cooler for longer lens life, and brighter!!
Onto more electrical issues, the "hidden fuel door" we had purchased was so intermittent in operation that when we had dropped it off at Absolute Rod & Custom Paint to test fit to the car when they were fine tuning the bodywork, we were second guessing whether we should use it at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=848V2PbuQJw
All the harnesses came into a terminal board with wires going to the relays on the opposite side. Some of the terminals had as many as three wires in them, and Mike Flores found about 6 loose wires. Splices didn’t carry the same wire color through, making trouble shooting a bit of a challenge. The toggle switch (which should have been momentary contact but was not) had some home-made fork terminals. This thing was looking more sketchy with everything we looked at next. For a store-bought product intended for an automotive environment, they should find someone more competent in wiring.
To get rid of the terminal board, we opted for weather pack connectors, one to each of the end terminations (switch, fuel door, power source). We eliminated the triple wires to single terminal by jumpering, making use of two wires in a single pin, and jumpered as required.
Our new wires going into the relay connectors made use of new Packard 56 style female spade terminals from
www.repairconnector.com (more W-crimp) These were also jumpered two wires to a pin where needed.
The toggle switch was replaced by an automotive grade MOMENTARY rocker switch from McMaster. Works flawlessly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxGo6JU19kY
Not pretty, but much improved. The relays will be located behind the rear seat on the sub box, conveniently between all our end points. Just like our speaker grilles, black plastic really doesn't belong in plain view in a 55 Chevy. So our more highly functional rocker switch will be hidden inside the glove box..