Off Road Essentials; Electrical

1. If you are adding a bunch of electrical gizmos to an already overloaded electrical system, a weatherproof switch panel like this 6 switch kit we picked up from Painless Performance may save your bacon and time.  High quality switches and covers, with indicator lamp and connectors included.  Circuit breakers and inline fuses are available too.

2. Here is a pic of a few things going on.  The wires are routed through the bumper and protected with a grommet.  A properly sized crimp connector is screwed down for a good grounding point.  A Ty-Wrap mount is used to keep the wires from vibrating loose.  Although the bane of our electrical existence, split loom does a good job of keeping wires organized and protected.

3. Having a switch panel makes organizing your devices much easier to manage.  Circuit additions or alteration in the future are easier to accomplish when you have a setup like this.  No trail rig is ever done, is it?

4. Create a diagram for your switch locations.  It’s easier to change it around on paper than after the final installation.

5. We really like these heat-shrink style crimp connectors.  They allow a solid wire connection and seal out any dirt or moisture that may enter the joint.  For high current connections, we prefer to nut and bolt our terminals together and tape them up.  For future additions, this method is pretty slick even if it does take a little more time and effort.

6. With the switch center buttoned up and sealed covers on our switches, this job is done.  Notice the easy to read tags for each switch.  We also have two spare switch locations for any widgets we may need in the future.

7. Organizing your wiring under the hood is just as important as in the switch centre.  Our hatred of split loom covering led us to use this spiral wrap to bundle our wire together.  It is available from most electrical suppliers but it is also used to bundle hydraulic lines on heavy equipment and as such, can be found at many hydraulic shops.

8. Painless Performance makes these fuse panel covers to protect against the elements.  The cover fits snugly around the perimeter of the blocks.  We had an additional relay on our panel, but just used a heat gun to warm up the thermal plastic of the cover to make room.

9. We scored these 30 amp Bosch sealed relays from our local u-pull-it yard off a Chevy Blazer.  High quality OEM units like these are hard to beat, and the mounting bracket will neaten up the installation.  The two on the left are ready to be installed and the others will just stay there for spares or future additions.  Not bad for under $10.

10. Automotive wiring needs to have high temperature handling capability, flexibility, and resistance to oil hardening.  Multi strand conductors are able to handle the vibration, and we find that for our larger cable needs like a winch, welding cable fits the bill.  Leave the house wire for the house, not your rig.

11. Finding out exactly what a conductor is good for is normally printed on the jacket.  This is a #4 AWG that is good to 125 C when moving all the time, 150 C when standing still and it can handle 600 Volts.

12. Weather tight Weather Pack connectors like these are great for junctions that you take apart frequently.  This is for our trailer plug on our trail rig so we can reliably splice into our taillight harness.  You can get the DIY kits locally or off the net.  Pick up the proper crimping tool while you are at it.

13. Label your wires now before you forget what they do and where they go.  This pocket pack was cheap and will last you for years.

14. The universal wiring colour code for connectors is pretty easy to follow.  Red is for #22 to #18, blue is for #16 and #14, and yellow is for #12 and #10.  Remember, use the proper crimp!  These standard insulated connectors work well, but we still prefer the shrink-wrap style for our projects if we have the choice.