When I started installing new electrical stuff in the van I installed a new fuse box with blade fuses to take the CD player, 12V socket, etc...

The van has some pretty dodgey electrics and I'm going to do a staged re-wire. My usual attitude to sorting out a mess is strip it all out and start again - but I can see this ending in a disaster - so my plan is to re-wire the van bit by bit.

My main issue at the moment is the wiper motor, so when I install the NOS one I've found I'm going to put it in with its own wires and importantly, it's own fuse so that if/when the fuse blows it doesn't also cut the ignition

Here's my question. How do I get power to the fuse box. I don't want to keep taking wires from the battery to the 'in' terminals on the fuse box. Am I safe to 'jump' from one terminal on the fuse box to the next using something like this:


Or is it possible to get the automotive equivalent of this so I can have one power lead from the batter to the fuse box, with lots of feeds coming off it:



Oh and.... the very first thing I'm going to do is turn the ignition switch into a relay switch so that all the charge, etc.. isn't going through the switch - does this seem sensible?

Oh AND... would it be prudent to mount the fuse box and relays inside something water/oil proof to keep them clean?

Sam

Look in and around the marine 12v scene. ..! You should of known that !!!

When I rewired the Land Rover with a complete new loom (which is the most economical way of doing a complete rewire in the long run, incidentally), I was surprised to discover that there are only two fuses on the entire vehicle, both 35 amp. They're linked in much the same way your piggyback terminals would link them, so I don't see why they wouldn't work. They'll horrify the purists though! Each fuse on the Landy is fed independently, one direct from the battery (all that feeds is the interior light) and one from the ignition (which does the wipers, the heater, the brake lights and the indicators). Sorry to bang on about Land Rovers but the principles are the same.
Might be worth getting in tough with Autosparks. They'll be able to sort you out an appropriate fusebox ...
http://www.autosparks.co.uk/product_inf ... ts_id=1267
... and will probably build you a new loom if you decide to go down that route. It's where I got the Landy loom from and the quality was really good.

http://www.autosparks.co.uk/product_inf ... ts_id=2344

I was thinking of something like this but I haven't yet got round to it...

https://www.electricalcarservices.com/f ... -1972.html

Sam,
are you quite sure you should be contemplating rewiring the van?
Just for starters, the charging current from your alternator does not pass through the ignition switch, only the small current which is needed to energise its field circuit.

Also, as far as I know, it's not usual practice to fuse the ignition circuit.

Anyhow, the type of fuse box you're after is one with a bus bar, the multiway variety are quite pricey, but one (or two) of these might do the trick on the van...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Way-Blade-F ... 27c364634f

ken

Partly why I think it needs doing - Jools and I found out in France that all the charge circuit is going through the ignition switch. Joolz was pretty appalled by what he found



There's also a load of these

Some with rusty terminals and one is half melted.



You're not the first person to say that, but if you remove the fuse that's in the wiper motor circuit, the engine cuts

I'd like to prioritise the charging circuit. Joolz and I basically bipassed the loom entirely and she charged fine. Using the loom connections caused all sorts of weirdness until we changed the ignition switch.

The charging circuit, is it as simple as:

Positive on alternator to positive on regulator.
Exciter on alternator to exciter on regulator.
Output on alternator to battery
Regulator earths to bulkhead.

I want to get rid of all the charge light indicator gubbins and replace it with an led one that I'll mount in the zit on the dash.

and thanks, yes, a busbar fusebox is exactly what I want

i don,t think it will work on existing 2cv loom, u need separate connections for each fuse , not a common one
one fuse on a 2cv is live at one end all the time whilst another is only live when ignition or lights are switched on
i might be wrong

Hi
This shold give you some idea how to go with the re-wiring see attached.
It uses 2 fuse holders 5 fuses in each one one is permanent live the other is fed from ignition switch.
Except remove switches 2, 3, 4, and 5 on circuit and replace with normal light switch.
Wire colours on switch then would be :-

Black to Fuse 1 = 12volt feed to switch
Mauve = Side Lights.
Green = to Dipped Beam Relay
Yellow = to Main Beam Relay
Blue = to Horn Relay

Peter

I pretty sure we didn't find the charging current going through the ignition switch. The fat charging cable from the alternator is connected directly to the battery via the back of the starter motor. The supply to the regulator is from the ignition switch and the problem we found in France was that high resistance in the switch meant that the regulator was not seeing the full battery voltage. We ran a temporary live supply directly from the battery to the regulator to get it to charge right.

You're right though that I was pretty unimpressed by the chocolate blocks and pre-insulated crimp connectors. That 'thing' in your original post is equally inappropriate in a reliable wiring loom.

If you want to wire it as the diagram posted by Peterj, which I think may be from Burton, then a busbar type fusebox could be used, but in the standard 2cv loom the fuses don't share many common connections.

What approach I'd suggest with Hetty I'm not sure. Has the whole thing been rewired in the past? If it's not exactly as per original layout then you could spend a very long time working out what's what, and if the whole van is like the bits I saw then perhaps replacing with a good loom from a late car could be easiest, if it would work with the other components.
On the other hand if every thing works as it should then maybe just work through it gradually, replacing the connectors with more reliable ones.

I've added an extra 3 fuses to my car and I'm quite happy that that's enough. One of the things I thought most important was a separate fuse for the wipers. Looking at the fusebox on my car, the top 5 fuses are standard for a late 2cv, the 6th is for the wipers and shares the same feed as the 3rd one which use to include the wipers. There's no need for any nasty piggy back connectors, just put 2 wires into the same connector. And use good connectors. http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/V ... nskits.php