Hi All
I have attached a few pictures of my electrical dilemma. I bought this car new in 2004, it is in immaculate condition and has only 77,000 on the clock hence I am not looking at selling it in the near future and wish to sort the electrics once and for all! How did this “mess” come about you may ask? When I first bought the car I had an auto electrician install a battery system, 3 x 50 amp excide orbital’s, 1 under the bonnet the other 2 in the rear (parallel) separated from the staring battery by a Red Arc isolator. He also installed a 175 Amp Anderson plug under the rear bumper into which I could plug my 80 Amp Christies charger which in turn would charge my Batteries, I also use this to run charge out of, to either my van or boat when driving. He also installed numerous 12 volt outlets around the car and a switch on the dash that when flick on would allow me to start my car from the auxiliaries batteries should the starting battery fail. At the time I was very happy with his work and I guess I still am, except for one thing, he had an idea of what I planned to do with the car but never suggested that we should fit a power distribution block of some sort.
Just to give some idea of what has been fitted to the vehicle since,
HF Radio,
UHF Radio, new Stereo, Under bonnet hot water shower, Under bonnet air compressor,
Water tank with pump, 1000 Watt Inverter, Fluro Light by rear door and I’m guessing a couple of other things that don’t spring immediately to mind.
Some of the problems I have experienced are, a parasitic drain on the starting battery, since then a auto electrician in
Darwin has installed an isolator switch on the dash which cuts off the stereo and a couple of other things. This seemed to sort the problem for a while but recently it seems to be back, if somewhat occasionally intermittently. I’m pretty sure this is a new problem raising its head, maybe a sticky relay? The other day the brake lights got stuck on, nothing to do with the pedal, I then restarted the car and when switched off the lights went off? In the last week I have disconnected the starting battery and it has remained charged, a credit to it as the amount of times it has been run flat it should have died, probably soon will I guess.
I have just ordered a DC Clamp Amp meter so this might help me find what is draining the starting battery. To the “Crunch” of why I am rambling on, I intend to get all the
wiring for the
accessories redone. Many of the
accessories were fitted by Electric Bug in
Adelaide and to say that the work was sub standard would be being VERY kind. There have been issues with everything they have done bar the HF. Just to give an idea of this, the wire for the inverter was very thin with a 30 amp fuse fitted! Do the maths of what a 1000 watt inverter will pull and you can see this is a joke, worst of all is they said they fit ALL there
inverters with this wire and have never used anything heavier! Anyway, the auto electrician in
Darwin has looked behind the dash and has said it is scary! I believe him as I had to pull out the UHF when on the road to fix it due to poor instillation only to find that 3 of the four bolt holes in the dash had been stripped! Electric bug were the only ones to ever have had access to this! I’m not saying there products are bad, but the instillation ---------------------
Ok, so what can the 12 Volt Guru’s on EO suggest I get done? It would be great if there was just a couple of wires to the battery terminals and the rest in to some sort of distribution block, if all the fuses could be in one place this would be good too! As it stands some fuses are behind the dash and the others randomly scattered around the engine bay.
What I hope to achieve from this exercise is a
well functioning trouble free electrical system that in the unlikely event there is an issue I will have some hope of finding it myself should I be in a remote area.
Thanks for taking the time to read!
Cheers
Lyndon
Image Could Not Be Found
Image Could Not Be Found
Image Could Not Be Found