Battery wiring

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by MK-Bay, May 22, 2020.

  1. Hi all... Does anyone have any neat ideas for tidying up the wiring from the starter and aux batteries?

    Having just stripped out the spaghetti mess of wiring from my engine bay, while I get rid of rust and repaint everything, I'm thinking there must be a better way of rewiring it after.

    For example, from the positive terminal on the starter battery there are currently two heavy duty cables, one to the starter motor and another via the Durite unit to the aux battery. Then there are a plethora of smaller cables feeding different things.

    The same is true from the aux battery but at least there's only one heavy duty cable on the positive terminal.

    It's all very messy and I'm thinking you must have implemented some great solutions to reduce the number of individual wires to each battery terminal, perhaps using bus bars or similar.

    Any ideas, and piccies, would be most welcome. [​IMG][​IMG]

    Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
     
  2. Zed

    Zed Gradually getting grumpier

    Pretty messy!
    LB needs ONE wire to fuse board somewhere in the van and one to Durite and an earth. That's it. Unless you have solar, a heater, a built in charger...but even so it can still be acceptably tidy - nothing special going on here...
    upload_2020-5-22_19-40-45.png
    It's a good start to remove the computer socket and all it's wiring, maybe move some +ve wires to the starter terminal?
    You need to work out what each actually does and go from there.
     
  3. That is a right mess. For the batteries, I suggest having some new +ve leads made up, with an extra say 10mm2 cable crimped into the battery terminal, so you can take that to the extra stuff.

    Plenty of places will will make up leads to your spec, and they’ve got the right kit to do it. Not that expensive.
     
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  4. vinnyboy

    vinnyboy Supporter

    Every beetle or camper I’ve bought has had wiring like that. Normally fill a carrier bag with old wire and scotch locks that I’ve removed. I like to avoid lots of wires going directly to the battery terminals. Drill a 6mm hole in the body and fit a long nut and bolt, then use this as a common earth point. Try to shorten or lengthen all wires so they run together nice. I also like to use heat shrink instead of those blue or red plastic sleeves that come on the terminals. Looks more factory.
     
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  5. vinnyboy

    vinnyboy Supporter

    it might scare some people but Look at one wire at a time. Lots of small jobs instead of one big nightmare. Getting rid of stuff no longer used will be a big improvement.
     
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  6. :eek:
    And i thought mine was bad ...

    Red positive , Black Earth is where i always start .
    Extra inline fuses also found their way into the circuitry when i had a minor tidy up but still need to give it a second going over at some point :rolleyes:

    :hattip:
     
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  7. vinnyboy

    vinnyboy Supporter

    You can get small fuse boxes with one live bus bar to run off the leisure battery.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2020
  8. DubCat

    DubCat Sponsor

    A few weeks back I was offering to make part looms if anybody needed, to supliment my income. If you draw a rough diagram of what you want, I'll make you a mini loom with whatever cable sizes/colours/terminals you like.
     
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  9. If you can crimp up battery terminals, Mark, well worth offering your services. Standard terminal with a length of 10mm2 on the same crimp solves a lot of problems.
     
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  10. DubCat

    DubCat Sponsor

    I do have a hydraulic crimper and a box of different size tube terminals. Got 6mm in stock but can soon get some 10mm.
     
    snotty likes this.
  11. I’d get some 10 in. Covers most of what you’d want to do in a van.
     
  12. Thanks for your advice everyone. I decided to order these from Amazon as I can use one on the starter battery positive terminal and the other on the leisure battery positive terminal.

    I'll take Zedders' advice and revert to a single earth wire from each negative terminal and then follow Vinnyboy's suggestion to create a common earth point using a bolt through the bodywork and fit a small fuse box to run everything off the LB.

    Thanks Mark Darby for the offer... I'll make the cables up as I go along as I don't know what I need yet [​IMG]

    Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk
     
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  13. vinnyboy

    vinnyboy Supporter

    DC5D2D21-2475-4919-A5DE-3D954D706ECA.jpeg DC5D2D21-2475-4919-A5DE-3D954D706ECA.jpeg 46245013-7E68-4639-85DF-97D1ACF1359C.jpeg 720E90D2-E6E5-45D0-97AB-C06A884B8B7A.jpeg Certainly not a show Vehicle but neat and tidy / safe.
     
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  14. vinnyboy

    vinnyboy Supporter

    just looking at mine I’ve used an 8mm bolt for the leisure battery earth and 6mm for others, and put them through the spare wheel well.
     
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  15. Dazza

    Dazza Eyebrow not high brow

    Just shut the door
     
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