Wiring the dash

I'm saving up the rest of the painting photos until I finish the "cut and buff" stage, but there's been other work going on. Remember that my goal is to get everything from the firewall back ready so it can go to the upholstery shop, so, for the past couple of weekends I've been completing the dash and all the wiring to the rear of the car.

First up, the instrument cluster.

That's the old wiring on the top

I'm putting modern wiring in the car. So basically it is a process of translating the wiring diagram for the new kit, which is 12-volt negative ground, the old wiring diagram from the car, which was 6-volt positive ground, and then figuring out any additional accessories or upgrades I may have added. The process, once I identify which wire goes where, is to slide on a piece of heat shrink tubing, put the appropriate connector in place, crimp it, then shrink the heat shrink. It is a bit tedious, and required all of my concentration at times. So I didn't end up taking many pics--there's plenty of instructions out there if you're curious.

Next, I made a small bracket to mount the fuse panel to the inside of the firewall. Nothing special, just some measuring and bending a small piece of sheet metal. Here it is all in place.

 

 

I added a few modern convenience features--like plugs so if I ever had to take the instrument cluster out for service I wouldn't have to disconnect each gauge individually:

Then it was simply a matter of tucking everything in place. I used lots of zip ties to keep things neat and orderly. I'm really pleased with the end result: