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Joined the Beige Club - '78 242DL

I'm also going to try to "shave" my bay. I love the look of just the block sitting there. Will be easier to clean as well.

I check this thread everyday and can not get enough of it! Keep up the quick work!
 
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Working on the tuck for the engine bay tonight since I won't have a hoist to lift out the motor until this weekend. Since I'll be painting the engine bay ASAP after the motor is out, now is the time to arrange wiring needs. I want any and all new holes that will be drilled/cut to be done before paint of course.

First, remove fender liners:

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Next, pull out the ball of wiring that came with the car in a box, let's leave this for a minute and come back to it...

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Good thing I have this to help guide my re-install:

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Move to front turn signals first. I just drilled a new hole behind the light fixture and moved the grommet where the signal wiring passes through the headlight framing to the new hole, which places the pigtail into the inner fender:

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With the fixture bolted down, the wiring is now nice and hidden:

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Next I went back to the wiring ball and fished out the pigtails for both headlights, the high beam step relay + pigtail and the headlight switch connector + pigtail. The switch connector has a touch of meltage like most of them I see due to the dumbass design that runs all the headlight power through the switch. I'll be rewiring that on my install to include a 40 amp relay that relegates the interior switch to just triggering the relay.

I bolted in one of the headlights to play around with the wire routing and think I've sorted where they all will go so that the only wiring you'll see to the lights is just the connector itself on the bulb, and then the wiring will go straight down and tuck into the sheet metal/inner fender. Took a couple pics with it mounted to give an idea of what the front lighting setup will look like too.

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Right now I'm thinking I'll mount the hi beam step relay and the new headlight relay both next to each other on the driver side inner fender. Should stay protected enough and dry enough up there with the fender liner back in. Also thinking I'll completely bypass the bulb integrity sensor for the headlights because I think those are stupid too.
 
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Nice work Cam. I'll be watching this car intently. I'm glad to see you going with the tuck/shave.
 
Nice work Cam. I'll be watching this car intently. I'm glad to see you going with the tuck/shave.

Thanks! The tuck should work really nicely on this car. The wagon has so much more going on under the hood that I will never get a tuck/shave on that car that I'd be happy with. For this car and the engine plans for it though, I will.

What color is the engine bay going to be?

Same semi-flat SEM black paint I did all the trim, window surrounds and back panel in. It'll continue from the engine bay forward through the front core support, headlight framing, turn signal backing/etc. Should help the consistency and "togetherness" of the car I think.

I'll take it :)

Good, glad someone will be able to put it to use! I'll be taking the starter & flywheel/clutch as I'll need them for the new motor, but it'll be a complete longblock.

I want dat valvecover, lets trade.

You just want it for the early PCV port off the front? I have another one of those off my old B21 from the wagon. In fact, it's in a bag under my desk here at work. Yours if you want it, just come pick it up :)

Clean work as always Cameron, those ecodes look great.

Thanks!

I did the same job on the 245. Got the cables and relay on the inner fender. I hope it will stay dry...

I bet it won't stay 100% dry, and maybe a bit of moisture might make it's way up there, but I doubt any more than it would see in it's original location on the driver side fender in the engine bay. I'm planning on putting the relays up as high as possible which I think would help. I'm thinking I'll loom all the wires together in tubing and hang them in cushion clamps off the fender bolts where they extend into the inner fender way up at the top.
 
Did some thinking and staring at the car and decided to mount the headlight step relay along with the new power relay and fuse inside the car by the fuse box. Since this car doesn't have the fresh air vent down there it leaves a nice flat panel for mounting stuff. Don't worry, I'll bundle/loom those wires once it's all finalized and tested and working.

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I then drilled a pass through hole right near there that goes into the inner fender where the wiring from the headlights & parking lights will run & put a grommet in to protect the wires:

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As I mentioned above, I'm changing up the headlight circuit from the stock configuration. The stock setup sends power from the battery to the switch and through the switch to the step relay then from the step relay to the headlamps. Since running all that power through the switch is retarded I added a relay between the switch and the step relay. Basically, I'm now just using the power out of the switch to trigger a 40 amp relay. Then, I added an extra fused power wire between the power distribution block from the battery and ran that to the new relay, which then flows that direct power to the step relay. So now instead of all the juice flowing through the switch, it's flowing through a relay that's only triggered by the switch. Should decrease voltage drop between the battery and the bulbs and prevent the common issue of melting/burned headlight switches.

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Normally the low beam circuit runs through the bulb integrity sensor too. I'm cutting that out of the equation and instead of the power wire out of the step relay going into the integrity sensor and then splitting off into the 2 power lines to the bulbs, I'm just running that power out of the step relay right to the bulbs.

Also upped the ricer content more and installed LED license plate bulbs:

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I think I'll have to pick up a nice Interstate battery tomorrow. Gonna need it eventually and then I'll also be able to run some leads straight from the battery to my new lighting circuits to test and ensure I have it all hooked up right and it's working. I have some crappy Bi-Mart battery in my garage that I was thinking I could use for basic bulb testing, but it's been sitting there long enough that it's only showing 5v across the terminals, so even running an alligator lead straight from the battery terminals to the power and ground spades on an H4 bulb didn't do ****.
 
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That is inspiring! My wife, of Japanese heritage, is fond of simplicity around our house. People come in for the first time and often remark 'does anyone live here?' That engine bay reminded me of that....

Cameron - for what it's worth - I went with relays much as you've described on my 4-eye Hella setup. One relay for each low beam, and one relay for each pair of high beams (4 in total). Like you, used the output of the stock relay to trigger the new ones. I used heavy gauge wire for the 'new' harness, and have 0.00V drop between alternator output and the light bulbs. I left the bulb integrity sensor in place. It won't pick up headlight bulb failures -- but it still works for all the rest, and presence of the relays doesn't set it off. In fact - it's less finicky than before.
 
Some shaved inspiration.

I like this one better :-D

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Like you, used the output of the stock relay to trigger the new ones. I used heavy gauge wire for the 'new' harness, and have 0.00V drop between alternator output and the light bulbs.

Awesome - that's what I'm going for. Glad to hear it's working well for you. Even just a volt or two of drop translates into quite a bit of difference in light output.


I left the bulb integrity sensor in place. It won't pick up headlight bulb failures -- but it still works for all the rest, and presence of the relays doesn't set it off. In fact - it's less finicky than before.

I was thinking about it more last night and actually decided to do just that. Headlights won't go through it, but the rest of them still will. Bypassing the integrity sensor for the headlamps does eliminate a good amount of wiring between the cabin and the front of the car, but for all the other lights it's easier to just leave it in place.
 
You're doing a lot of the wiring that I want to do on the 240. If you ever need a second set of hands please let me know, I'd love to come over and help route wires.
 
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