Re: Mike's 53 Caribbean
Posted by HH56 On 2023/10/3 16:38:17
With the extra current going thru the headlight and dimmer switch along with the extra length of marginally sized wire headlight power takes for that route, I would be tempted to add relays sooner. Not only would they save wear and tear on the old switches but if the relay contacts were fed directly by a heavier gauge wire the lights would probably be a tad brighter. You could run a dedicated length of 10ga from the relays back to the starter solenoid or, IMO, a less satisfactory but easier option on your year would be to add a wire to the BAT terminal on the horn relay and use the already existing 12 ga run feeding the horns. Power the headlights thru a separate CB and the relays using the almost direct run horn supply. Without the load of the tail and dash lights a separate 30 amp breaker would probably still be OK for just the headlights.
Using horn relays will not work because one side of the coil is already connected to the BAT input so needs a ground on the S terminal to energize those relays. There may be some of the old metal power types available on ebay.
If you did want to use modern, you could mount plastic relays with sockets on a subplate module something like I did for my 47 and 56. Hide the module and relays under the battery tray. or mount low on the radiator cradle where it could kind of blend in. 47 only has one terminal strip but because there is a second junction strip and wires in the main loom for the right side headlight on 51-56 models, you would also need to power that right headlight directly from the relay module.
In order to power both lights on my 56 I added a second out of sight terminal strip on the right radiator cradle leg and made a loom to go across in front of the radiator to get to the terminal strip on the relay module which I mounted on left side. Removed the wires to the right bucket from the original strip and added them to the new strip.
Here is a circuit I did and photos of a module made to take advantage of existing holes and space in a 47. Wire colors are also 47. Yours would be different but you could do something along the same lines customizing it to depend on where you chose to mount the relays.
Attach file:
relay.jpg (93.34 KB)
HeadLight Relay1.jpg (88.55 KB)
Using horn relays will not work because one side of the coil is already connected to the BAT input so needs a ground on the S terminal to energize those relays. There may be some of the old metal power types available on ebay.
If you did want to use modern, you could mount plastic relays with sockets on a subplate module something like I did for my 47 and 56. Hide the module and relays under the battery tray. or mount low on the radiator cradle where it could kind of blend in. 47 only has one terminal strip but because there is a second junction strip and wires in the main loom for the right side headlight on 51-56 models, you would also need to power that right headlight directly from the relay module.
In order to power both lights on my 56 I added a second out of sight terminal strip on the right radiator cradle leg and made a loom to go across in front of the radiator to get to the terminal strip on the relay module which I mounted on left side. Removed the wires to the right bucket from the original strip and added them to the new strip.
Here is a circuit I did and photos of a module made to take advantage of existing holes and space in a 47. Wire colors are also 47. Yours would be different but you could do something along the same lines customizing it to depend on where you chose to mount the relays.
Attach file:
relay.jpg (93.34 KB)
HeadLight Relay1.jpg (88.55 KB)
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