Varg In Jeep's Clothing

Not a whole lot to update. Just plugging away at this wiring. I made a little jig for soldering. I’ve since added another clip to hold two wires in place. Handy little bugger.



The time-consuming stuff... eliminating giant disconnects for smaller disconnects.



(New connector is on top, recycled from a Volvo V70 door panel)



This should please the wiring gods. One of the (+) busses. I lost the plastic cover; I’ll have to hit the Volvo forums to see if anyone has a spare they’d throw in an envelope.



I had to take a break from wires. I dove into the oil pressure sending unit I bought that goes with the new gauge. They sent me the wrong one, but after seeing what the old one looked like, I don’t think the “right” one would’ve been correct anyway. The threads are a straight metric thread, and it uses a copper washer to seal. The one I got is just a 1/8” NPT. There was enough meat in the old sender to drill it out, tap it, thread the new sender into it...



...then I cut the threads off. I found an o-ring that fit perfectly in the groove. It *should* seal. If not, I can add a copper washer in there too.

 

Forgot to add...
The wipers I ordered came in. The blister packs opened, both wiper blades fell out, and one of them escaped the shipment through the shoddy tape-job on the box. I just sat on hold for ten minutes, gave up and sent an email. I asked for either a replacement blade, or a $12 refund to go buy one locally.



Ongaro Standard Windshield Wiper Motor Kit

 

Cool I’ll ship the 3b up there since you’re already set up for wiring

 

This is as fun to me as sanding drywall.

 

Yeah, I sometimes wonder who packages this stuff, an 8 year old? (My apologies to all 8 year olds out there).

I recently ordered a Hellwig Rear Sway Bar for my new to me Chevy van. When the package arrived there were big holes in the box where the sway bay had broken through. I was fixin' to get a mad-on, assuming the hardware was scattered across the USA, then I realized they had glued a small box within the big box with the hardware in it. The small box was intact.

Reminds me of the time I bought some steel shim spacers for the CJ5 and the empty envelope arrived with a hole in the side where they slid out somewhere in route. The down side of buying online. Fortunately it doesn't happen that often.

Beautiful progress so far. I've built a few bumpers, that rear bumper you've built is an incredible piece of art. I can only dream... or be inspired to try harder.

 

Our point Exactly. He didn't make the fusebox.

 

Steel fuse boxes don’t end well.

 

Thanks for saying that. That’s a major compliment.

Do they still have those? I haven’t looked in the magazine isle in years.

 

After arrival It'll end up being a double feature

 

I agree. And of course anybody that replied to your build thread gets a slice of the royalties.

 

I posted the question on Turbobricks. A guy replied with this link in about a minute. $2.75! That’s cheaper than a trip to U-pull-it.

Junction Block Cover - Volvo (9162425) | TascaParts.com

 

The Volvo harness is completely blended into the new fuse box and harness!



I had a serious 3-hour panic situation this morning where I had a no-start issue. I had spark, but I couldn’t get the fuel pumps to run without hooking them directly to a power source. When I did, I found it still wasn’t getting fuel through the injectors. I traced back every single wire I worked on. I FINALLY found the issue at the one connector in the pic a few posts above. One of the spades I had swapped squirted out of the connector when I pushed them together, and it wasn’t sending power to the fuel system relay. I’m glad I found it, because I was ready to quit on it and find a new donor harness and start over. I was completely stumped. I thought I screwed it up bad.

Now I can begin on the new wiring.

Here's the pile of wires I cut out of the old harness.



I heard back from the windshield wiper people this morning. They stock that wiper blade and are sending me a free replacement.

 

I think that is more wire than I used rewiring my entire M38.

This is all looking great. Thanks for sharing the detail.

 

Looks like you have enough wires and connectors to wire another Jeep! The Varg's wiring looks great!

 

I’m finally making some headway on this wiring. I swear I built the cage faster than this.

The heavy wires around the battery are done. I added a (-) battery disconnect (on left) and a junction block for all the positives. Ignore the hideous Volvo connectors. I’m not about to mess with them.



The disconnect switch is hidden up under the air cleaner.



The winch is hooked up and works. It’s faster than I expected it to be. The wires fit nicely between the dash and the rad support.



I’ve always liked how on our daily driver Volvos, the headlights are wired so you can leave the switch on all the time and use them as daytime running lights if you want. I went through a lot of head scratching to get these to work the same way. The headlight switch relay trigger gets power from a source that is only hot when the key is in the run position. That relay sends power to another relay that controls the H/L function.



The two relays are on a mount that uses one of the original holes in the dash for the steering column.



I’d like to take a minute and trash-talk... I mean, review a product. This wiring harness I bought from Hot Rod Wires was almost a complete waste. I’ve had to reverse-engineer almost everything. The instructions are worthless, and the “map” they include to tell you which fuse is for what is a joke. There are fuse locations for worthless crap like power windows and door locks, but the headlight switch wiring is direct to the battery. Nothing lending itself to fuel injection. Everything is Chevy-compatible and claimed to be made universal-brand friendly, but there are no instructions on how to deviate from the Chevy layout. They tell you what color wire goes in each Chevy connector, but they don’t tell you what that wire is. I’ve spent hours tracing the power source for each wire, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their layout. I’m basically re-labeling the entire fuse panel as I go.

Hot Rod Wires

 

All cars should be set up this way.