DRL lights and wiring - Circuit 1/8

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Major System Category: ISIS Wiring
Task: Wire up the DRLs
Parts:
Power Cell: 1
Circuit: 8 - GREEN
Master cell: BLUE/LIGHT BLUE
Prerequisite Tasks: Mount DRLs
Additional Costs:
Time Requirement: 90 minutes
Date Started: August 10, 2013
Date Completed: August 10, 2013
A good chunk of the front end wiring never got completed in April 2013. When I returned from the Southern Man Cave, I spent the first seven weeks working on the body. In northern climes, you really need to take advantage of the warm weather months! The GTM has been living with dangling wires from the DRLs, power cells and other things. I left them to hang down behind the grille, and it looked like a real mess.

This is an early photo of the passenger side DRL mount.  You can see wires dangling over the side. This is not the first GTM to have DRLs.

Fortunately, I have wiring diagrams worked out for these circuits. In addition, I have a spreadsheet in my master build document that goes into detail about each circuit. I will be sending this spread sheet along with my next order to ISIS Power for the remaining power cells, motion cell and master cell coder. This is because I need ISIS to prep a file that can be downloaded into the master cell for my specific circuit set up. With five power cells, I am pushing 50 circuits - there's a lot going on in the car.

This Gen I GTM in Poland mounted the DRLs above the front grille. I am finding that this area is very busy. I use the upper lip of the front grill to manage the cross connection between head lights, hazards, fog lights. I'm not sure I would want to add the DRLs there. I corresponded with this builder, and asked him about the DRLs. As in every case, GTM builders are quite happy to share their knowledge.

This is half a terminal block. Easily cut with a hack saw.

The DRLs were cut into the body to the left and right lower corners of the grille opening. The fiber glass is very thick in this area, and it is tough going. The wires coming off the DRLs is 22 gauge (not the easiest stuff to work with). Initially, I thought I would create some kind of socket to plug these into, but since I plan to add Angel Eyes around the head lights into the DRL circuit, the idea of some kind og 6 way splice become unmanageable.

I daisy chain the terminal block to create a single circuit. Then I just need a single to power or ground.

Over May and June, I worked on the Intellitronix Dash for the cockkpit. One of the techniques I used here were terminal blocks. Now six way splices are easy. The white plastic terminal blocks are very easy to customize. They come in strips of twelve connections and the strip can be cut apart with a hack saw. I need six connectors for the ground and six connectors for the power leads. That is: 2 x DRLs, 4 x Angel Eyes.

These are the power and ground terminal blocks for the DRLs. The green wire is from Power Cell #1, Circuit 8. The black ground lead hasn't been connected in this photo. The terminals were bonded to the hood using 3M 8115 panel bond.

Note: Angel Eyes cannot be installed after final paint is complete. This is probably 12 to 14 months in the future (and it could slip to Spring 2015). However, the Angel Eyes need a place to connect, so I AM building that now.

The hood mounting is problematic due to the variables associated with centering vis-a-vis the rest of the car.. I explain to people that there are 100 ways to mount the hood, and I settled on the 101st position. I have made the decision that hood will remain attached to the car and it will need to be painted in place. Everything else can be removed. To this point, a great number of things have been permanently mounted (e.g. lights, signals, parking sensors) and the wiring associated with these peripherals.

I mounted the terminal blocks above the front grille opening on the interior of the hood. This is convenient, because most of the wires can run directly to these terminal blocks. The ground is to the chassis area that supports the AC condenser, radiator and fan assembly. The power lead runs to Power cell #1 and is enclosed in wire loom. I made sure I left enough slack in the wires so the hood can open and close without pulling something loose.

Intellitronix Terminal Block

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Major System Category: Electronics
Task: Wire terminal blocks
Parts: Terminal Blocks
Prerequisite Tasks: N/A
Additional Costs: $12
Time Requirement: 3 hours
Date Started: May 19, 2013
Date Completed: May 19, 2013

There are close to 30 wires coming out of the back of the instrument cluster. I had focused exclusively on getting the cluster built that I did not consider what came next. Obviously there is some order to all these wires, I just need to read the instructions that come with the kit to figure where everything goes.

Lots of wires in a bunch of different colors, but they all mean something. Once you understand the meanings, then the  pattern becomes clear and the solution is obvious.

Fortunately for me, this is not Intellitronix first shot at wiring instrument clusters together. There are basically five groups of wires:

1. Ground (black)
2. Power (red)
3. Dimmer circuit (purple)
4. Indicators (various colors)
5. Sending units (various colors)

The solution is something called daisy chaining (at least that's what it was called 30 years ago). I purchased this terminal block from Radio Shack. I then wired each terminal to the next terminal. This means that a single lead can be run to a grounding point for all wires running in the bottom side of this terminal block. Since these are grounds, i wasn't worried about something arcing over.

There are 9 ground wires, 9 power wires (these can segregated into two groups) and 6 dimmer wires. The ground wires are obvious. They need to be ground to the chassis, but ganging 9 ground wires to a single grounding point is unmanageable. Similarly  there are 9 power wires. The six attached to the gauge cluster need to be run to the ignition. There is not enough room on the ignition terminal to run another 6 wires. Finally, the dimmer wires need to be spliced into the head light switch (oops).

This is an insulated terminal block. I used this type of block for everything except the grounds. I daisy chained this block and the one for the dimmer circuit. That way I only had to run 1 lead to each source. This is a much more manageable arrangement.

I purchased three terminal blocks from Radio Shack. For the grounds I could go with an open terminal block. For anything related to positive current, I opted for an insulated terminal block. I discovered I could cut apart the insulated terminal blocks. So I fabricated 2 six wire, 1 five wire and 1 three wire blocks.

From left to right, the dimmer, ground and power terminal blocks. The leads coming in from the top come from each gauge. Plus the ground terminal block also received leads from the signal and high beam indicators. Before I mounted these for real, I clamped everything to my test battery. As long as the gauges lit up, it means my terminal blocks are working properly.

The Factory Five carbon fiber back board curves in. this provides a shelf where the terminal blocks can be mounted. I mounted the terminal blocks using 3M double side tape. I had wire for the power and ground leads, but nothing for the dimmer block. I know I have some wire at the Northern Man Cave, so I'll take care of that when I get back.

The top three wires are leads from the GTM kit supplied indicator lights. The bottom wires are leads from the speedo gauge. Since I have a terminal block, it should be fairly easy to run these leads into the steering column circuit. I probably am going to need another terminal block to handle signals coming from the front and rear of the car.

The speedo gauge has two white wires and a brown wire. The instructions says that the white wires are labeled on the gauge printed circuit board as left and right. In agate-agate you can barely make out something that looks like right. The left and right white wires are connected to the respective turn signals. The brown wire is connected to the high beam indicator. Somewhere along the line these have to be wired into the switch on the steering column. 

Sending unit terminal block.

The final terminal block is for sending units. These connect as follows:

1. Green - Connects to the ignition coil or the direct tach output lead.
2. Blue - Connects to the water temperature sending unit.
3. Gray - Connects to the mechanical speedometer cable.
4. Yellow - Connects to the fuel sending unit.
5. Orange - Connects to the oil pressure sending unit.

Terminal block set up on the back side of the instrumentation cluster. This certainly makes  a lot more sense.