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Example of an IDIDIT steering column with turn signal stalk.

Steering Column

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Let’s get to the steering column wiring.  This is the next installment the process of wiring our 20-Circuit Kit into a 1967 Mustang.  One of our customers sent us a great series of pictures showing their process of wiring their car.  It’s time to talk about turn-signal switches, horn switches and 4-way switches.

Our customer is using a steering column kit from IDIDIT.  The one they chose is for the 1967 to 1969 Mustang.  It is a tilt-style column designed for the shifter on the floor.  They choose the option to have the GM steering column connector on the harness.  This column also has the Tilt Lever Momentary Switch 510168 option.  We are going to use that to control the high-beams and will discuss that in the next blog post.  It also has the ignition key built into it.  We’ll talk about wiring that in future posts too.

The steering column in the car does a few obvious things.  It holds the steering wheel and lets you turn the car.  It also holds the switches for the turn-signals, the horn and the 4-way flasher.  All of those switches will wire to the inputs on your MASTERCELL.  The MASTERCELL will send commands to the different POWERCELLs in the car to turn lights on and off plus sound the horn.  Wiring the switches to the MASTERCELL is really easy.  There is a diagram on our website that shows how to do this.  You can see it here.

Image of wiring diagram showing how to connect MASTERCELL inputs to a GM-Style Steering Column Connector

Image of wiring diagram showing how to connect MASTERCELL inputs to a GM-Style Steering Column Connector

Note that most steering column manufacturers use the GM-style turn-signal switch.  These have been used in cars for years with very few changes.  Companies like IDIDIT and Flaming River use this exact same column switch.  The diagram above will work for any of these columns.

The wires colors for the steering column connector are shown on the left side of the wiring diagram above.  We also show the details of the connector.  Almost all of the wires in the column connector need to connect to MASTERCELL input wires.  The two that are unused are the yellow and green wires on the column connector.  Check the configuration sheet that came with your kit.  You want to match the wire function to the wires on the right of the diagram, not necessarily the wire color.  Wire colors may vary from different kits.  Always use your configuration sheet for the right wire colors.

The black wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL horn input wire.  In our configuration this is the blue wire with the yellow tracer on the A input harness.  This is input number 9.

The light blue wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL input for the left turn signal.  We’re using the inputs for mechanical steering column.  In our configuration this is the yellow wire with the black tracer on the A input harness.  This is input 11.

The dark blue wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL input for the right turn signal.  We’re using the inputs for mechanical steering column.  In our configuration this is the yellow wire with the red tracer on the A input harness.  This is input 12.

The brown wire on the column connector needs to connect to your MASTERCELL input for the 4-way slashers.  In our configuration this is the yellow wire with the blue tracer on the A input harness.  This is input 13.

Lastly, the purple and white wires on the column connector needs to be connected to ground.  You can use the black wires in the MASTERCELL harness as a ground reference.  Otherwise, you can connect these wires to the chassis at the column.

One more comment, you need to properly ground the column to the chassis.  Otherwise, you will have problems with your horn switch.  In most cases, the column will ground to the frame of the car through its mounts but you will not get a good ground if you have the column shaft painted or powder coated.  The same is true if you have a fiberglass body.  Run a ground wire from a stationary point on the column to the frame of the car.  Make sure that you have a metal-to-metal connection between your ground wire and the points where they connect to the column and the chassis.

You can splice the MASTERCELL input wires directly to the wires on the steering column connector.  Alternately, IDIDIT sells a connector kit with the terminals included to crimp onto the MASTERCELL input wires.  Using this connector makes it very easy to maintain and service your column in the future.

That’s about it for wiring the turn-signal switches, the 4-way switch and the horn switch.  This connection to your MASTERCELL is simple and easy.  You can download a PDF copy of the MASTERCELL input wiring diagram by clicking this link.

You can contact a member of our team with questions by clicking this link and filling out our contact form.  Stay tuned for more updates on the wiring of this 1967 Mustang.

 

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Horn

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This is a really easy one.  It’s time to wire the horn on this 1967 Mustang project.  This post is going to talk about how to connect the horn output on the POWERCELL to the terminals on the horn.  It is pretty straight forward.

There is a dedicated output in your 10 or 20-Circuit Wiring Kit for the horn.  In the standard front-engine configuration, it is the orange wire on the front POWERCELL.  This is output 9 on the A connector.  Check the configuration sheet that came with your kit to verify this output.  When the MASTERCELL sees the horn input wire grounded, it sends a command to the front POWERCELL to turn the horn output on.  This applies battery voltage to the horn which makes it sound.  When the horn button is released, the MASTERCELL sees the input wire come off of ground.  The MASTERCELL sends a command to the POWERCELL to turn the horn output off.  Pretty simple.

You are going to run the horn output from your front POWERCELL to the horn mounted in the car.  Most horns have two terminals on them.  One is the switched battery power.  The other is ground.  This picture shows an example horn.  This is the Wolo 315-2T.  The 2T stands for two terminal.

Example of a Wolo Horn

Example of a Wolo Horn

You can see the two terminals in the upper right of the picture.

Most horn terminals are 1/4″ male Quick-Disconnect connectors.  You simply strip the POWERCELL output wire and crimp on a female Quick-Disconnect connector.  Some companies refer to these terminals as Push-On.  Others call them Fast-On terminals.  This picture shows an example of these terminals.

Fast-on female terminal

Fast-on female terminal

You can source these terminals from companies like Del City or Waytek Wire.  Make sure that you are getting the right width of terminal.  You also have to make sure that the terminal is the correct size for the gauge of wire.  Our POWERCELL outputs use 14-AWG wire.  Terminals to mate with 14-16 Gauge wire are usually blue.  Pink or Red terminals are usually for 18-22 Gauge wire.  We recommend using these insulated crimp connectors.  You can use un-insulated terminals but we suggest applying heat-shrink tubing over the terminal to insulate the joint.  You do not want to risk the terminal connected to the POWERCELL output accidentally touching the chassis.

Also, make sure that you are using the correct tool to make this crimp.  As noted in other blog posts, you want to stay away from Radio Shack and Home Depot for car wiring.  This includes for tools.  Also, don’t just use a pair of pliers to crimp these terminals.  A good crimp tool is an important investment and will save you problems down the road.  This link will take you to a good quality crimp tool for these types of connectors.

The other of the two terminals on the horn needs to go to ground.  There is no polarity on a horn so you can connect the POWERCELL output and the ground wire to either of the two terminals.  Use the same Quick-Disconnect connector that you did for the POWERCELL output to connect the ground.  Remember that the size of the ground wire should be the same as the size of the wire feeding the horn.  That is good practice for any electrical connection.  On the other side of the ground wire, crimp on a ring terminal and use a bolt to attach this to the chassis.  Make sure that you have a good, metal-to-metal connection from your ground wire ring terminal to the chassis.  You must remove all dirt, rust, paint, powder coating, oil and grease from the connection.

The example that we used above was for a two-terminal horn.  You connected the POWERCELL output to one of the terminals on the horn.  The other connected to ground.  There are some horns that only have a single terminal on them.  That terminal connects to the POWERCELL output.  The horn grounds to the chassis through its mounting bracket.  The same rules for grounding apply.  You must have a clean metal-to-metal connection between the horn bracket and the chassis.

That’s it for this one.  We’ll talk about wiring the MASTERCELL input wires in upcoming posts.  If you have questions or comments about this post or any of the other steps in wiring this 1967 Mustang, please click on this link to contact our team.

Infinitybox System Benefits

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We got an email from a customer who is wiring their Factory Five 1933 Hot Rod with our Infinitybox 20-Circuit system and inMOTION.  He had two question that were very easy for us to answer.  After answering them, we realized that they highlighted two of the most important advantages of the Infinitybox system and we thought that they were worth blogging about.

First, he wanted to use a large air-horn to replace the squeaky anemic one that he originally had in the car.  The new horn came with a harness that included a relay and fuse holder.  His first question was whether or not he could wire the POWERCELL output to the horn directly and eliminate the harness that came with the horn kit.  The answer is yes.  The POWERCELL incorporates the relay and fusing functions all in one box.  As we’ve blogged about before, we don’t use electromechanical relays, we use solid-state devices called MOSFETs.  Each of our POWERCELL outputs are designed to carry up to 25-amps continuously.  Since the harness that came with the horn had a 20-amp fuse in it, he could easily power the horn directly from the POWERCELL.  This eliminated all of the extra parts that came with the horn.  The same would be true for fuel-pump harnesses, cooling fans and many other electrical add-on accessories.  The POWERCELL eliminates the need for external relays and fuse holders.

The second question was related to adding a new electrical accessory to his car.  He has most of the car completely wired with our Infinitybox 20-circuit harness.  He has all of the CAN cables run, the POWERCELL power feeds are connected to the battery, the MASTERCELL inputs are wired to the switches and he has the POWERCELL outputs connected to his loads.  He has everything loomed up and it looks really good.

He jus realized that he wanted to add a linear actuator to drive his emergency brake.  His question was whether or not he could use an open pair of outputs from inMOTION to drive this actuator forward and back.  The answer is yes and look at what it saved him.

  1. Just like the horn above, he can drive the actuator directly from the inMOTION cell.  inMOTION reverses polarity internally so that means that he can eliminate the relays that came with the kit for the actuator.  It also means that he can use any switch to engage or disengage his emergency brakes.  A single input on the MASTERCELL engages and another disengages.  This means that he doesn’t need to use any special switches to change direction of the actuator.
  2. More importantly, he can leverage the existing system that he has in the car.  As long as he has open outputs on a POWERCELL or an inMOTION cell, he can easily wire them to his added accessory without having to run more wire through the car.  Since he’s pretty much done with the wiring, this saved him tons of time fishing additional wires through the car.  He simply connected the outputs from inMOTION to the linear actuator and connected the corresponding MASTERCELL inputs to his switches, and he was done.  He didn’t even need to update his code.

We hope that these two simple examples highlight some of the benefits of our Infinitybox system and show how our system stands out against traditional wiring harnesses.

If you want to learn more about how the Infinitybox system can help you wire your car, give us a call at (847) 232-1991 or email us at sales@infinitybox.com.  Click this link to contact our team directly.