How to Wire LS SWAP OBD Connector + Check Engine Light - UTX

welcome back to ugly truck okay so somehow we've done two whole LS swaps on this channel and we've never shown you the OBD port and the check engine light so that's what we're gonna do today so let's get started okay so like like Emily said uh today we're gonna wire up the aldl connector that's what I call them uh they have a lot of different names the most common name for them right now is OBD2 connector yeah right back in the 80s uh cars started coming out with computers and uh the plug didn't look the same as this each manufacturer had kind of their own little system uh they were all kind of a nightmare and you had to have a tool for each one of them whatever you're going to work on okay so uh somewhere in the early 90s I think somebody said hey we better figure this out quick because things are changing fast and these people can't work on their cars so somebody said we're going to come up with a connector that we all have to follow the standards on and that was an OBD2 connector so everybody's a little scan tools and checkers and they will plug into this one and unless you're a really weird company the computer will read almost everything yeah but there there are some that hold out that that they run off of a different thing they're a real nightmare I'm not saying Audi okay but they just have to be different yeah but for the most part these things kind of really helped us out because it gave us the ability to buy one scan tool plugged into it and uh do a lot with just that one port and uh made things a lot easier okay and it's super important when you do like a LS swap you want to be able to take a look at that engine and see what it's doing on top of that the check engine light okay the other thing that's what came out is the same time as these when something went wrong with your engine computer would sense it and turn the check engine light on yeah most of them were yellow or orange we're going to use a blue one it's easier on the eyes that's right yeah so uh the Middle Light uh that's how I refer to them a check engine light so it has a lot of different names also Mill stands for uh do you want to say it malfunction indicator lamp yes yeah I'm so proud of you I learned I learned something I can just go home though so the Middle Light is a check engine light okay uh what does it do uh what it does on the ls swap is when we turn the key on it's going to do a bulb check so you know that the actual light works okay and then hopefully it shuts off and you drive down the road and until that computer senses something outside of its normal parameters uh it won't set a a check engine light or check engine code and turn that light on so you know something is wrong okay okay uh when we finish putting the 5.3 in this truck it never had a check engine light on it at all I used to check it with a scan tool periodically it had no codes in it yep we put a 5.3 in this thing we and I had the computer reprogrammed took it for a drive came back check engine light um on when I checked it with a scanner yeah it had a code in it for uh lean on both both Banks yep uh power brake booster was leaking yep okay so and it didn't do it two weeks before when we had taken that engine out or or when we had driven it last so you know in that amount of time that was enough for something to go wrong and you certainly don't want to be cruising around with your check check engine light up or with a lean condition yeah for sure hook up so we're going to show you today how to do it so what you're going to need a connector uh you can buy these brand new okay I take them out of the trucks that we pull the motors out other than that but but you can buy the the LDL connectors brand new now I see sweet okay it doesn't take much at all it actually only takes three wires to make this thing work but it's got two grounds and that's what I mean by three it is you know there's four wires total but it doesn't go in the same place yeah so well they are they're going to for us okay so uh then you've got a your orange wire which is just a power wire that's hot at all times and you have a purple wire that is the data link connector yeah okay it's the important one right yeah another thing too yeah data data link when I say a data link connector uh this communicates uh between your ECM and your scan tool or yeah whatever uh it doesn't carry 12 volts it does it's not a ground or anything like that it's just a wire that talks computer language between this and the ECM okay I think when we did the air conditioning one I think I didn't mention what a data connector really does you know and whatever it does it's magic like I've said before if we haven't had these since Roswell Roswell yeah yeah so right after Roswell oh data Lane connectors up I'm not saying anything what do you think you agree do you agree with me oh I didn't I don't want to say it for sure um without my tinfoil hat on okay and then you'll need some kind of a light this one's a little LED one uh but um you can use whatever you know a little 12 volt one no problem they don't carry it's something that just doesn't carry a lot of amperage so you don't have to worry about burning out plus a lot of them are just on all the time so you don't want the whole truck illuminated exactly take that into account yeah how good your engine runs yeah it's a check engine light it's not a it's not a dome lamp no okay all right so what we're gonna do is we're gonna start wiring it from the inside of the truck out and then we'll terminate everything inside the engine compartment on the truck okay cool I don't have the exact wires that we need but we do have similar okay cool excuse me all right all right let's get the Whiteboard fired up yeah okay so uh like what we normally do we're gonna uh start off with something and we'll we'll finish that part okay and what we'll start with we'll do the yeah we'll start off with the Aldo connector okay okay so let's um let's start with the ground first uh it the aldf connector they have a pin four and five uh I just tied the two together and uh go to ground okay and the ground's gonna be outside of the truck uh up by the lug where the computer's grounded and that's just the way I like to do it okay so let's do that oh I'm gonna use a my largest black wire that I have it's it doesn't need that that to be that big but that's what I'm gonna do okay um and then what we'll do is we'll do all the wires that um oh I think we won't do that we'll just for the video sake we'll leave them outside just to wire it up you know what I mean leave the plug on the outside yeah I mean I can cut three wires later on oh okay oh what's up I'm gonna use uh some solder butt connectors on all these yeah he said but I can always get you with that one yeah all right so we do have an orange wire uh the orange wire is the power uh coming into the LDL connector uh the only reason you run power to the LDL connector is it's just for your scan tool there's nothing going on that you need power for oh it's it's a nice place to use it when you're under a dash and you need some power oh yeah just to steal some for a second while you're looking at something but uh oh yeah but otherwise did you not um it does not need power except for something to power up the scan tool and that's what that power is for okay okay and that's why it's hot at all times okay all right what we also need power for is uh our light bulb or Mill light okay or check engine light oops sorry bad my wires sorry I broke your wire um so the check engine light I'm also going to get power off of this one too okay okay all right and uh it sits down right right next to the the LDL connector so I just put it right next to it [Music] okay oh your hair dryer okay so the orange wire that's going to supply power uh to the aldeal Aldo connector uh OBD Port whatever and it's also going to supply power for your uh check engine light okay cool which will be mounted under the dash somewhere where you can't see it yeah okay all right so so basically we've got the ground kind of done we've got it to where it's going to go out of the firewall we'll have to terminate it out there we've got the orange wire done and we have this wire going to the check engine light okay okay uh the computer it just grounds the check engine light this is a connector right here okay we put a connector showing that the wire colors changed a little bit through it but um so what turns this uh check engine light on is the PCM grounding it out okay so that's why it only needs power going to it at all times and the PCM is the only thing it's going to turn that light on okay okay so let's do the let's add the length to the the purple wire okay I'm gonna use red because I don't have purple okay purple water um and that will be the data wire okay smart wire yep uh and for some reason when you look this this is a wiring dot or this uh engine is out of a 2005 or 2004 Tahoe two-wheel drive um and most all these ls's were pretty much the same all the ones I've messed with but they start out as purple as a data connector at the data connector and then they end up being green at the PCM okay not that one so [Music] um all right so there's the majority of wires that are going through our firewall okay okay we need to add a little bit of length to the end of the mill light uh which will be this wire here uh it's brown um on the wiring diagram on a 2004 Tahoe and it's gonna run up to this connector okay okay so we just got to add some length to it and of course I don't have a brown wire in a perfect world I would have every color wire think so every color every size we have every color a marker now yeah it's true and the reason I'm using black anyway is because it is just a source of ground so that's easy for me to remember look good sweet all right okay all right so I'm gonna I'm gonna mount my um check engine light up close to it so for now I'm just gonna zip tie that together all right okay um just to keep it up there bye and then all of our our wire legs um we know we can come down that should be more than enough to get me out to the fuse panel right I would think so good okay our large wire there that's a ground for the Aldo connector cool okay so I'm just going to cut these off I'm going to leave my length on that one because it has to go past the battery and come all the way up to the firewall uh ground connection cool good so that's it for everything that's in the truck we got the check engine light metal light right there uh we've got a total of one two three four five oh no we don't have five comes through the firewall two of those are grounds okay all right so we only have four that are coming through the firewall because I I just connected those two grounds together all right okay so let's we're just gonna pretend that uh we're gonna run this through the firewall right now just for learning cyclists let's do it this way okay all right so where do we got to do this uh we gotta come through the firewall we have to connect our ground which uh will probably do last uh let's do the one that would be the most complicated one and put uh the power one that is in the the outside fuse box okay okay uh it's in connector one uh position F7 and the connector okay it was orange and it is hot at all times okay so that's what we'll do I already uh disconnected the uh this this lug from it so I could flip the box over because we're gonna have to get uh connector number one out of here and the battery is disconnected too yeah um the negative on the battery is disconnected so I could fold this over and work on it okay cool uh the wire that we're going to run is um on this one it used to go to the instrument panel to supply power to the instrument panel but now we're going to use that fuse to just run um the OBD2 connector and the check engine light okay cool and it says that it's positioned uh F7 and connector one which is the white one so what we got to do is go to that connector number one and add a wire into F7 and hopefully when you took all this stuff apart you saved a bunch of those wires yeah okay uh also one two three four five six seven oh oh no okay that's not that wouldn't be right so I'm looking at it uh the right side okay all right yeah look at it the way I'm used to looking at it one two three four five six seven okay that one okay okay so I would have been one off if I had counted over from the back backwards okay right and there bro uh one two three four five six seven okay okay so I'll just confuse it tabs back in all right so now this is the last time today that I'm gonna have to pull connect your number one out we also got this 5.3 put in after taking a 4-8 up and the O2 sensors are different for some reason and we ended up putting new O2 sensors in it yeah that was fun okay so following along with my wire colors I did use an orange one it starts off orange and we're ending it off Orange so that's strange for us to keep with the same wire colors we'll have to add the fuse back to this fuse box yeah don't forget that part it works better when you put a fuse in it foreign [Music] [Applause] going to the light and the connector the Aldo connector is done okay yay all right so two more wires and that's it right we're done in the Box okay none of the other oh no oh come on there are none of the other connectors that go um or none of the other wires that go to a connector underneath the box so let's hook it back up [Music] all right so uh the data connector uh this one comes out of pin number two on the OBD2 connector it comes out of the connector is purple but it goes and it meets up at the PCM with a green wire and it's this connector hopefully like if you still have the um oh if you're working on that vehicle it has light green tape on it but this one supplies just about everything that I need okay yeah that's the data connector right there uh on this one we're using a plug uh to go to it so you can undo it we can make the wires look nicer but if you didn't have that plug you could come back here and grab that green wire cut it and then um use that you know of course yeah without the connector right yep and then uh while we're here just by chance right next to it okay it's a brown and white wire and the brown with a white striped wire on this connector uh it is the one that grounds out the check engine light or the mill light okay and so far on all of them I've messed with that has always been the same okay but just like anything else very important uh double check all that stuff yep for whatever gear you're working on that all right so so basically a purple wire that come out of there I didn't have a purple wire like I said but I'm going to use a red wire okay that's my data water okay and someday we'll maybe add air conditioning to this and we'll have to tie onto this one you know you don't want to get too fancy highfalutin air conditioning and all all right so a data connector you want a good connection that's for sure [Music] oh it looks soldering to me okay so we're gonna stop okay stop all right so the last wire is the wire that comes from the check engine light and it goes to the PCM and the wiring diagram it's a brown wire with a white stripe it goes to this connector like I just said um and then from here it goes down to the PCM and the PCM is what grounds that wire cool okay and this is also why I don't just get rid of all those wires when I'm done doing something yeah I time up and then someday when we know that we're really done with the truck then I'll you know I could fix that but I still have that wire here that I don't have to add it to that connector still and all we got to do is connect this wire to that light bulb wire [Music] water so that is all the wires that we need to do that except for the ground one yeah good and uh the check engine light does not need like if we didn't run this one okay if I turn the key on right now it'll come on for a couple seconds because like I said the PCMS it's uh grab okay when you turn the key yep yep so there you go watch that I'm gonna turn the key on for a second and if if we've done a good job that'll light up for a couple seconds cool oh it's so pretty still up yeah all right so I'll start the truck and then it'll go off cool orca huh so if it hadn't gone off um that would have meant that something had turned the check engine light on okay yeah it had trouble code in it or something all right so our Mill light is working yay all right oh now all I've got to do is add a ground so I gotta put an eyelid on it foreign [Music] without losing all of them my tiny hands before he's saying I got giant hands I got it good job all right so there's the ground for that uh that is all the wires that it requires to do that yeah uh should we hook up the scan tool to it and make sure it reads something yeah that'd be nice okay let's do that and uh the mccarts cool okay yeah I think Ripley's already given up yeah it's been a rough day for her yeah okay so uh the one final step I've gone through and I've taken all the fuses out of this fuse box that that it didn't need to run anything yeah um so the instrument instrument panel fuse is this one right here uh but like I said this is a 2004 Chevy Tahoe um check for whatever you're working on okay yeah because these did change a little bit uh but for the most part all the Gen 3 and Gen 4 um LS stuff but was real similar yeah but you do have to double check yeah okay General Motors was great about kind of keeping with the same stuff yeah but yeah but I never trust them I never trust that because it's real hard to figure out something after the fact yeah okay yeah so by putting that fuse in now we have power uh going to power up our um OBD connector all right on the orange wire pin number 16. so let's give it a shot see if it works okay cool um we get asked all the time what do we use this is all data okay um we also get all of our shop management equipment off of it yeah like our labor hours and all the wiring diagrams and everything so it's a monthly monthly subscription that we pay for yeah yeah but it all they also provide a scan tool that does almost everything that we need and it's just a regular 10 inch tablet and it's Bluetooth so you can just plug it in and go wherever with your tablet which is pretty cool you know but and that's the thing I know a lot of people use the little Bluetooth plugs for their data link um and then it's a scanner that goes to your phone so it really doesn't matter I guess where you put your OBD port you know as long as you can get to it and uh it is a law the disconnector has got to be within reach underneath the dash is it really yes that's why they're all in the same spot they're not no because they can't hide them that was part of the obj oh they try to hide two stuff oh yeah they do the best they can to hide them they put a little cover on it and shove it up in the corner and yeah I don't think anybody's gonna come after me we should mount it on the roof all right so it's working yeah it's got a signal uh now turn the key on uh turn the key on because all the other stuff won't the computer will fire up and talk to your scan tool until you've done that so uh reads the VIN number what is this thing a Beretta uh no I don't think a Caprice Classic oh HHR I'm gonna wish yeah this is a Silverado all right and that's the it shows the VIN number and everything that this truck was tuned for basically okay and let's do enhanced powertrain okay oh no codes yay gotta love that yeah yeah all right so it's gonna do everything that we needed to do so that's it we've got a LDL connector yay all right and a check engine light yeah juice doesn't eat it okay so I realized that this isn't where the connector goes but I will pull these pins out of here I'll run it through the firewall and we'll make it look nice run through a wire loom yeah attach that underneath the dash of the truck okay all right all right and the wire the little uh the little check engine light okay yep all right so that's it excellent okay so there you go aldl OBD2 data link diagnostic port whatever you want to call it but it's a pretty important thing so you know what else is important make sure you subscribe yes I like that if you'd like to check out some of our merch you can go over to our Channel page and click on the shopping tab we got all kinds of cool stuff but we appreciate you guys watching and we will catch you next time foreign [Music] [Laughter] [Music] people love dogs yeah yeah it's like a

Channel: Ugly Truck Experience

Views: 46,124

Keywords: ls swap, 5.3 ls, how to ls swap, ls swap wiring, ls wiring, obd port, obd2, obdii, aldl connector, dlc, data link connector, ls swap data link, ls swap obd, ls swap check engine light, check engine light, mil, mil light, mil lamp, cel, easy ls swap, easiest way to wire ls swap, how to wire ls swap, ls swap wiring diagram, ls swap check engine light wiring, ugly truck garage

Id: PI1_gO7sz9k

Length: 34min 13sec (2053 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 23 2022