Wiring Sgt. Rock - Auto Wiring That's Painless! - Stacey David's Gearz S10 E8

[Music] ah [Music] now you're watching gears brought to you by o'reilly auto parts better parts better prices every day hey welcome to gears you know there are certain aspects to building a cool car truck that everybody likes to do like an engine swap or putting on a supercharger or a turbo or slapping on a cool set of wheels that's awesome they're swapping out body panels these are some of the most popular modifications because they're fairly simple and easy to do and they make a big difference in the look or the performance of a vehicle then there are those projects that aren't quite so popular like interior work and paint and body work because a lot of times those take special skills and special tools that the average person may not have but still most people are willing to at least try it with the right persuasion what you do is you push the foam in just mash it down smash the foam man look at that [Music] okay i'm done you know something oh we're just getting started except for that you're fired you probably won't see it i mean it's on the bottom side but still he's fired and then there are the things that nobody seems to want to do like wiring because it's tedious it's time-consuming and frankly most people are kind of afraid of it they just know that if they screw it up they can burn their vehicle to the ground so they don't mess with it they leave the old crusty wiring in place and keep their fingers crossed or they take the vehicle down to a shop and spend a lot of money to have somebody do it for them neither one of these is your best option your best choice is to do it yourself so today we're going to show you that it's possible for you to wire your own project okay first things first it doesn't matter if you're rewiring something back original if you're doing wiring modifications on a hot rod project or if you're completely rewiring something from the ground up there are three main goals that you have to keep in mind with any wiring project number one it's got to work so you have to wire it up correctly number two it's got to be serviceable that way if a component or a relay goes out you can get in there and you can replace it number three it's got to look good that means you either need to hide the wiring or route it in such a way to where it looks nice and clean and sanitary all right but those three rules in mind let's take a look at a wiring project this is what a typical wiring project can look like and the main reason that most people run from them like the plague because they can be intimidating especially if you're going to use a lot of aftermarket parts like we do but the key here is to take your time and plan plan plan things out so you don't run into a bunch of surprises now the first thing that any wiring project starts with is a wiring harness and it's important when you pick a harness that you pick something that has enough circuits to run everything you plan on putting on your vehicle if you're going to run power door locks power windows power antenna lights whatever you need to get a wiring harness that's going to run all that for example on the sergeant rock project we're going to use this painless universal street rod harness it's 18 circuits which is plenty to run all the stuff that we're going to put on this truck now the first thing you'll want to do is lay out the harness on a table or on the floor and spend some time planning out where everything is going to go and how you're going to run the wires through the vehicle it's obviously the section that goes to the back of the vehicle now these painless harnesses come with all the different sections already separated for you so all you really have to do is make whatever changes or modifications your vehicle and your accessories are going to require the more time you spend here the more professional and finished the wiring is going to look and the quicker it's going to go in this way you know exactly what section you're looking at here so you don't have to look and try to read the wires up under the dash now once in a while these will be routed in a different way so you'll have to pull one wire from one section and move it to another if you're going to run for example on the brake switch usually goes out under the hood my brake switches down under the floor so i'm going to reroute my brake switch wires to the loom that goes to the back of the vehicle instead of to the front with the harness laid out and set aside the battery location needs to be established since that will affect how the harness will be run on a project like sergeant rock we're going to be running twin batteries in the bed one on either side of the fuel tank and then we're going to run the cables down through the floor just like we're doing with the fuel lines the painless dual battery control is mounted on the frame under the bed and a master cutoff switch is wired in for safety if we ever need to cut power to the vehicle a heavy gauge positive battery cable was then run forward to a junction block in the front of the truck to supply power to the winch and the starter and whatever else we may need up here all right with it all laid out we're ready to put the harness in the vehicle and that starts by mounting your fuse panel now a lot of people put them under the dash they put them in the kick panels but painless leaves the wires long enough where you can pretty much mount these wherever you want just make sure you don't forget your last two points needs to look good and it needs to be serviceable for example you can see we had a perfect spot here right above our steering column because it's out of the way but it's still easily accessible [Music] hey welcome back to gears where we are dealing with the one thing that most people don't want to mess with wiring because without good wiring your project stays in the garage now ideally you don't want to have to wire a vehicle you have to be part spider monkey to crawl around but it doesn't matter if your vehicle is big or small under the skin the wiring is pretty much all the same if you can wire one you can wire the other that's how come you have to know how to do it now so far we laid out our new painless wiring harness got the battery boxes situated and wired where they're going to be then we mounted the fuse panel under the dash now we're ready to start running some wires now like i said before the painless harnesses come separated into sections and it really doesn't matter which section you do first you just need to go slow and do them one at a time now we are going to start with our engine section which means we're going to run wires to our engine sending units the alternator the air conditioning compressor the starter that kind of thing now the best approach is to route your wires first and then cut them to the proper length [Music] now any wires you won't be using like for an electric choke should be cut and capped so they're out of the way but they're still there if you ever decide to use them once the wires are trimmed and routed finish it up by putting on a protective cover like this painless classic braid then connect everything make sure you use some clamps to hold the wiring in place so it doesn't flop all over once again the more time you spend here on the details the better it's going to look [Music] okay with the engine wired up we're going to move on to the headlights once again it's just a matter of separating the wires and running them to the proper place now obviously we need to wire left and right here because we have two different turn signals two different headlights two different marker lights we've got a lot of junk going on up here now for turn signals it's marked very clearly right on the wire left and right for the headlights painless already splits the wire for you but before you just grab one to start wiring it you need to stretch it out because as you'll notice one of these is considerably shorter than the other the short one goes to the headlight on the same side as the wiring harness if you get it mixed up you may not have enough wire to reach the other headlight [Music] once the wires are routed cut them to length and crimp the ends on put on the protective cover [Music] and clamp them in place [Music] [Music] the tail section is next and it lays out just like the front you've got individual wires for the tail lights then you have wires for the fuel pump dome light power antenna license plate light all kinds of stuff some of which we'll use some we're not going to use now obviously i'm not going to run the wire over the tire i'm going to put it inside the frame rail and bring it up into the bed once i get it all laid out now one thing to remember when you're doing a wiring job especially on a pickup you need to run individual grounds for the bed the cab and the front of the truck because since they're separate you can't just run one ground and expect it to work also don't expect your motor mounts your body mounts or your bed mounts to be a proper ground you need to add an extra grounding strap especially if you run a fuel injection or a lot of accessories [Music] hey welcome back to gears where we are going through the steps of what it takes to wire a vehicle top to bottom using an after-market wiring harness now it doesn't matter if you're rewiring a vehicle or if you're completely doing something from the ground up you need to know how to do this because you will use this skill now so far we have the wiring harness installed we have the engine wired up the headlights the taillights that leaves one thing the dash now the approach to interior wiring is similar to what you've already done on the vehicle as you can see the harness is already separated into a whole bunch of different sections there's a section for the headlights for the gauges for the ignition switch all of your accessories like air conditioning dimmer switch turn signals it's all here now i know this looks like a lot of wires and it is but just like you did with the engine with the front of the vehicle and in the rear you start by separating the sections then route the wires to the proper place cut them to length [Music] crimp on the ends and connect everything up [Music] power door locks power windows i'm going to be using those at least not on this truck just as you did before use the wires that you need and cut and cap the ones that you don't this will keep the harness organized with no unused wires cluttering things up but they'll still be there just in case you eventually want to use them now at this point you can see how important it is to have already laid out your gauges and switches so you know where everything's gonna go and all you have to do now is just hook it up if you don't plan ahead like this you end up having to do it now and it's really easy to overlook or forget something when you have wires running all over the place once again planning is a huge part of a successful wiring job [Music] [Music] another important thing to remember when you're wiring things up is to keep an accurate record in your planning book of all the parts and all the components that you've used that way you don't forget what you've done and you'll be able to service them and repair them down the road all right i got vintage air painless derailleur earls okay with everything hooked up you are ready for that moment when you put in a battery and test the system [Music] [Music] and that's really about all there is to wiring a vehicle all you have to do is take your time follow where the wires tell you to go consult the diagram if you get lost or have a question and make it look good and if you do this pretty soon you're going to be all wired up and ready to go on to the next project now quick tip brought to you by e3 spark plugs born to burn [Music] you know one question that comes up a lot when you're dealing with wiring is how do you get those cool crimped ends like come from the factory that won't pull off when you go to disconnect the wire well the trick is using the right crimpers the right connectors and a few other tricks check it out first strip the end and give the wire a twist so all the strands are tightly wrapped together then choose a quality fitting in either bare metal or with the heat shrink already on now for bare metal you'll want to use crimper jaws that roll the metal down into the wire strands to lock them together for a fitting with heat shrink you'll want to use a crusher style jaw also having crimpers the ratchet will allow you to apply the right amount of pressure so you don't over do it and crush the fitting once you have a good crimp then finish it off by putting heat to the tubing to shrink it down and lock the joint together this will give you an extremely strong weatherproof connection that won't corrode or pull out now if you'll take the time to do your connections like this you will get years of trouble-free use out of your wiring if you'd like to learn more tips to make your life easier in the shop check out the tips page on the website [Music] and now partspin brought to you by airaid american-made quality and performance since 1992. when you are restoring a vehicle one of the most challenging things that you're going to run into is interior color because even if you can find new door panels or seat upholstery or a dash chances are they only come in black gray or tan and if you have an odd colored interior you're going to have to paint those parts even if you find them brand new so the question becomes where do you find a paint that's not going to chip or peel or flake off well you can use what the oems use you can use colorbond to check it out colorbond not only has the right formulas to match your factory colors but their paint actually bonds at a molecular level which allows it to become part of the material not just sit on top of it like conventional paint this means color bond is not going to chip or peel off over time now they not only have a complete line of colors but also the cleaners and adhesion promoters that help you get that permanent bond so if you're looking to restore or completely change the color of plastic leather vinyl carpeting fiberglass metal you name it the name says it all bond colorbond [Music] everybody knows how important the radiator and the cooling fans are to keeping the water in your engine cool but there's some other fluids that can also benefit from being cooled down the oil in your engine transmission power steering those kind of things those can benefit from these derailleur cool coolers now the big boy here has a 40 row stacked plate cooler mounted in an aluminum shroud that has an electric fan on the top that pulls 800 cfm through that cooler now size is an issue they've also got this little guy that's mounted the same way but uses twin electric fans that are very small but still pull 630 cfm this is perfect for going on a frame rail or up under the bed of a truck now of course they come with all the fittings and the thermostats that you're going to need to hook them up so you're good to go there now if you want to keep your engine or your transmission or your power steering running right you got to keep it cool the best way to do that is with a derailleur cool remote mount fluid cooler there's no doubt that most hot rodders want their car truck to be heard and for decades one of the best ways to do that was to install exhaust cutouts but cutouts could be expensive to install because of the custom exhaust work involved well patriot exhaust decided to fix that with this veriflow muffler now this is a stainless steel bullet style muffler with an electric motor mounted on the side and a butterfly valve inside so when you flip a switch the motor opens the valve and you completely bypass the muffler yeah you have an exhaust cutout built right into the muffler now since they did it this way putting this on is basically as simple as just replacing your muffler so if you've ever wanted to open your pipes and let freedom ring you must be a patriot and the patriot veriflow muffler is the best way for you to voice that freedom at six o'clock on sunday morning in front of your neighbor's house [Music] and now what are you working on brought to you by painless performance products american made american proud today's what are you working on comes from kevin o'keefe from tulsa oklahoma and his project is pretty unique because kevin is a world war ii reenactor so he wanted a world war ii vehicle that he could take to events and schools and parades and that kind of thing but he didn't want to just buy something he wanted to restore it too so about six years ago he found this yeah that is a 1943 ford m20 armored utility car now those things are really unique they're six-wheel drive he said it weighs seven tons and it is quite the project now he said just getting the vehicle was tough enough because the thing sat for 30 years but then the guy didn't want to part with it so he made him an offer and then three years later the guy calls him up says okay i'll take your offer so kevin ended up with the rig but then it sat for another three years before he had a chance to work on it but as you can see from this picture he has started to dig into the restoration and he's going to do it back all original he's not going to modify it he's not going to put a blown engine in it he's going to do it back original because he wants to keep it historic kevin that is a cool project i've always loved those vehicles man they are hard to come by make sure you keep us informed how the project's going i want to see what you're going to do with that thing now also to help you with that project we hooked up with our buddies at painless performance we're going to give you a gift certificate for 500 bucks for anything out of their catalog just load up on the stuff you're definitely going to need some wiring things on that vehicle also to help you keep track of it we're going to give you one of our project planning books so you can keep track of everything you've done to that vehicle that's going to be real important because there's some weird stuff on that truck now we're also going to give you one of our sergeant rock packages which includes the t-shirt with the nose art on it the die cast and the brass guitar pick and then we're going to give you an o'reilly gift card that will help you offset some of the cost of that project now the rest of you guys if you want to get in on this get your vehicle featured on the show you got to send it into the website go to gears nation and submit it to what are you working on we pull all of our features all of our on the road features right off the gears nation also don't forget to check us out on twitter facebook instagram all of our social media we've always got cool stuff going on there too all right that takes care of it for today i got to get back on the rock i know you got something to work on we'll see you next time [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Official Stacey David

Views: 15,977

Keywords: staceydavid, GearZ, Hot Rods, Trucks, mavtv, revntv, motortrend, sgt rock, wiring

Id: 4nlbtavdsTw

Length: 22min 31sec (1351 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 27 2022