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mt_goat · 06-12-2006, 11:50 AM

Because the swap moves the battery to the other side of the engine bay, I am upgrading the wiring that goes from the battery to the fusebox, from the fusebox to the alt, and from the battery to the body ground.

In the first case from the battery to the fusebox, this must be done since the battery is now moved 4 feet farther away. The factory wire looks to be about 8 gauge, I went with 4 gauge welding cable here (note: I am keeping a fuseable link at the battery end of this wire like the Toyota engineers do).

The factory wire from the alt to the fusebox looks to be 8 gauge too, and rather than ripping out a perfectly good 8 gauge wire (which BTW has other wires spliced into it and is neatly tucked away in a harness) I decided it would be much easier to run a 2nd 8 gauge wire parallel to it. I discovered if you take the bottom of the fusebox off you can add the 2nd wire to the screw post and that way you don't have to splice into the original wire. I did the same thing at the alt screw post:

The ground wire upgrade I have used several 8 gauge wires for redundancy.

Here's where all that comes to a head, the new battery area:

Two of those cables are for the winch, one is Roger Brown's headlight harness upgrade, one is the original harness. Hard to keep it all looking neat but at least everything is protected with flextubing. Believe it or not the overflow bottle still fits between the battery and all that wire. Anyone know if those headlights get hot enough to melt flextubing?

06-12-2006, 11:50 AM	#63 (permalink)
mt_goat Contributing Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Oklahoma State Posts: 8,916	Because the swap moves the battery to the other side of the engine bay, I am upgrading the wiring that goes from the battery to the fusebox, from the fusebox to the alt, and from the battery to the body ground. In the first case from the battery to the fusebox, this must be done since the battery is now moved 4 feet farther away. The factory wire looks to be about 8 gauge, I went with 4 gauge welding cable here (note: I am keeping a fuseable link at the battery end of this wire like the Toyota engineers do). The factory wire from the alt to the fusebox looks to be 8 gauge too, and rather than ripping out a perfectly good 8 gauge wire (which BTW has other wires spliced into it and is neatly tucked away in a harness) I decided it would be much easier to run a 2nd 8 gauge wire parallel to it. I discovered if you take the bottom of the fusebox off you can add the 2nd wire to the screw post and that way you don't have to splice into the original wire. I did the same thing at the alt screw post: The ground wire upgrade I have used several 8 gauge wires for redundancy. Here's where all that comes to a head, the new battery area: Two of those cables are for the winch, one is Roger Brown's headlight harness upgrade, one is the original harness. Hard to keep it all looking neat but at least everything is protected with flextubing. Believe it or not the overflow bottle still fits between the battery and all that wire. Anyone know if those headlights get hot enough to melt flextubing? __________________ ~Dale~ 93 4X4 ext-cab, auto, SR5, 3.4 V6, supercharged, 2.1" pulley, URD fuel mods, Aquamist WI, IPT valve body mod, dual cases, 4" superlift front, Alcan springs rear, 33 BFG MT, ARB locked front & rear, 5.29 US Gears, RB 1" Body Lift, 1.5" ball joint spacers, manual hubs, TJM T-17, Warn m8000. Last edited by mt_goat; 02-02-2008 at 09:52 AM.