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- Apr 13, 2018
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Cement
Now I know you all probably have this problem. You get lights and wire them up quickly out of excitement, forget about them, and move on.
Well.... as my accessories grew, and my lighting became that of the sun itself, my problem of messy wires, and headaches grew with it.
I had to change,I had to turn a new leaf, I knew something must be done as this would soon be the downfall of modern society as we know it.
With the help of @Mr. Nobody for graciously providing me with a spare Pelfreybilt (RIP) Tray he had on hand, and my limited knowledge of organization,
I set myself up to deal with my rats nest of a wire job that accumulated from a year of neglect.
DAY 1:
My first task was to retrofit the tray to fit the accessoriesI had planned to mount to it. The Pelfrey tray was initially only intended to house a blue sea fuse panel with no
mounting options for anything else really other than maybe a bus bar. So I mocked up the placement of everything I had purchased on Amazon express (thank the Lord for
1 day shipping). Marked my placements and drilled holes soI could properly secure these components.
I re-attached the components after drilling some holes which I had marked after I was satisfied with the placement of everything, and began connecting the wires from the
switch pro SP-9100 to the BlueSea Systems Bus Bar.
I wanted this install and project to come off as clean as possible so I took my time and made sure to sleeve EVERY wire and heatshrink both ends including the spade connectors. This was probably the most time consuming portion of the project as i wanted to make sure I made this as nice as I could with my limited experience with wiring and organizing something like this.
I had finally completed routing all the wires from the switch pro to the bus bar after about 4-5 hours of measuring, cutting, sleeving, heat shrinking, and crimping. My fingers were raw
and ready to call it a day. I didnt want to push myself on this project which was important for me to maintain the quality I was looking to achieve. So, I called it quits for the day now that the tray was assembled and ready for install onto the vehicle.
Day 2:
I was rested and re-energized with BRUNCH plans later in the afternoon so I decided to wake up early and finish this project with enough time to do it properly.
I grabbed my supplies and went out to my truck and began the install of the tray inside of the engine bay. I had all 8 switches on the switch pro filled and 3 other accessories which needed to be re-wired aside from the switch pro, so to do this right it was going to take some time.
As you can see, I had a lot of connections going directly to the battery terminals, and an absolute rats nest, spilled my spaghett, cant hold all these limes, tie my shoe laces together of a problem to take on. Being that I had acquired this Pelfrey tray from @Mr. Nobody, I was left with no hardware or reference for what hardware to use to mount the tray to the vehicle. For those of you with this same issue the correct size hardware for the two mounting holes in the engine bay is an M8x1.25 bolt. I took a wild swing with this size bolt, but it threaded fine with no issues or binding.
With the tray attached I could begin sleeving all my wire and crimping new connectors, and heat shrinking both ends afterwards. This was probably the most time consuming part as i had to cut the lengths of the wires to allow for better management, measure the length of the sleeving, thread the wire through the sleeving, strip, crimp, heatshrink, etc rinse and repeat.
I had done this for all 8 different strands of wire (16 strands if you count both neg and pos lines.) and tidied everything up as much as possible. Did the same with all the other accessories such as my bedside 12v outlet for my fridge, and my CB Radio all wired into the Blue Sea Systems Fuse bar.
I had finally conquered my absolute PITA of a wiring job i had neglected for over a year, and made something look nice from almost nothing. I had been wanting to accomplish this for quite some time but had never gotten around to it or had completely forgotten how important this was to do. Long story short, if you are considering having a lot of lighting, or electrical accessories i highly suggest doing this from the beginning and avoid the headache i had to deal with.
Overall this was a great project and i DID have a lot of fun doing it. This project taught me a lot about the important of cable management and doing things right the first time. Hope yall enjoyed this read and picture gallery, and here is the finished project!
Now to have a beer, breath easy, and relax.
Id be more than happy to answer ANY and ALL questions regarding this project.
Well.... as my accessories grew, and my lighting became that of the sun itself, my problem of messy wires, and headaches grew with it.
I had to change,I had to turn a new leaf, I knew something must be done as this would soon be the downfall of modern society as we know it.
With the help of @Mr. Nobody for graciously providing me with a spare Pelfreybilt (RIP) Tray he had on hand, and my limited knowledge of organization,
I set myself up to deal with my rats nest of a wire job that accumulated from a year of neglect.
DAY 1:
My first task was to retrofit the tray to fit the accessoriesI had planned to mount to it. The Pelfrey tray was initially only intended to house a blue sea fuse panel with no
mounting options for anything else really other than maybe a bus bar. So I mocked up the placement of everything I had purchased on Amazon express (thank the Lord for
1 day shipping). Marked my placements and drilled holes soI could properly secure these components.
I re-attached the components after drilling some holes which I had marked after I was satisfied with the placement of everything, and began connecting the wires from the
switch pro SP-9100 to the BlueSea Systems Bus Bar.
I wanted this install and project to come off as clean as possible so I took my time and made sure to sleeve EVERY wire and heatshrink both ends including the spade connectors. This was probably the most time consuming portion of the project as i wanted to make sure I made this as nice as I could with my limited experience with wiring and organizing something like this.
I had finally completed routing all the wires from the switch pro to the bus bar after about 4-5 hours of measuring, cutting, sleeving, heat shrinking, and crimping. My fingers were raw
and ready to call it a day. I didnt want to push myself on this project which was important for me to maintain the quality I was looking to achieve. So, I called it quits for the day now that the tray was assembled and ready for install onto the vehicle.
Day 2:
I was rested and re-energized with BRUNCH plans later in the afternoon so I decided to wake up early and finish this project with enough time to do it properly.
I grabbed my supplies and went out to my truck and began the install of the tray inside of the engine bay. I had all 8 switches on the switch pro filled and 3 other accessories which needed to be re-wired aside from the switch pro, so to do this right it was going to take some time.
As you can see, I had a lot of connections going directly to the battery terminals, and an absolute rats nest, spilled my spaghett, cant hold all these limes, tie my shoe laces together of a problem to take on. Being that I had acquired this Pelfrey tray from @Mr. Nobody, I was left with no hardware or reference for what hardware to use to mount the tray to the vehicle. For those of you with this same issue the correct size hardware for the two mounting holes in the engine bay is an M8x1.25 bolt. I took a wild swing with this size bolt, but it threaded fine with no issues or binding.
With the tray attached I could begin sleeving all my wire and crimping new connectors, and heat shrinking both ends afterwards. This was probably the most time consuming part as i had to cut the lengths of the wires to allow for better management, measure the length of the sleeving, thread the wire through the sleeving, strip, crimp, heatshrink, etc rinse and repeat.
I had done this for all 8 different strands of wire (16 strands if you count both neg and pos lines.) and tidied everything up as much as possible. Did the same with all the other accessories such as my bedside 12v outlet for my fridge, and my CB Radio all wired into the Blue Sea Systems Fuse bar.
I had finally conquered my absolute PITA of a wiring job i had neglected for over a year, and made something look nice from almost nothing. I had been wanting to accomplish this for quite some time but had never gotten around to it or had completely forgotten how important this was to do. Long story short, if you are considering having a lot of lighting, or electrical accessories i highly suggest doing this from the beginning and avoid the headache i had to deal with.
Overall this was a great project and i DID have a lot of fun doing it. This project taught me a lot about the important of cable management and doing things right the first time. Hope yall enjoyed this read and picture gallery, and here is the finished project!
Now to have a beer, breath easy, and relax.
Id be more than happy to answer ANY and ALL questions regarding this project.
