Got a bit more done this week/weekend. The heater box went in a few nights ago. It’s not hooked up yet, but I did get the vent cable hooked up (you have to hook it up or else you can’t get to it once the box is installed because of too little room up against the tub wall).
Getting the heater box installed and the nuts tightened down to hold it to the firewall means that the engine compartment side was able to have some work done as well. Battery tray went back in, as did the PDC tray that fixes to the battery tray. I temporarily installed the old battery which is definitely way dead by now, even fully charged, it holds a charge for about a day at most. New battery definitely coming soon, but I threw this one in for some battery cable mockup.
I did my own custom cables years ago, and I never liked them. I went bigger than stock, which is bulky. I went with welding cable, which is good but super flexy and hard to control. The whole thing was unnecessary, except for the military terminal style that I upgraded to. So, at this point I am going to mess with it again. I ordered a factory harness from eBay that seemed to be in good shape. I am going to do what I should have done years ago, which is to cut off the factory battery terminals and terminate the stock cables to the ring terminal lugs so I can hook them up to my military terminals. This will be the best of both worlds: stock cables that fit like stock (loomed and follow nice factory path), but also are terminated with much better ends and to terminals that allow for customization and add ons.
This is what my buddy did with his YJ years ago, and it turned out super clean:
I also added a Bussman 5-relay block years ago, which needs a power and ground hookup. My purpose for that box has changed a few times, but the final purpose for it is to provide clean power to my JW Speaker LED headlights which actually pull a decent amount of amps together, somewhere around 10A.
Initially, made my own custom cables for the Bussman as well, out of some 8Ga SGX cable. Worked fine, but I was never a fan of a few aspects of that install. The power was not fused, and the ground was ran all the way to the battery which is unnecessary and adds battery bulk. So today, I shortened the ground and reterminated it to the firewall ground stud. The power remains the same, but I am working on a solution to cleanly hook it up with a fuse. I know the starting circuit and the cable going to the PDC are not fused, however I definitely feel better adding a fuse to my own cable for the Bussman.
So my plan for that, is to use a Blue Sea MRBF (main relay battery fuse) which works well for a simple hookup of an added battery style cable. The problem is, these are horizontally designed which means when I mount it to a horizontal bolt on the battery terminal, it will stick up vertically. I was thinking I could maybe bend it 90°, but the terminal would then hang over other stuff. Not the end of the world, but then I found
these neat military terminal adapters that add a vertical post:
Here is the MRBF I want to use, it should work well now that with this adapter, I’ll have a vertical stud to mount to:
Here is a photo of the MRBF in my Tacoma as an example…super clean. The red cable in the background was not permanently installed at the time lol, it is loomed and looks factory now.
I’ll post more photos of the final results when it’s done. Waiting on parts for now, I need to order some new military terminals, new ring terminal lugs, and I ordered the stock harness I’m going to use.
Under the hood is just about done! Only other engine compartment stuff I need to work on is the wiring for CAD indicator switch.
Probably will work on the rest of the dash some this week while I wait on the battery stuff. Mostly hooking up the heater, running the harness and plugging things back in, then the dreaded glove box reinstall. Windshield after that.
I promise I’m not lazy…when I’m not working on the YJ, I’m usually tinkering with the Toyota. Rarely repairs, but definitely add ons or maintenance. And some minor repairs. This weekend, coolant and spark plugs.
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