TeamD Adventures

So now I have my car and all these things to wire up. What are the challenges?

• Bring power direct from the battery into the car
• Split said power between the radio and the Timewise
• Run power back to the radio in the trunk
• Protect everything with adequate fuses
• Try not to catch anything on fire

For the power leads, I chose 12 gauge paired stranded wire. It’s heavy enough to carry the radio load, light enough to run around without too much hassle, and since the red and black are paired together, it’s easy to manage.

I struggled with how to split the power between the two devices. I could run two separate lines from the battery but that seemed silly. I could do some sort of splicing/crimping/soldering joint. I could rely on my old friend the wire nut. None of these, however, seemed over-engineered enough for me. After careful and random searching I stumbled upon the beautiful and amazing Blue Sea 5025. Blue Sea make marine electrical products and I have come to believe that your local marine supply shop should be your primary source for automotive electrical parts.

The 5025 fits all my needs. It distributes power to up to 6 different points, each one independently fused. Also, the fuse block itself has a plastic cover that protects all the connections and should cut down and in-car fires. While I will only be using 2/6 of it’s connectors, I don’t think I have overshot the mark. Who knows what else I may want to connect to it in future.

While at my local marine supply shop, I picked up some amazing little ring terminals to connect the wire to both the battery and to the fuse block. Made by Ancor, these little crimp ring terminals come with shrink tubing already attached. Simply crimp in the wire and apply your favorite heat gun and your wire is sealed nice and tight (and tidy I might add). Truly these warm my heart. I grabbed 1/4″ size for the battery terminals and #10 size for the fuse block and for some reason they turned out to be exactly the size I needed.

I still have to find a permanent mounting location under the dash for the fuse block but that will come with more poking around and more scraped knuckles.

From the fuse block, I now need to run power to the trunk for the radio and power up to the Timewise. Once again the 12 gauge paired wire comes in handy. I found a path through the center console, under the carpet (but on top of the drive train hump in the back seat), up under the back seat and then through to the trunk via the gap used by the fold-down armrest/pass-through (for skis or 2×4s or whatever else you may want to stick in from the trunk up to get in the way of the shifter). That same path is used to pull the twisted pair cable that connects the remote head to the radio.

I had stopped by my local everything-you-need-in-electronics-strange-shop looking for a mate to the jack on the back of the Yaesu but surprisingly, they did not have it. I ended up leaving with Anderson Power Poles and boy they are another nifty find. Easy to crimp (if you have the right crimp tool and since that was another tool I can’t live without, I don’t anymore) and connect, they make building connections easy. I snipped off the stock connector and attached one set of poles. Adding another set to the new power wire and that connection is done.

Mounting the radio is a bit more tricky. Currently it’s cable-tied to the frame. The permanent solution will be to bolt the mount to surface at the back of the trunk that separates the back seat from the trunk. This will require pulling the seat and drilling holes, something I hope to do this weekend.

Antenna mounting has been another topic of thought. For Alcan, I am running with a Yakima Load Warrior basket (sponsor alert) on top of the car. I have Yakima’s spare tire carrier holding one of the two allowed spares up top. The basket gives me a convenient high location to mount the radio’s antenna. I am borrowing Jim’s NMO rack antenna mount and have it attached to the back bar. From there, the antenna cable follows the rain gutter down the side of the window and then ventures into the trunk. The antenna itself is a Larsen 5/8 wave tunable 2M antenna. Since the Alcan business band frequency is 151.625, outside the normal 2m HAM frequency, I am using this antenna tuned to that frequency. I also bought a 1/4 wave dual band antenna for non-Alcan applications.

But wait, you say, what about that no-unused aux wiring that the old radio used? You said you had a plan for that. Are you going to talk about it?

Yes.

In addition to buying all this new stuff, I sprang for another thing in the car that uses juice. A map light.

In the past, Marvin would use a headlamp to read route instructions at night. This works pretty well but it’s a pain when he looks over my direction. Even though we use a red lens, a light to the eyes still throws off my night vision.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of riding shotgun in Lee Sorenson’s car as we worked pace car for the Pacific Forest Rally. In addition to getting some good ideas for a new computer mount, I got to try his map light. I ended up really liking the experience and decided to get one of my own.

I purchased the 18″ variable aperture version and today I mounted it onto the A pillar on the passenger side. It fits perfectly and bends out to illuminate anything in the navigator’s lap (route book, map, book, beef jerky, barbie doll, whatever). I grabbed a bit more 12 gauge wire and some power poles and ran the power lines down behind the a-pillar cover and to the now-unused aux power cable that used to power Marvin’s radio. This way the light shuts off when the car shuts off so I don’t have to worry about the map light killing the battery.

What about the computer and radio killing the battery? The computer draws almost nothing and the radio has a programmable shutoff timer so they’re no problem. This little hard-switched map light could cause problems on a non-switched circuit but using the aux line kills two birds with one stone. Elegance in action.

Still to do:

• Wire up the Timewise to the fuse block
• Install a new front sensor (the existing one seems to have stopped functioning)
• Mount the EdgeCameras Rallycam 3000 (sponsor alert) inside somewhere
• Talk to Tap Plastics about making a new computer mount
• Haul the heat gun outside to seal the ring terminals that haven’t been sealed
• Clean up all the wiring mess in the car
• Apply our event, team, and sponsor decals
• Take some pictures to document all this fun

Those tasks will have to wait for another day.