General Information > Upgrades (non engine related )

Mk1 Electrical Upgrades

(1/2) > >>

Rising:
Hey guys, I've been having a ton of issues electrically with the old bunny. So Ive decided to rip a lot of things out and start fresh. Mainly I want to upgrade the grounds and power wires at the alternator, starter and glow plugs, and the battery of course.

I found this list of grounds for the mk1:
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5284503-Ground-effects-and-the-repair-of-your-car

I think a lot of those are gasser specific. So this was my thoughts(I'll update this thread with pictures and a diy if people are interested once I'm done):

New brass marine wing nut battery terminals
New 4 gauge wire from negative terminal to frame horn (gold terminals)
New 4 Gauge wire from negative terminal to starter bolt
New 4 gauge power wire from alternator output to positive cable( In addition to the stock one)
New 4 gauge wire to the fuse box

New 8 gauge wire from starter bolt to valve cover bolt, daisy chained to strut tower and maybe a few other ground points.

8 or 4 gauge wires to additional fuse block and ground distribution points.

Follow the pimp your glow plugs day

Can anyone think of any other important grounds or wires that need replaced to eliminate flaky behavior? Or other upgrades to the electrical system? I've already got a 90amp alternator, a AGM oversized battery and headlight relays. I heard something about a maybe mk4 automatic starters?

ORCoaster:
Can you explain to me why you want to run a new wire from the Alternator to the battery and still keep the old one?  Twice the wire means more resistance so what is making you keep the original? 

Puzzled of course. 

vanbcguy:
Two wires in parallel would actually be half the resistance (assuming equal resistance in each wire). Lots of spots that VW does exactly that - for instance the glow plug power feed going through the big round connector on the Mk3 platform splits to two parallel wires, goes through the connector then joins back up at the bus bar. It's a common thing to do in electrical engineering in general.

The gold connectors are totally unnecessary, save your money there. Brand new properly crimped copper connectors will have basically zero resistance. Gold has the advantage when connectors are being unplugged and plugged in again since it doesn't build surface corrosion - stuff like computer connectors that may be unplugged and plugged in again over their lifetime benefit. Copper with a solid mechanical connection that stays put like a ground connection will last decades happily. Add some dielectric grease or Vaseline or whatever on the connection after putting everything together and you're golden.

Sent from my XT1097 using Tapatalk

ORCoaster:
Thanks vanbcguy,  I was reading your reply and I thought yeah, that's right.  Then scrolled down to see the question.  Surprise!  It was mine.  Holy Mackel, what part of my electronics course and practice did I forget that night.  I know I put in a long day, pretty physical but generally my brain does fart like that often. Thanks for reminding us of the basics. 

If I look under my hood I see that the glowplug hots to at least the 4 individual fuse box is honking huge from battery through relay and then hefty after the fuses.  16 gauge maybe 14. 

Rising:
Good info on the copper connectors! So metal to metal and then dielectric just to cover the exposed portions? What about solder, I know soldered connections are supposed to be a lot better than crimped. Should I crimp and solder/heatshrink?

How does the wiring for the starter run? Is it running all the way through the key inside? Would it benefit from being relayed?

Also what about windshield wipers? Mine are terribly underpowered. Anybody relaying those?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page