69 Roadrunner mutt car!!

[heinz57muttcar]

I need help with this cars electrical.

I've been reading for over a week and I have yet to find answers my issues.

This car is an OEM 383/manual shift car
Now it is a 440/833 car. The issue is that the wiring has been hacked on for ....well your guess would be better than mine. It has paperwork showing a rebuilt?restoration (BWUAHAHAHAHA!) about 15 years back.

My issue: the engine bay wiring shows painless..good right? NOPE! it stops at the firewall. Then the bulk head plugs are wrong to the car with obvious hack marks to make them "work". Then this goopy stuff was crammed into the backside of the plug so wires are fraying from the backside out and I can't get the terminals to release. Now under the dash is a completely new story. Most of the factory wiring is still there but little is hooked up. The connector to the instrument cluster was cutout and female bullet connectors spliced in then electrical tape over that. That's a sticky mess then the the new equipment, A/C kit, one wire internally regulated alternator, MSD 6AL, MSD distributor.....AHHHHH!!!!

OK to the concern: With the Plymouth OEM having the mechanical regulator upgraded to the electronic then the wire hack. The car was running when it came in. Not at it's potential, but it was running.

1)I am not using any of the mopar ignition (all MSD), the alternator has been converted to internal/on board regulator (local shop) so I am not using any of the regulators or resistors. Question is: what should the wiring look like?

2) according the cluster the voltage gauge reads "volts" not "ammeter", but the wires are still ran like an ammeter with the big 12ga red/black wires. Does not appear to have had the "conversion" done. Question: do you guys have any suggestions on this matter?

 

[Big John]

I would suggest a new harness. Everything is hacked beyond repair. Do it before the car burns. Year One sells them.

You may have to pull the bulkhead connector out to clean it up or replace it.

The MSD is fine. The alternator... Geez, I have no idea why folks don't just fix the problem right to begin with. Consider replacing it. You can use it if you want, but it's going to require changes to your new ($) harness. I have no idea what the wiring should look like with it. Usually that type of conversion is done as a bandaid instead of figuring out how to repair it correctly. Sorry. personal rant there.

Snap a pic of that cluster. It doesn't sound close to stock.

 

[69hemibeep]

Yep. Year one has the best harness out there, they have an exclusive with the manufacturer.

 

[quikbird]

A new harness is definitely needed it sounds like. Most of the major mfrs have things that will work. Painless, auto wire, haywire, Ron Francis. The problem with most of these is that fca has not turned loose the tooling for the connectors. (Neither has ford by the way)So unlike a Chevy harness which has all the ends already on the harness, we get to work a little harder. Don't throw away any of those connectors, is my best advice. Your rr originally came with a harness with just 6 fuses to run the whole car. A new harness with 13 or 20 circuits will be much safer and you can add power windows, locks etc if desired. Many also let you bypass the bulkhead connector which is notorious for failing after all this time. The cluster connector is also touchy and is probably why it has been bypassed.
Post some pics and those of us who have done this job will happily help you out.

 

[heinz57muttcar]

Will do and thanks for the responses guys.

 

[heinz57muttcar]

Decided to go with a yearone harness. Heres why and heres what I started with and where the car is now

 

[heinz57muttcar]

Here how it looks now

 

[Basketcase]

without a doubt wise move getting a new harness.

 

[Ranger]

WOW! That bulkhead connector has seen better days. Mine is OEM and still looks good, nothing like that.

 

[quikbird]

Problem is most look worse and folks don't notice till smell smoke.

 

[heinz57muttcar]

I have a weird issue. My dome light stays on constantly. The jamb switches are not even installed, the Yearone dash harness is in but I had to improvise the plug to the turn sig switch. I have an orange wire left over.....hum? The thing is all of my headlights and turn sigs, brake lights all work fine. Just can't get the dome light to turn off. The schematics that are offered on the internet are junk. Mopar has the most idiotic wiring I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!! I have these black wires with female bullets that run with the door jamb switch wires with male bullets but stop WAY short of them. I have an orange wire with three female bullet ports, I have a red wire with one female bullet port behind the glovebox. I have 4 brown wires female spade plastic insulators behind the cluster right side at the washer/wiper switch. I am missing a wire female spade for the horn relay. But if I add power to the horn brass tab at the turn sig switch it blows WTF????? Unless I am just WAY to used to simplicity of GM wiring that's wrong. Something feels like I have a back flow circuit. But if this were the case why am I not blowing fuses? I am so lost on this system! I have an original wiring book from yearone to be here next week so I hope that helps, I am not optimistic seeing what I have seen so far from Mopar. I wish I had just converted it over to GM wiring like I started to do in the first place!

 

[mac]

all the wiring schematics are in the reference section of this forum.

 

[mac]

http://www.69roadrunner.net/Tech Reference/wiring.pdf

 

[mac]

maybe this will help with a color diagram.

 

[69hemibeep]

I have one of those Mac, best thing on earth :yesnod:

 

[Big John]

Let's take the issue one part at a time.

First, dome lights. The dome lights have +voltage to them all the time and no ground. The yellow wire to the door switches returns ground and lights the lamps. Chances are, if the switches aren't hooked up, the wires or connectors are shorting to ground somewhere. They may even just be laying against a ground. That's all it needs to stay lit.

Orange wire at the steering column is easy. It's the light for a column shift "PRND21" indicator. You may or may not need it, I don't know how your car is equipped.

Power to horn at steering column. BTW, that column is a GM (Saginaw) part, so you would have this issue with a GM car. Simply stated, there is no power to the horn switch at the steering column. There is a black wire with a white tracer (stripe) that returns ground to the relay. The relay is mounted out near the horns and gets power from the harness at the alternator. You aren't missing anything. You blow the horn, it grounds the horn "switch" and makes the relay work.

The wiring in your Roadrunner is a lot simpler than you may think. Here's my suggestion. In our reference section is the complete factory service manual. It's also available on Mymopar.com in a zipped format to download. Either way, download a copy.

Go to the electrical section and print out a few copies of everything that says "Belvedere or Satellite". The instrument panel section is two pages and makes a lot more sense when you hold the two pages together. Get out your hi-liters and start hi-liting the wires you need. Note the color codes and the numbers on the wire. For example" H1-16V is the power for the horn relay. 16 is the wire size, V is the color, and H1 is the circuit number. That number makes things much easier... If you are looking at the underhood wiring for the horn and at the the bulkhead connector and you see "H3-18BK*" going into the "L" cavity. The "L" cavity on the dashboard wiring also has "H3-18BK*" Go to the steering column connector and you will see "H3-18BK*" going into the "4" cavity. Physically looking in your car, you'll see a black with white tracer 18 gauge wire at these locations if everything is wired right.

 

[heinz57muttcar]

OK thank you for the replies gentlemen. I was very frustrated the day I posted that, so my apologies for the rant.

To Mac: As far as the color diagram, I do this with a Highlighter on the more complicated systems so thank you. But the issues were the lack of information the diagrams are showing at this point. Now the link to the book.... YAHTZEE! That one showed the info in relation to my issues with the lack of circuit definition. That helps fill in the gaps tremendously, where the other system had been hacked up. So thank you!

To Big Mike: Thank you for your detailed response. The reference to the GM horn circuit was in general to GM as a whole. (GM if 12+ is applied at the horn contact ring terminal button under the steering wheel, the breaker blows on the PowerProbe as it is dead short to ground here. On the RR, the horn was blowing when 12+ power added at the this point) The Mopar circuits are unnecessarily complicated. In a GM circuit the a/c is just the A/C. the radio is just the radio, the dash lights are just the dash lights, etc. etc..... Mopar is not this at all. According to the schematics and the fuse block. Each end of the fuse has a different circuit. One end will be the radio and the other is the dash lights or whatever. (just an example-not specifically these circuits). That is the most confusing part for me. Yes I can read schematics and quite proficient at it. But I am used to great literature to begin with. I was not prepared for a lesson in cryptography as I did not have my cipher in hand when I started this build. You see the problem is, I am not starting with a clean slate here. This cars wiring has been hacked with some plugs and connectors removed or replaced with trailer plugs. So when I purchased the Yearone one factory replacement harness. My car is missing the important mating plugs and some fixtures needed to read the schematics accurately. I thank you guys for the reference pages and I should now be able to complete this task.. Now that you bring it up, The horn relay for this RR is under the dash. I have no provision or connector in the engine bay. This maybe one of my issues but I will post pictures of this.


OK, all this aside. I want to eliminate all unnecessary circuits, resistors, regulators at this point.

1: I am using ALL MSD ignition Distributor, 6AL Box, 8.5 mm custom cut wires.
2: I have an internally regulated alternator
3: I want to complete the ammeter bypass.

What do I do to make this car work without issues.

1) I've read that P and N are connected together to allow the MSD to receive 12+ through starting
2) Internally regulated Alt.
3) I've read that at the terminals at the ammeter the two wires are connected the ammeter like a power lug and the charge wire is from alt to starter like a GM.

Are these correct?

 

[heinz57muttcar]

I can't find the reference section to find the wiring diagrams and such

 

[quikbird]

did you remove the ballast resistor when went to the msd box? I just ran into this problem with my car as well. you need a switched circuit for the 6al feed, but almost all circuits are off during cranking so no power to the 6al box and as such no start. if this sounds like what you have let me know and I will email you the solution the wiring company sent me for mine.

 

[heinz57muttcar]

Not to the starting phase yet. But yes I removed the ballast resistor and would like you to email the solution and compare it to what I've seen so far. Thank you waynewilson2731@gmail.com.