dpuma8 Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 I have my car all wired up now but I want to test it to see if I did it correctly. I want to be as safe as possible since I have never done wiring before and I don't have anyone to help me. My car is in pieces so what I did was connect a 14 gauge wire to the battery (just on the floor not connected to anything), add a fuse connection with a 20 amp fuse, and connect my parking lights to the fuse connection on the other side. I am thinking that everything will just light up, correct? So I am wondering if this is safe to do for everything I want to test on my car. The other problem I have is I can't find my ground wire to connect to the chassis. Do I have to have a ground wire hooked up? Since I don't have one handy, can I just strip some 14 gauge wire, connect to a bolt and wrap it around the negative side? Any other comments or tips for seeing if my wiring is done right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
getoffmyinternet Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 If there are two wires coming out of a light, then they both just go to the battery. If there is only one wire, then the light is grounded to the chassis and you'll need to connect it or the chassis to the negative terminal of the battery. Unless of course it's a dual intensity light, in which case there will be 2 hot wires and one ground wire or chassis ground. Either way it would probably be safer just to ring out the wires with a meter. The only way to really test all the wiring though is when it's in its final state, so battery actually in the car and all the wiring grounds hooked up where they're suppose to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpuma8 Posted May 24, 2012 Author Share Posted May 24, 2012 (edited) Well, for my parking light, I have them grounded to various bolts in the car. So fr testing purposes, I need them to connect to the ground on the battery or any other grounding spot? The reason why I am doing this is because the light switch wires of my 1975 do not match with the ones from the 1976 color diagram. I can't make sense of it so I have some trial and error testing to do later on Edited May 24, 2012 by dpuma8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
getoffmyinternet Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 If they are grounded to the chassis, you need to connect the chassis to the negative terminal of the battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beermanpete Posted May 24, 2012 Share Posted May 24, 2012 You need a ground connection. Connect the main battery cable to the engine at the starter and 10 gauge wire to the body on the firewall. Instead of a fuse, use a lightbulb on the positive side. A typical 55/60W headlamp will work. Wire the healamp in series with the positive battery terminal. If you have a short the bulb will light at full brightness and limit the current to about 5 amps. If everything is working correctly the headlamp will not light or be very dim and the tail lights will light at normal brightness (more or less). When you are confident the wiring is good remove the bulb and wire up directly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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