What wires do I connect an aftermarket gauge to in a 280Z?

[dpuma8]

I am trying to wire up some Speedhut gauges and I know the white wires will go to Green/White but what about the gauge power wire? I see that blue/red is on all the stock gauges so is that the power I tap into?

 

Also, I mistakenly ripped out the ground wire to the door switch. I hate the buzzer so I am guessing this is fine but if that ground wire is connected to other grounds, does this mess with other components associated with my newly broken wire?

[jhm]

This should help...free FSMs for all years S30.

 

http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html

[dpuma8]

I see that but I still do not know which one is the correct wire

[puretone]

I am trying to wire up some Speedhut gauges and I know the white wires will go to Green/White but what about the gauge power wire? I see that blue/red is on all the stock gauges so is that the power I tap into?

 

Also, I mistakenly ripped out the ground wire to the door switch. I hate the buzzer so I am guessing this is fine but if that ground wire is connected to other grounds, does this mess with other components associated with my newly broken wire?

This is a kindergarten question, seriously.

 

Ground wires are easily traced, regardless of color. Which is nice if you happen to be color blind. More often than not they will all be the same color (blue, brown, black, Technicolor raincoat) and get bundled into a "combo plug", where all ground wires meet, interconnect and from there go to a nice clean bare metal contact...or battery (-) post.

Same generally can happen to the switched +12v wire. Although here the wire color (very very very often red) will be different from the ground wire color. Obviously. You don't need a PhD in Muppet Society Studies in order to figure this one out. Look at the back of the gauges and you will notice there are 2 wires that each gauge has that is identical for every gauge. Grab your volt meter and test these 2 wires with ignition switch set to accessories. If you have a read out of +12v or thereabouts, you know you've got the correct ones. If your readout is -12v or thereabouts, you've got your volt meter probes swapped.

Generally speaking each gauge has a ground wire, a +12v wire and some sort of input signal wire. In some instances there is an additional wire which is used for dimming the dash lights. Big whoop, skip that one because it's for girls.

 

See? Now did you need a wiring diagram for that? No. Useful to have one? Perhaps. I've come to find out that most diagrams online and/or in print are quite often inaccurate. Experience tells me so. I've worked on anything from a 1964.5 Mustang to a 2011 KIA & everything in between.

It's cake dude, seriously. Just think logically and give up on the idea of "I can't do it...Boohoo". Keep in mind: stuff running around on this earth was made by human beings, not aliens...although I may argue that some of the more colorful individuals that threadeth upon the lands are indeed suspected alien-spawn. But that's for another day & another place.

But I digress, fact is, if it was made on this planet, means it was assembled by man, and therefore you are more than capable of figuring it out easily. Unless you are a member of the tribe of San People. I realize that's a stupid statement since these dudes are quite clever...but you may have a reason there, caveman & all.

 

And no, I'm actually a pretty big retard, mostly slept thru highschool and went on to college where I got an extremely advanced degree in Advanced Muppetry for Idiots. Possibly the worst ~100.000$ I will have ever spent. The college girls were fun tho. I unceremoniously left the Muppetry industry because I wished to start my own weekly series of Commie Muppets at home...Muppet Hitler served as Muppet Kim Jong-Il's personal Ottoman, whilst Muppet Gadafi & Muppet Chavez quarreled on the love-seat, and Muppet Castro was just aimlessly faffing about in corner.

Edited May 29, 2014 by puretone

[puretone]

Oh and on the subject of the buzzer wire...you daft #$%&@! I admit I'd do the same to annoying buzzers & bong sounds cars make with the door being open and such. Just don't blindly rip wires out. Think for a sec what royal pain in the be-hind it is to repair such a travesty. The actual switch/sensor/device might be buried way deep inside some annoying crevasse, requiring tiny Asian-lady hands. (Relax...it's just satire...)

Commonly these sort of things are "ground-triggered" so you *might* be lucky. On the other hand you may have just negatively affected a grouped ground wire scheme & now have yerself a potential ground leak.

Do yourself a favor & trace this wire back to whatever it connected. Disable that whatever-thing by unplugging/unscrewing/unbolting/unclipping it and remove the wiring for it, or leave the wiring in place but PROPERLY deprecated.

 

No need for a wiring diagram to tell you how to properly remove active circuits. Just a matter of being prudent. Dangling circuits & wires can chafe on sharp edges & call up the Gremlins for active duty. Unless you have speakers in the door or other fancy electrical stuff, there may just be that 1 wire. If the door switch sits in the car's body, you may have a can of worms. The wiring diagram may indeed prove/disprove this. It doesn't take away that you need to look at this bit logically too & have your volt meter handy.

 

Praise the Gods for not having ripped this wire out on a modern CAN-BUS networked car. Do it in a modern Merc or Beemer and you may very well have incited the secret password code to start Armageddon. Or divided an equation by 0.

Edited May 29, 2014 by puretone