Harbinger

Heh, your a braver man than I -- but it looks good! I like how you can't see any wiring, ala like mine. But then again I didn't have to cut my glove box, and velcro comes right off. I always get scared when I have to permantly mod somethign like that -- usually somewhere along the line I regret it. But on that note maybe I'll go down to the wreckers and see if that 88 still has its glovebox!

Thanks -- but the glovebox doesn't stay empty -- I've got the standard mess of registration/insurance papers, pens, lighters etc to go back in there. Just couldn't think of a better spot to put the relays and fuse block

Thanks everybody -- Its nice to not have that ugly thing in there anymore! So I went through and changed the roof lights to trigger whenever the engine is running, so I can run them independent of the headlights but not without the truck running, gives me some measure of saftey eh? Heres a close up of the glovebox -- where I added a fuse block and consolidated the relays: And an overall shot: So thats it, the end of the toolbox - -I get a much cleaner dash and a fuse on every power line in exchange for pure fuctionaltiy and 4 12v outlets. It was worth it I was thinking about either a dancing hula girl or a inclinometer I don't smoke tobacco, so I'm not to worried about it LOL it doesn't look THAT clean -- the plywood didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but it wedges in there awfully well. Even so its WAY better than that toolbox.

Already covered I've got a six fuse block mounted in my glove box already! I'm not to worried about the FL -- if my truck didn't come with one on the green connector I don't see why I should install one. At least untill i resolve the 2 vs 4 wire thing.

Thanks for that little vote of confidence simon I'll be sure to hop the short bus to work today! Lol that crossed my mind -- but I figure that would have made me look just plain dumb when I listed a reason that would make no sense to any of you pathfinder gurus The fusible links seem to be diffrent on my 87 as everyone elses though -- everyone (and the trucks in the j/y) have the two links right off of the battery, green & black connectors. 1 wire out of the black one, and 4 out of the green. Ok, so my truck has one wire coming out of the black, and it ran to a diffrent style FL that was between the fender and the battery. I spliced in the newer one I picked up, just to update it to the newere style and make it a little more convienent. But the Green one I haven't touched yet, as it doesn't appear that it has a FL, as theres two 12ish gauge wires running from it. And whats confusing me is, the green FL I picked up from the 88 has 4 wires coming from it. Weird.

I'm not real familiar with what your refering to, but I imagine if you can't find them new and/or OEM, you could probably have a sign/decal shop draw you something up. Works for every lowered civic driving around town

Thats pretty much what I did -- only I used 1/4" plywood and painted it black and then spray varnished it. Yours turned out a lot better looking though! But thats ok, my trucks not supposed to be pretty

Well with the mystery of the non-starting truck solved I put most of my dash back together and took some pics of the monstly completed project -- just gotta put things back together now! Heres what I had before: Heres the back of the panel -- note the geeky molex connectors! Heres what it looks like now: Its not pretty -- but it looks a LOT better -- you have to looks a lot harder to see the imperfections in the panel, but you didn't have to look hard at all to see the old toolbox! I'll ad some pics of the fuse block / relays in the glove box when I get some more time -- I'm already running late to work. pssd

MURPHYS LAW STRIKES AGAIN! GRRRRRR I can't believe myself sometimes -- the truck wouldn't start because I had moved the shifter to one of the drive gears to get cleareance for taking off the dash pieces and failed to move it back after removing it. I gotta swap this slushbox for a manual.... O'well -- I got my first j/y experiences out of this, plenty of spare relays and FL's, spliced in new style FL's, found the fried PTC link, etc. And it didn't cost me more than 5.25 for the extra parts. *sigh* I gotta lay off the beer. Thanks everyone for their help -- I feel like a moron

Thats odd to me for some reason -- I just got back from the j/y and an 88 pathy, 93 pathy, and 89ish Hardbody all have plugs on both sides of the FL w/ Green/Black connectors on the + terminal. Wheras my 87 doesn't. *shrug* I bought a pice of the wiring harness off the 88 pathy to splice in though. Just in case. Found a replacement for the PTC link too -- plus some spares. But replacing it didn't fix my problem. Anyone know what a PTC Heater is anyway?

I May have just found it -- next to the relay bank, theres the cover covering the "PTC HEATER, Ignition Sw, Eng Cont, Injector" links respectivley -- and the PTC heater one is completely burnt up. I'm going to go see if I can score a new one, but will this fix my problem? As far as everything coming off the + I can't find where the other end of the connector is, as it dissapears into the wiring harness. Not to mention all the wiring going to the harness looks fine, no ashes like I found with the PTC Heater. :confused:

Can someone elaborate on where the fusible links are located? The haynes manual specifies there coming off the + battery terminal -- but I can't find anything like what the manuals describing.

I heartily recomend Hella Super Dual (& triple) tone air horns. I had a set of the duals on an old truck of mine, and hot damn did they command attention. Kinda high-pitched though.

Kinda reminds me of working in a tire/repair shop -- We'd call the local napa parts house just to request a carb kit for a 97 ford diesel. It'd be 5+ minutes before they came back to the phone saying they don't seem to carry that part

Scored 4 relays free at the j/y today.:cool2: But that didn't solve the problem. Will check over the fusible links when I get time.

I thought about that -- but my Pathy isn't my daily driver so I'm in no big hurry, outside of my snowboarding suffering. I've actually got a 30amp 4pin relay sitting @ home I could wire up -- but the pin pattern is diffrent so it would be pretty ugly wiring it up. That and I'm not sure what amperage the OEM one is rated for.

Dually Noted, Thanks I don't think its the re-wire that blew things to hell though -- might have been -- all I know is the battery was dead one morning (think I left the light switch on, but am not 100%). So I jumped it and let it run -- but a little while later it was dead, jumped it again, dead a hour later. When I jumped the 3rd time I got the situation I'm in now. I'm guessing somewhere in there this relay died. The batterys holding charge now (charged on sat and still holding strong) so if I did short something to drain it it must not be present now. Hopefully I can find a Pathy or a HB in the j/y tomorrow -- the damn dealer wanted $30 for a relay -- plus it would be a week before they could get one in!

I've narrowed it down to the one labeled "Main Relay" as being the culprit -- but which ones are required to run the truck that I can use in the meantime? Going to the J/Y tomorrow to find a replacement and a few spares if I can.

As some as you might have heard, my trucks now refusing to start -- had to happen in the middle of a switch panel rewire to boot. I've already checked the battery (12.6V), cleaned the terminals and checked the condition of the cables. You turn the key all the way to the last position, and all you hear is a buzzing from the PS of the engine compartment. After maybe 20-30 seconds the buzzing stops. Is it a bad relay? or is something else wrong? All my haynes manual says about relays is to have the dealer check them.

Yeah thats what I've got too. 20A fuse in the line right?

Todays update: Bought a battery charger and multimeter today. Cleaned the terminals & charged the battery -- its holding at about 12.6 volts right now. Will check it periodically to see if its dropping or if I actually just left the lights on like I think i might have. Figured out why my passengers headlight wasn't coming on -- fuse blew -- must have happened sometime when I was removing the ghetto-splice for the OEM fogs. So now my passengers headlight and highbeam symbol are working. The red wire I chose for the trigger wire works -- its a headlight wire, but its evidently on independent of the highbeams -- so my switches are on as long as the HL's are. Think I might keep it that way. Even with the battery charged the truck won't start. I checked the fuse box and the HL was the only blown one I found. When you go to start it I hear this weird vibration/noise from the passengers side of the engine compartment. But I don't get a click or anything from the starter. I'm thinking its a relay but haven't gotten that far in looking yet. Anyone know which relay controls the starter?

Yeah, thats familiar too -- I had a harness with three wires (yellow, green & purple) running across the the firewall and through a hole in the firewall not to far from the drivers side of the engine. Looking back I guess he did re-splice those wires so he could run them into the toobox, I suppose they would have been just the right distance to go to the OEM fog switch before. It also explains why the relay contacts were so dirty when I took it apart! O'well -- that whole assembly is in the glove compartment now. No kidding! *EDIT Heres an idea! Were the fog lights a dealer option or something? Because it sounds like we have the same setup but the install does NOT look like it came from the factory.

You say you had a purple wire running along the passenger side as well? The wire spliced in behind my headlight was purple as well, and ran to a relay just to the right of the hood hinge. :confused: Is this what you see too? My HL splice didn't look like an OEM job though -- it had been cut and then re-spliced with a butt connector with both the HL wire and purple wire coming out of it. The whole assembly was wrapped in electrical tape. I ripped mine out under the impression that it was aftermarket stuff, because all the wires ran into the toolbox (or up to my KC lights) as did the purple wire. Grrrr, this is perplexing. pssd

I don't think DSM had a body lift at the time he did his starter.

:o Damn pretty impressive Luker! -- Keep us posted on any improvments you get over the extra oil capacity would ya?