How I connected and routed the Sprite's bonnet wiring harness and horns. Bugeye Build Episode 119

[@dansalinas2322]

Ian, as always great work. Love the air horn and all your personal touches you added to install the wiring and mounting the air horn.

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thanks Dan.

[@DanaUdapp]

Looks great, Ian. Your wiring is very neat. One big advantage of the forward tilt is accessibility to virtually everything up front. But I went one step further. I used a semi-trailer male and female connector. The male side is on a pigtail coming from the bonnet and the female side is mounted to a bracket on the radiator brace. Pull two pins on the hinges, pull out the plug and the whole bonnet comes free.

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thanks Dan. I do like the access provided by the front hinge setup and may add a plug at some point.

[@mundanestuff]

I was thinking that P-clip on the air intake was going to be in the way of the intake tube, but thought it would be way worse, looks like it fits perfectly. The little jumpers are a smart idea, really helps out the unknown future guy or gal who works on the car. They'll appreciate it!

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thanks Ken. I wasn't keen on cutting up a brand new harness so that was a bit of motivation for the jumpers as well :)

[@nedwagon]

I was thinking about this a video or two ago, that you were going to have to figure out the bonnet wiring harness with the front tilt kit. Nicely done.

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thank you Joel.

[@mortofromoz1]

Nice work, Ian. The wiring convention for a mini cube relay are 30 to battery +, 87 to the load, 85 to switch + and 85 to switch -. It’s not really an issue in this instance, but if using a changeover relay, for e.g. main and dipped beam, there will be 30 and both 87 and 87a terminals.

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thanks Neil. I'll double check the hookup when I switch out the relay for a fused one.

[@trevorsmedley6712]

@@EconoboxGarage Ian, as long as your horn draws less than 20A you can safely use the brown/green wire for both the relay coil and to power the horn. Then you wouldn't need to run a separate wire to the battery, and wouldn't need a fused relay. The wiring diagram shows the brown/green wire (38) coming from the "upper" fuse, and being the only thing connected to that fuse. This is a 20A fuse*, so as long as your horn is no more than that, the harness will handle the current no problem. You've gone through so much trouble to get it all looking so good, I figure you might not want to have this extra wire going all the way back to the battery. Technically, you could use the air horn without a relay, but I don't like sending that much current through the horn switch -- and will likely put a relay in mine even if I stick with the standard horn (and do the same with the headlights). So using the conventional connections that Neil describes (although I think there's a typo and he meant: "... 86 to switch + and 85 to switch - ."), you would connect the brown/green wire to 86 and 30, the brown/black wire to 85, connect 87 to the air horn compressor, and use the ground wire you added for the compressor ground. Have you decided if you will use positive or negative ground? It's unlikely that it would make any difference to any of this, but it is good to keep in mind. *On the wiring diagram I have the fuse is labeled as 35A, but the British system for rating fuses is different, and that's the equivalent of a 20A US fuse.

[@ThatChrisSneedon]

Nice work. At the fuse block there are slots underneath for the white and brown wires to route under the fuse block and connect on the opposite side.

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thanks Chris. I'll have a look at that!

[@timothymabry1960]

Noticed you talked about doing the distributor next. A heads up, if you have to reposition the drive gear be VERY careful. They can drop into the oil pan. Hopefully yours is in the correct spot but if it is not do some research on how to move it.

[@EconoboxGarage]

Thank you. I'll keep that in mind!

[@nedwagon]

The distributor drive is threaded through the center. If you use a long bolt threaded into this hole as a tool to install it into the collar, you should be in no jeopardy of dropping it into the oil pan.