Introducing Little Orphan Annie and Myself

[16vvincent]

Hey Johnnie, Yeah, I pretty much have always built my own harnesses for any vehicle that I have upgraded the lighting on. Mostly to remove the amount of stress that the headlamp switch has and to shorten the wiring distance (ohms per foot of wiring). The Power Distribution Box now holds one relay for low beams, and one for high. Each bulb has its own lead from the relay to the socket. I also installed a pair of high temp headlamp sockets.
This is the first time that I have come across a wiring issue in a vehicle though. (the corrosion)
I will try to get some shots of the harness when it is finished. Right now, the a/c circuits are giving me fits.

 

[16vvincent]

Well it has been a little while since I last did an update on Annie. In the last month I have finished off the wiring, got the dual fans to work correctly, put a pair of back seats in and taken Annie, my girlfriend and her two daughters down to Yosemite for a weekend of camping.
Here is a shot of Annie ( the xj ) loaded up, on the way down to Yosemite.



And everything worked as expected. Annie was a little top heavy and the rear was lower then wanted, but I figured that would happen and have plans to correct both.

The rear cooler mount worked prefectly, I just added one strap from the cooler to the roof rack pulling the cooler / rack forward. I really liked the ease of access to the back with the dual swing outs (tight parking areas I can still get to the inside racks).

 

[16vvincent]

As for the wiring end results:

This is what the power distrubition box looks like mounted:



Here is the fan wiring:



The Aux Relay box for the fan and horn relays (2 fan relays, 1 horn relay):



The wiring to the fans:



The fan temp switch (more about that later)



And the Fans.




As for the fan temp switch. When I first got them running, the fans would not turn on even when the temp was getting a little on the high side. There were two possibilities: 1) Bad fan switch. 2) Switch location meant that the temp at the switch never got to the point where the switch would 'switch'. I ended up finding a Race Spec switch that would come on at a MUCH lower temp. That took care of both problems.

I highly recommend this mod.

Getting rid of the mechanical fan has freed up a ton of power. I no longer have to downshift at 55 mph on a light climb and the truck will cruise at 65 all day long (no gearing change thus far and a pretty big wind load / roof rack).
The engine doesn't even come close to overheating. On the freeway the fan does not turn on and I have yet to hear the second one come on at all.

The second fan that I used was out of an XJ out at Pick-n-Pull. The Aux Relay box and relays out of a Ford Explorer (P-n-P).
The Fan Switch I picked up from Techtonics Tuning http://techtonicstuning.com/main/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_12_389_436&products_id=433
and cost me $19.00.

 

[16vvincent]

This is what the P/D box looks like right now:





I will say that, even though the wiring was a little tedious, the fact that I found problems with the original wiring and was able to improve everything electrical in the front end, made that month worth while. (yep, it took me a month to rewire the front of the XJ).
The headlights are MUCH brighter now as well.

 

[16vvincent]

Annie is becoming quite capable of carrying a goodly amount of equipment. Here is our camp site just outside of Yosemite. Not a real wheeling trip, but it was the first time I had been camping with my girlfriends daughters.





And Yosemite was beautiful as always.

 

[Rial.owens]

oh sick mine is named little orphan annie too