Hello all- I have a question concerning the wiring in my 03 sport. I would like to know if there is a way I can wire up a fuse box that becomes active only when my ignition is in the accessory position, or running position. I would like to run this box off of a solonoid, so that I can carry a fairly strong positive current into the truck, and run all my accessories off of one fuse box. The 08 superduties have a similar setup factory wired in, 4 heavy duty accessory switches that can be wired to lights etc. I would also like to know, is there a heavy enough guage positive wire coming in from the battery that could be tapped into to power the fuse box so that I would not have to put any wires through the firewall? Ideally I would like to contain all the wiring inside the truck for ease of future wiring, AND ease of future removal if I decide to sell my truck.
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Wiring question
- Thread starter biturbosport
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- June 17, 2004
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- City, State
- Knoxville, TN
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 Limited AWD 302
The heaviest gauge wiring you should find coming into the truck will be 10 or 12 gauge, 12 is very common, and any 10 would be rare and being used.
I did a lot of rewiring with my 1999 rebuilt truck, using a whole 98 harness and 2000 body harness to make my cicuits do what I wanted done. There are not many ciruits that you can tap into for major amperage, there are a lot which can support an extra 5-20 amps each.
Your distribution box is new from 2001, so I can't guess about colors or circuits in it. There should be a few dead holes where you could add relays or fuses, but you should avoid that. I added three fuses to mine, but I had a lot of extra parts to do that, you must have factory connectors etc. to add into those panels.
You should consider the amperages that you need, and see if you can't use existing interior wiring. As an example, the 99+ Explorers with heated seats have a wire fused under the hood just for that, it is easy to tap into, with or without cutting the wire. I used it to power my radio amplifier instead.
If you must do that special thing, then buy and mount a solenoid anywhere that you want it, and trigger it with an ignition/accessory wire, You will need to run a power wire to it, that's no big deal, use a 4-8 gauge wire, depending on load. Good luck,
I did a lot of rewiring with my 1999 rebuilt truck, using a whole 98 harness and 2000 body harness to make my cicuits do what I wanted done. There are not many ciruits that you can tap into for major amperage, there are a lot which can support an extra 5-20 amps each.
Your distribution box is new from 2001, so I can't guess about colors or circuits in it. There should be a few dead holes where you could add relays or fuses, but you should avoid that. I added three fuses to mine, but I had a lot of extra parts to do that, you must have factory connectors etc. to add into those panels.
You should consider the amperages that you need, and see if you can't use existing interior wiring. As an example, the 99+ Explorers with heated seats have a wire fused under the hood just for that, it is easy to tap into, with or without cutting the wire. I used it to power my radio amplifier instead.
If you must do that special thing, then buy and mount a solenoid anywhere that you want it, and trigger it with an ignition/accessory wire, You will need to run a power wire to it, that's no big deal, use a 4-8 gauge wire, depending on load. Good luck,
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biturbosport
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- 99' Sport
thanks for the pictures and response! Which is the ignition accessory wire? would I just splice a pigtail off of it and run it to a solenoid. I am thinking I will go this way. I am doubting that a solenoid on the ignition accy wire will over load it- what do you think?
- Joined
- June 17, 2004
- Messages
- 24,265
- Reaction score
- 4,733
- City, State
- Knoxville, TN
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 98 Limited AWD 302
As I mentioned I am not sure what your color of wire will be. Ford changes colors sometimes, usually when a major wiring change occurs. The 95-98 harnesses are almost identical, and small changes were made in 1999, mostly because of the returnless fuel systems. I think 2001 was the year that a lot of changes happened to the 2001+ Sport and Sport Trac, while the 2001 4dr stayed the same.
It sounds like you are headed for using a solenoid, like the one I mounted next to my battery, pictured. You can get them in many ratings, just know that as you get higher they take more power themselves. The factory relays take almost no power to run, and feed almost every circuit in the truck.
Triggering a relay can be done with any proper wire basically. Use your owners manual to choose one of the relays in the distribution box. From that you can flip the box over to access the backside and tap into the wire powered by or for that relay. It will take a few minutes to carefully get into the backside of the distribution box, plan to remove some tape, and replace it after you finish.
If you can select your aux circuits to know how many potentially will be needed, you might build a relay box like the one pictured against my brake booster. Those are available in many combinations in all Fords, if that may work for you then browse under the hoods of parts cars in a local yard. Good luck,
It sounds like you are headed for using a solenoid, like the one I mounted next to my battery, pictured. You can get them in many ratings, just know that as you get higher they take more power themselves. The factory relays take almost no power to run, and feed almost every circuit in the truck.
Triggering a relay can be done with any proper wire basically. Use your owners manual to choose one of the relays in the distribution box. From that you can flip the box over to access the backside and tap into the wire powered by or for that relay. It will take a few minutes to carefully get into the backside of the distribution box, plan to remove some tape, and replace it after you finish.
If you can select your aux circuits to know how many potentially will be needed, you might build a relay box like the one pictured against my brake booster. Those are available in many combinations in all Fords, if that may work for you then browse under the hoods of parts cars in a local yard. Good luck,
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