As mentioned in another post I am rewiring the control box, home run wiring from the control box and new waterproof plug disconnect.

On the hot to the ignition switch there is a 16 GA red to the plug and 16 GA orange to the 30 AMP fuse. My question is the hardwire from the fuse holder that butt connects to the orange wire looks to be at least 14, maybe 12 GA???

20160727_071112.jpg

Should I go with a 14 GA from the ignition to the fuse, different fuse, or just stay with 16 GA?

Thanks for the input.

Mine is a 12ga only because the mini fuse holder was 12ga wire. So on my female disconnect (motor side), the 12ga wire plugs into it. On the male side (switch side), its 14 ga.

You aren't going to hurt anything by going with a larger wire size. If it was setup from the factory with 16, then that should be plenty. If you have 12 or 14, it won't hurt to use it.

Think of it this way.

You have 100 people in a room with one door. You can't get them all out that single door real quickly, it's going to be slow and cause problems. Put in a bigger door (or multiple doors) and the people will flow much quicker with less conflict out of the room the room.

Your current is the moving people (amps). The door (wire) has a specific ampacity. Increase the door size (wire size) will increase the amount of amps you can carry through the circuit. Just because it has the abilty to carry a larger load, does not mean it will draw or pull a larger load.

Use whatever you want 16 or bigger and you'll have no problems.

I did my main harness with 10 and 12. 8 for the trim, 4 for the starter cables. On the trim, I run two solenoids, and a simple low current switch (like this much, much better than the high current switch). My fuse blocks are in the battery boxes, I don't run an inline up there by the motor. For the small accessories, my switch plate has each switch individually fused.

And just extra info, if anyone wants to run a solenoid setup on the older 3 wire trim pumps, these are what I used. You need two of them. Then you can run any low current (on) off (on) momentary toggle switch.


https://www.waytekwire.com/item/77003/S ... aQoddsUFBQ

Cole hersee spst, 24117


This info is only for the 3 wire pumps, the two wire pumps, you can use a single reversing solenoid like you use on a winch.

So I just got off the phone with PD and was told they actually wire it differently now.

Currently, at the key switch hot, there is a red and orange wire(both 16 GA) The red goes to the disconnect plug and goes out of the plug to the starter. The orange goes to the fuse, and out of the fuse to the starter also.

PD said they dont use the red wire to the plug anymore, he said just remove it from the equation. But they now use a single 10 GA from the switch and connect to the fuse and fuse to starter.

This make sense? I guess my only question is that if you used to have two hots(plug and fuse), both going to the starter, but only one of them were protected with a fuse how would have this protected things? It was essentially two hots going to the starter, but only one had a fuse. IDK and guess really doesnt matter if I follow PD advise, which I have found to be awesome.

Which scenario do you all have your wired up. One or two wires?

Thanks All!

I have a 4 gauge going to the big lug on the starter. The hot wire that feeds the ignition switch comes directly from the battery box (fuse block). I didn't piggy back of the starter wire like they do.

Really, it doesn't matter how they did it or how I did it. Just get you a pen and paper, draw out what needs to be connected. What needs acc/ign power, what needs constant power, what needs to go to what switch, etc...and draw it up the way it makes sense to you. Then wire it up that way. Trying to put a butchered harness back together the way multiple people did it (or even the same people telling you different ways) will just confuse the shit out of you.

Hats off to you for trying it, most fuckers these days wont even attempt it themselves, they want everything laid out like a doctor suess book. I'll tear something apart in a heartbeat to figure it out, if I mess it up, o well, try again and learn from the mistake.

There's not a person on this earth that began walking without tripping, sadly most are too afraid of the fall now to let go of the rail.

Cool, good info. About the same price too, so that's good if I ever need em. I haven't had any trouble with the cole hersee's yet, but will look into those others if necessary. It made a huge difference in how the pump performs. Like it's on steroids. Can only imagine how bad it is for the pump to run on the limited power those high current switches allow..

And sorry mudder, I'm not an electrician or a mechanic either, but I do electrical work on cars for a living. In most cases, it's easier for me to do things my own way rather than try to figure out what someone else did, and I hate working on butchered up wiring. I'd much rather rip it all out and start over.

Yeah at this point, just trying to rewire the way I unwired it. Haha. With the exception of eliminating that red that went to the plug. Upgrading the wire to the fuse.

As I was looking at that wire to the fuse it did seem weird the difference in the guages and wondered how the amperage would be affected going from 16 ga to 10 ga. Did not seem as efficient.

We will see when I turn the key.....

As long as the 16 gauge wire is sufficient for the load, the bottlenecking is fine. Not necessarily ideal, at least imo, but fine nonetheless.