I’m new here… just got myself a 1968 Cougar Vinyl Top 289 2V on Tuesday, and I’ve been working hard sorting out some nasty electrical issues. The car sat for almost 10 years, and it really shows when it comes to the state of the electrical system, let me tell you. Every single connection was corroded, rusty, or both. Further, somebody without much electrical skill wired up a lot of the replaced parts… exposed copper, shoddy tape work, and so on.
So far, I’ve done the following:
Charged and replaced the battery.
Brand new 1AWG ground wire.
Tightened the alternator belt.
Wire brush, electrical contact cleaner, and steel wool everywhere I could find a plug, connector, socket, or wire on the whole car.
Redid the grounds in the trunk.
Sanded and polished up the firewall, engine, and chassis grounds.
Replaced every single bulb in the rear end and the front turn signals.
Reconnected a loose wire to the brake light switch.
This took me most of the weekend and from a disappointing 12.75V to an awesome 14.5V across the battery at idle, and made my taillights and emergency flashers work properly again. All six taillights shine super bright, and they look phenomenal now.
What’s left to figure out:
A. Turn signal switch is toast. Replacement in the mail.
B. I only have one horn, and it doesn’t work at all.
C. These two random wires that come down from the steering column have no destination. What are they? Brown and yellow-black stripe.
D. What are these two three-prong plug thingies? The yellow one and the red one.
E. My headlight floor switch is completely jammed and stuck on “high beam” mode… initially, 3/4 lights were working, but now I just have one high-beam and the low-beam on the opposite side. Any ideas on where to find another high beam floor switch? Where are the grounds for the headlights connected to also?
C. The random wires look like they were pulled from a connector of the type going to the steering column or the Instrument panel. The wire colors do not correspond to a steering column color, but they may go to the horn. If it has an aftermarket steering wheel that could be a clue.
You will need to look for those wire colors and check what circuits they control, some that use those colors are: speakers, Charge light, and marker lights.
D. Those red and yellow connectors look aftermarket, like taps for other circuits which were wired in or bridged. They need to be traced.
The yellow, three prong connector looks like the accessory feed that was used on cars with certain options, like tilt-away steering. See if it goes back to the fuse box. The pigtail I have in mind connects to an add-on post at the fuse box and is about 10" long, with three female plugs which provide 12v feed. The red one looks aftermarket. I agree w/ DevilDog on the two loose wires with spade connectors, but I don’t have a wiring diagram for 68. Is your car XR-7 or standard?
Perfect - great answer. My car is a standard 289 two-barrel.
I actually ordered that when I got my heater cable set… but the download link never came through. I’ll email them and see if they can pass along the PDF… it would be most helpful. Thanks very much for your input!
Now to diagnose the finicky headlights. I have one high beam and one low beam and a floor beam selector that is jammed. It could just be that the busted floor beam selector isn’t working, but I’m not too sure. I ordered a new floor switch and four headlamps for good measure… and I’ll do the relay modification once I figure that part out as well. I’m hoping that the lights will work properly… because I’ve got 14.5V across the battery at idle with full load, I’ve cleaned every single socket and connector, and sanded every single socket/prong I can find.
Yes, I had some trouble in the beginning on how the download link works, it comes up somewhere after checkout, but I do not remember where.
Here is the page for the Headlamps.
[album]1391[/album]
Each bulb has a ground wire, and they are chained together (57, Black)
Looks like the HI-Lo bulb has 3 prongs, and the Hi only has 2. A Hi beam bulb could be plugged into a low beam socket.
The Hi Beam has voltage on the 12 Line (Green/Black) and on the 13 Line (Red) for Low beams. The switch could be all shorted out.
Perfect - thanks Greg. I wonder where exactly that ground ultimately goes. Looks like it’s in the top-right corner of the picture… is that an easy one to find?
Gotcha. I cleaned up that ground last night to no avail. Time for headlight relays!
I know that it’s best to use 12-14 gauge wiring, 30-40 amp relays, and that I’ll need another bunch of wiring bits and pieces. If anybody has a full parts list or a link to a great how-to, that would be awesome!
Have you tried putting a jumper across the foot dimmer plug to test the lines down from there? With Lights off, jump Red/yellow(15) to Red (13) and turn on lights (LO), then repeat, jumping Red/Yellow to Green/Black (HI)
Got out the beam selector switch and fabbed up a quick and dirty jumper wire. Guessing that there was some corrosion or grime or build-up in the headlamp sockets, I re-pinned and wired them from each of the four bulbs to the three-prong brown connector piece for good measure. This improved the light output somewhat surprisingly, though it could be placebo effect.
With the jumper wire hooked up, I checked the low beam setting, which came out normal: (OXXO). The high-beam still shows two of the four, which leads me to believe that I have some busted “high-beam” filaments in two of the four bulbs. Either way, they’re old and very yellow - so all four bulbs are being replaced this week along with a new beam floor switch.
So I extracted the headlight-relevant portion of the exterior lighting chart and ended up with the first picture. Blue and purple aren’t the correct colours, but green/red/black are. Blue is high beams and purple is low beam obviously. In the second picture, I’ve MS-Paint wired the relays in… does that look about correct for 5-pin Bosch relays? Thanks all,
The relay wiring looks good. You will need to rig a jumper for the 14401to 14290 connector, routing the 12 and 13 wires OUT and the 73 relay outputs IN, and bridging the other connections.
The relays can mount to the panel with the Turn Signal relays, attached to the WW motor bracket. Run 12V from the Starter motor Pos term (fuse it) to the relays and ‘Bob’s your Uncle’
I assume you are doing this to remove the High amp load from the Foot Switch to prevent switch arc corrosion and eventual failure?
Devildog, wouldn’t in be much better to put the relays close to the headlights, running a much shorter power wire from the battery side post on the starter solenoid to the relays? The switches then see the relay as the load and very low current requirements.
I’m more of a visual learner. Could I trouble you to draw out the diagram for the 14401 to 14290 connector? I see it on my map, but it’s not making too much sense to me in text form unfortunately.
Yes, I was thinking of this after the post, and it would make the Hi current line shorter. The only downside would be more stuff under the hood, and being sure the relay’s were weatherproof.
It’s an easier jumper as well. From the 14290 to the 13076, 1 straight through line and 2 bypass lines. If you got a male/female connector plug set, it would be easier that fabbing from bullet connectors.
EDIT- Wait, it gets weird, the branch to R/L are on the input side of the junction there, you will need 2 jumpers. I gotta map that one out.
For fun and experimentation I made a jumper for the indicator lamps, my video should give you an idea of what a bypass jumper would look like. I use shrinkwrap/waterproof bullet connectors soldered to 12ga wire. Be sure to solder all connections and use 12 gauge wire.
It can be done without 2 jumpers, but you will need to cut the 12 and 13 lines on the 14290 harness. Lines from the switch need splicing to the relays, and the relay outputs splice to the lines out to the lights. Somewhere the lines have to be broken, bypass or cut and splice…
Finally got my turn signals up and running! I snipped and re-wired the Green-Orange wire at the turn signal connector, and then moved to the trunk when that didn’t work. I took my flap wheel to all of the grounding points again, shined up the contacts, replaced all of the bolts/washers/nuts, and sprayed every connector and piece down with electrical cleaner. Good as new!
one of the best places to put the relays is above the frame rail near where the loom exits through the radiator support. You can pick up the input for your 86 pin and use the existing loom from the 87 pin to the lights. The horn wire runs through the same loom so you can add a relay for the horn as well. Some mid 80’s Fords have a 4 relay pack that you can use.
Down side is you need to run a heavy gauge wire from the battery / solenoid. I use this set up with 4 x 100watt globes on high beam so the voltage drop over that distance is negligible
