Has anyone removed/rewired the fusebox

Hey,

With the caddy I'm building, I'm wondering if it's worthwhile removing the absolute mess that is the stock fusebox, and replacing it with a custom relay board,fusebox and switch gear.

I've wired a sub fusebox for the engine, so all that runs off the main fusebox is the lighting systems, starter and possibly the charging system [been a while since I wired it up]

I hate the fact that there are so many wires running out of the main box, and I'm sure alot of them are now defunct.

Or are there alot of wires I can remove, and so make it alot tidier! ?

Thanks in advance.

Check the diagram in the sticky in electrics and it will tell you what you can remove

Well, I have trouble reading the VW diagrams, but to me is seems there are alot of wires that are sharing the same information.  I've just started removing the harnesses, starting with the front lights and wiper harness.  Seeing as they're the simplist.

I think it'd be best to remove all the switches and replace with rocker switches too.

Looks somewhat daunting.

Id be interested to know if you got any further with this as I too was considering starting from scratch with the fusebox and wiring, though keeping all the original style switches.

Rich

Well actually, I've just turned around.  After trawling the net, I found a modular fuseboard that you can mix and match, but the cost started to mount, plus the switchgear, it was getting on for over £130.  I'm not that enthused about spending money.

So instead I'm going to try to utilise and tidy the existing fuseboard, and find what fuses are unused, and add my accessories and engine harness into those fuses, so everything is fused from the main box, and ultimately, tidy and leaves it open to fault finding.

I've removed the switchgear/indicator loom, and I am just disecting it, de-pinning and re-pinning to untangle it.

I'll put a pic up of where I'm at so far.

:/ good luck mate!

I think i'll probably end up doing a similar thing, oh how i look forward to that!

I get the impression that my fusebox may not be up to much good though, corroded pins and relay sockets, and several wires have been cut out and / or reattached elsewhere.

I, like you, am none too enthusiastic on spending the money on a brand new fusebox!

Keep us updated

Rich

you may want to consider going with a CE2 fusebox, it has a lot more feeds internally so you can tidy things up a bit. plus it uses std junior/power timer pins which are easier to get hold of these days. polevolt.co.uk used to sell the ce1 pins but it seems they dont at the moment! im hopign they're just looking for stock rather than these pins are now unavailable! this would make my wiring looms much harder to make

I also am having problems with my fuse box. Some of the connectors are corroded and one has overheated and melted the plug. Are the plugs still available for the bullet fuse (early S1) fuse box?

Am I right in thinking the Ce2 fusebox is '90-onward era golfs and such?

Would it just be a case of cross referencing what each wire does on the two systems and fitting the mk1 loom with mk2 plugs?

These pins you mention rubjonny, are they the pins that are crimped to the cables that then slide inside the plugs? Or am.i way off track?!

Thanks

Rich

dubsingh: I'd recommend you bin the ceramic fusebox, its a load of pap. go later ce1 blade fusebox or ce2.

myfirstmk1: yes 90spec onwards mk2, mk3, corrodo, plus loads of other 90s vw/seats use ce2 loom

basically yes, id each pin on the ce1 fusebox and look up its couterpart in the ce2 loom. this thread will help:
http://www.clubgti.com/showthread.php?219775
you'll note that a lot of wiring on the mk1 bypasses the fusebox entirely, wheras ce2 pretty much everything runs thru the fusebox. the other big advantage is its much more modular, the mk1 dash loom is all lumped together in 1 unit, whereas on ce2 the clock loom, stalks, ign switch, dash switches etc are all separate so can be removed/replaced on their own.

yes the pins are crimped onto the wires then popped into the fusebox plugs, you could just the plug wires with good lengths off a donor and splice to your wiring instead though.

Thanks for the info about the CE2 box, but is it worth the hassle?  I'm only after 5 or so fuses, this box has 20-odd fuses, I'm sure at least 5 of those are free..?  

Is there a list of fuses that are permanent/ignition live and what pins they go to on the back?

its up to you of course

for the ce1 fusebox its very easy to add extra feeds if you look round the back you'll see 2 groups of spades. the ones marked P are permanent live (unfused) the feeds marked G are accessory lives. not all are ign live! some are lights on, washers etc. see my fusebox faq thread linky that'll help.

also see my sig, jetta89.pdf. that is complete CE1 fusebox diagram, has very few pages showing all the internal traces on the fusebox so you can see exactly what each fuse is for

Cool, thanks alot for the help john, will probably take your advice on the ce2 as I have a pretty naff looking ceramic at the moment!

Also thanks for unknowingly helping me out alot with an abf into a mk2 i did years ago

And sorry for the thread hijack!

Rich

Oops!

Downloading!  Cheers

Will report back.

OK, Couple of cut wires I could do with identifying with your help, I can't find the relavent pages for the switches:

Hazard,
Light switch.

I have GRY/BLU going to pin 58b in the light switch
and GRY/BLU going to pin 3 of the hazzard switch.

Are these 12V feed for the illumination bulbs?

I also have two browns coming from the bulbs in the switches, I'm guessing ALL BROWNS on VW is GND?

I also have a BRN in pin 31 of the indicator switch [I think it's indis]  Is that also a GND?

I have a BLK to pin 15 of the ignition switch.  Is that a permanent feed to something?

Cheers

light switch is on page 6, top right. hazard switch is page 7, top left

yes grey/blue is dash light feed. browns are earth. the black wire on ign switch is the ignition live feed to the dash.

Some VW circuit numbers you'll see on various wiring diagrams: (also applicable to most german cars!)
15 - coil live  (live with ignition AND cranking)
X - x-over live (live with ignition but NOT cranking)
30 - permanent live
31 - earth
50 - starter motor live

Ah yes I see, on the jetta manual, I've been using some haynes PDF which is damn awful!!

Cheers!

So GRY/BLU from the fusebox is 12v feed when sidelights/dip is active, so I need to splice that to tyhe hazard and light switch AND digi dash, to retain dimming for the digi dash and bulb lights for the two switches… I guess there'd be one for the foglight switch too, though the foglight switch evades me at this moment.

ah the haynes uses vw wiring diagrams which are a bit of a mare if you dont know how to read them! it doesnt help that the mk2 haynes has them all out of sequence with many diagrams just plain missing.

i actually prefer the vw diagrams but the mitchel ones are very handy for tracing the fusebox feeds