Wiring a Dexta form scratch

[Donegal Dexta]

Im wiring my Dexta from scratch as 99% of the wiring was removed by the previous owner. As a complete novice to wiring Dextas, is their any step by step diagramatic guides to the wiring process anywhere?? I have the wiring diagram but it doesnt help me in terms of where to start first or how to actually wire anything. Im mainly concerened at being able to wire the ignition switch, heater button, battery, generator and starter for now as I want to check if my Dexta starts of the key. You help would be appreciated.

Cheers

[Bensdexta]

Why not buy a harness? For £40-50 I doubt you will save much doing it yourself and it'll be hastle.

Some repro harnesses are alot better than others. I'm told Autosparks are amongst the best harnesses. They do OEM harnesses for some sports car manufacturers, so quality should be good.

Also they use the correct colour wires for the Dexta, which helps maintenance.

They will do what they call 'tape for braid' with no end connectors so you can put your own on if you wish.

However, I am going to take my starter, alt, switches etc along to them and they will fit the correct connectors whilst I wait.

All the best,

[GERRY]

Hi donegal dexta, have you a gen or alternator , if you are going to wire it as orignal , you will need acompleat wireing loom an gen type. or if its just for work an alternator might be the best way to go. there is alot of posts with diagrams for both set ups if you scroll back throught search .some say the alternator type is the best for charging , Gerry

[Bensdexta]

A standard harness, see workshop manual, can be used either with a genny or an alternator. With the alt there are 4 un-used wires, which can either be removed from the harness or taped off. Polarity is reversed but that doesn't affect the harness.
All the best,

[Foxen]

While buying a repro harness probably is the route to go if you wish to stay "original", I myself rather make my own harness and "update" the wire size in the process, if you fit modern lights(like 65W H4 halogen headlights) using the original wiring loom it probably won't be long until you toast those wires... I've redone five majors here in sweden, one of them being my own and almost all functions except for the position/tail lights, trailer socket and blinkers are all done with thicker wire than the original loom, not to mention that I run the headlights over relays rather than over the actual light switch since I figure that will save it for a couple of years more

Edit:
If you do plan to make your own harness you could always start out with making a small written list of which functions you need/want, where from they should be fed, how many wires needed in this or that direction and so forth... I made my harness with some high quality wiring hose(black nylon'ish corrugate-looking hose that doesn't kink when bent), place it so it reflects where to the wires are supposed to go and then start pushing the actual wires through... looks very tidy once it's done even though it will take some time to accomplish.

[Bensdexta]

Foxen, good thoughts.

What gauges of wire do you use mostly for your harness?

How do you colour code the wires?

What is the hose you use?

Thanks,

[Foxen]

Foxen, good thoughts.

What gauges of wire do you use mostly for your harness?

Battery terminal to ground and to starter: 00AWG

Main feed from battery terminal via a 40A relay to fuse box and alternator to battery terminal: 9.5AWG

Main feed from 15A fuse to light switch/ignition key: 11AWG

Starter switch wires: 13AWG(once ignition key is on, the main feed relay is actuated which feeds the relays for lights etc)

Tail/trailer socket wires: 15AWG

Control wires from light switch to relays: 15AWG

Since I have an electrical temp gauge I have wired it also with 15AWG as well as turn signals and oil/gen indicators, I replaced the old style ground terminals(ring terminal) with spade connectors for easy disconnection and reassembly.

I have a total of three used fuses out of four possible, one is a 20 or 25A fuse for the main relay, one 15A for thermostart and starter, and one 10A for the rest(might have to change this one to 15A if I plug a trailer to it)

How do you colour code the wires?

Ground(in my case negative ground): Black

Feed from battery to switches, "live side": Red

Switch - Lo beam: Yellow

Switch - Hi beam: Yellow w. green tracer(normal ground wire colour)

Switch - Instrument lights, tail lights and trailer socket tail: Grey and Brown(I've parallel wired grey and brown in my trailer socket)

Temp gauge - Temp meter: black as this serves as "ground"

Oil pressure gauge - Indicator light: brown

Alternator B+ - battery: red
Alternator D+(charging light) - indicator light: yellow

Starter switch - Starter: red(this one's easily distinguished in my loom since it's the only red wire going from the dash and forward)

Switch - Thermostart: 13AWG brown(this one's a slightly different shade of brown than the one for trailer socket)

Switch - signal horn: blue 13AWG(darker blue than right hand turn signal)

Right hand turn signal: blue
Left hand turn signal: green

What is the hose you use?

It looks just like this one: http://www.texit.se/produkter/skyddslang/slitflex/ But it's not slit along it's length and cannot be used with an existing loom but only when making a loom from scratch, it's flexible and pretty durable which makes it quite appropriate for use on a tractor or other agricultural equipment...
These images show a little of it...
Upper dash loom(s):
http://iloapp.b20power.com/data/_galler ... esized.jpg
Front part wiring loom as it's passing by the starter:
http://iloapp.b20power.com/data/_galler ... esized.jpg

These "hoses" are available in several different diameters and one should take note that it is the black UV-tolerant variety that's used(it's a lot more flexible than the cheaper non UV-tolerant that's used for wiring inside house walls)

I'd advise anyone that's bent on making their own loom to write a short list of which functions are needed/wanted and their cable colors and also the wire gauge and I encourage you if possible to use wire coloring that either is identical to the vehicles original loom or if you make up your own colors, don't use the same wire gauge and color on two wires running the same way in the loom as this will probably give you headache the day you need to fix something I did it because I didn't have that many colors to pick from and I didn't run the same color and gauge wire twice in the same loom...

Thanks,

You're very welcome

[Foxen]

Btw, the tape I've used to seal off openings and such of the hose is a tape normally used to tape the ends of a hockey club(black, kinda waxy-structure to it, once taped it won't come off easily)

[Donegal Dexta]

Thanks Guys that gives me some good ideas to start off with. One more question before I go, can you recommend a good tractor restoration book for Dextas/Fordsons to compliment the repair manual??

Cheers

Donegal Dexta

[Bensdexta]

..can you recommend a good tractor restoration book for Dextas/Fordsons to compliment the repair manual??

www.fordson-dexta.de

[Mervyn Spencer]

Hi Foxen

Please can you reduce the size of your pictures. Nice to have big clear pics but when it comes to reading the text you have to scroll for miles.

Please accept the above as constructive criticism/advise.

Kind regards
Mervyn

[Jerry Coles]

Donegal Dexta
If you PM me I'll send you my wiring diagram and photo's of my Dexta wired for Indicators, Brake lights, Alternator with some in-line connectors which make it easy if you want to remove the instrument binnacle etc.
regards
Jerry
Bath

[Foxen]

I'll be linking the images in the future since I upload them "as is" and my web gallery does the rest of the "magic" when viewing them through that...

[Mervyn Spencer]

Thanks Foxen that will be great. Look forward to see more of your pictures.

[Foxen]

Thanks Foxen that will be great. Look forward to see more of your pictures.

Have a look at http://maskin.b20power.com/ then

[Mervyn Spencer]

Thanks again Foxen very interesting . Your Super Major has certainly had a lot of work put into her and looks very nice, well done.