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Wed Nov 19, 2003 11:34 pm

Does anyone know what sort of electrical oddities late busses have? I know that the dash turn signals flash together no matter which side you use, but is there anything else?
I'm cleaning up the half jerry-rigged mess that is my '72 deluxe.
My headlights don't come on until the key is turned, but my parking lights are able to turn on with out the key. My internal lights are wired wierd; and there's no mention on the wiring diagram of a large wire transfer box mounted just in front of the driver's door.
Does the wire for the rear interior light run through this box?
There's a black wire running down the inside of the passenger A-post. is this to the rear defroster, the rear interior light, the generator light, or something totally different?
What is the proper order of red/white fuses on a late bus? I've found a generic VW list, but I've fried several fuses running that arrangement.
The fusebox is suppesed to mount against the sheetmetal of the nose, right? mine doesn't. I don't mean it can't, I mean it doesn't have the mounting gear and the wires are too stiff to let it sit back in that position. Last time I tried, it sent up sparks when I reattached the battery.

While I'm at it, does anyone know what I can use to hold the electric ignition switch in it's holder? I lost the screw. The only thing holding it in is the fact that the thing barely fits in the first place.

Thu Nov 20, 2003 6:11 pm

grethi wrote:
1.)I know that the dash turn signals flash together
2.)My headlights don't come on until the key is turned,
3.)My internal lights are wired wierd;
4.) large wire transfer box in front of the driver's door.
5.)Does the wire for the rear interior light run through this box?
6.)There's a black wire running down the inside of the passenger A-post.
7.)The fusebox is to mount against the sheetmetal of the nose, right?

Okey dokey.
1.) Yes, they are wired to flash together.
2.) Yes, the '71's and later had this power-saving feature.
3.) Yes, the earlier buses had door-wired front light that was live through both terminals and grounded at the door switches while the rear was switch grounded or powered through the dash switch to illuminate.
4.) ?? you're not talking about a multiple connector here?
5. 6.) don't know. Mine comes down passenger side A pillar with rear window defogger.
7.) Mine mounts to the fresh air plenum which has two brackets spot welded to it. Two phillips head self-tapping screws hold the fuse/relay panel onto the brackets. There is plenty of room for the wires no sparks.
Colin

Sun Nov 30, 2003 2:18 am

Color coded wiring diagrams are available in the Bentley manual or at vintagebus.com. He has '72 diagrams. According to the diagram online for '72 the first 8 fuses are white, 9 & 10 are red, and 11-12 are white. Does your fuse holder have 12 fuses? If so, this is probably cool.

The tiny screw is always REALLY easy to lose. I don't think it is available from a dealer so you either need to find a wrecking yard or another tiny metric screw elsewhere. :cry:

Sun Nov 30, 2003 8:51 am

70-72 fuseboxes were mounted up above the air duct. Horrible place, I will agree.
When VW moved the turnsignals in 73 to above the headlights, they moved the fusebox down in the middle below the dash. MUCH better location.

Mon Dec 01, 2003 10:43 pm

aaahhh yes, wiring. Where to start...

I have a 71 Adventurewagen. Needless to say between the original modifications and those made by the original owners, I had and still have a wiring mess. I have been gradually been working to rewire everything in the bus. If you get the color coded wire diagrams, or just some really blown up diagrams it makes it easy to see where everything goes. You will find out that it is much simpler than it looks. For example you realize that the dash turn signals are in fact wired together, but if you run individual wires from the respective signal you can make them blink seperately.

If you plan to start to rewire things try to simplify matters by focusing on one issue at a time. If you rewire your internal lights, you might cosider attaching all of them through the auxillary wire which directly connects to the battery. The fuse panel located in the front left nose of the bus should have an open slot at position 7 which you could use if you want to keep things fairly standard, otherwise you can add another fuse panel yourself. I have a fridge in my bus, which was wired directly to a second house battery in my bus. I later decided to change all the interior lights over to this battery as well along with the stereo. To make this work I got an old fuse panel from a junk yard and put it in by the fridge. I then run a large wire directly from the house battery to this panel which gives it power. I then seperated the lights, fridge, and stereo between different positions in the panel. It has worked out very nicely. I even through in a switch to toggle the stereo between using the house battery or the car battery depending on whether I am driving or not.

Anyway if you have any wiring question let me know, I am always up for talking about wiring, batteries, and anything powered in the bus. I added a solar panel along with an inverter to the bus. :)

Good Luck.