This weekend wasn’t very productive on the Cobra front. A lot of other stuff has been sidelined lately and I needed to catch up on it. Yesterday was devoted to getting my truck (which I only really drive when I need to buy something big or for a few winter months) cleaned, fluids changed, etc.

Today was a gorgeous early Fall day and I just couldn’t bring myself to spend all day in the garage. I worked on the dash wiring a bit more this morning and wrapped up the power wiring for the gauges this evening. Thats pretty much it — read the rest of this post for a few pictures of the wiring.

The dash gauges all have quick-disconnect wiring coming out the back, rather than the somewhat more tyical male terminals that wires just clip to. The downside of that is a mess more wiring because things can’t be connected directly to the gauge. The dash wiring can be afixed to the dash, but the actual wires coming out of the gauges have to be left loose or the gauges can not be removed.

Each gauge has three five power wires coming out of it. Two power the gauge needle lighting and are very small gauge wires with a separate harness, the other three provide 12V power to the gauges, 12V to the gauge lighting and ground. The needle lighting has its own wiring, so I just needed to wire up the other ones.

The first thing I did was mount theree eight-terminal busses on the back of the dash below the tachometer. Normally these are used to connect eight wires into four discrete pairs (each section does not connect to the others). I used three four-position cross-connect bars to tie them together. The ground is on the left, dash lighting in the middle and 12V switched with the car on the right.

To keep from having a tangled mess of wiring, the far two gauges are bundled together. The photo shows how the dash harness is ziptied and mounted to the rear of the dash, but the actual wires coming out of the gauges are left loose.

The right three of the 2 1/4 inch gauges similarly are fathered together. Again, the dash harness is mounted to the aluminum, but the wiring is loose from the gauges. I’ll likely tie these up, at least a little bit with velcro ties, once the dash is finally assembled.

The speedometer and tachometer are bundled together between them. The dash hasn’t been drilled for the high-beam and turn signal indicators, so I may have to move this bundle slightly once they are mounted.

Over all I’m pretty happy with the wiring so far. Next step is to bundle the sender wires together and put a 10 position quick disconnect in the middle so the dash can be easily removed from the car.

Once that is done, the switches are next, although I still haven’t found ones I like. Before I get them I may end up working on the heater ducting first.