Interior Light/Stereo to Leisure Batt on *Early* Westfalia

[mr_nunn]

hi,

I wanted to switch my interior lights and stereo over to the leisure battery. It is fairly well-documented how to do this on a later Westfalia with blade fuses (e.g. http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/westy ... 11446.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;).... but I have an earlier model (1981).

I have worked out that pulling the red fuse (8 from left) cuts out the interior lights...but not the stereo... and I think I read that this wiring also carries the brake lights, so not ideal to be switching them over too.

Does anyone know of how to proceed with this?

Thanks!

[CovKid]

That should sort you out. Reroot the circuit on fuse 8:



Bottom half of fusebox is the normally live in (with ignition on), the top (as you're looking at it) is the outputs to whichever circuit. Interior lights are slightly different as they always have a permanent live to them from the fusebox but the principle still applies - just pull off the top spade/s on fuse 8 and take it to positive at leisure battery.

If you disconnect battery, unscrew fusebox and gently pull it away, you'll see the live rail at the bottom. Should make sense then.

Hard to say where your stereo is picking up its live from but chances are it has an inline fuse. You'll need to follow it and disconnect accordingly.

Might pay you to fit a mini leisure fusebox under the dash - supply it from leisure and just move interior light spade to that as well as stereo live. Few ways of doing it.

I recently moved dip/main beam off that fusebox too and onto a new heavyweight cable I added to help boost light output.

[Ralf85]

That fuse layout is really useful. Thanks.

[mr_nunn]

Thank you CovKid - that's super useful information and great to know the fuse layout.

Just one question - do I need to do something about separating the brake light circuit off which is part of the fuse 8 circuit? It doesn't seem like it would be a good idea to take the brake lights to the leisure battery along with the interior light...

Cheers!

[CovKid]

Don't see why. You only need to put something on leisure basttery that you might used when parked. I fitted some heath robinson electric windows to mine and they actually run off leisure but then I sometimes need to open window when parked so that made sense. If brake light is fed from that fuse, just leave that where it is. You'll soon discover which is which.

Also, read bottom of this page: http://wiki.club8090.co.uk/index.php/Co ... eplacement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you're moving stuff, get the blower and wipers away from each other. Recommended by me sometime ago if you have early fusebox.

At some point I'll do a WIKI on supplementary rewiring for an early vehicle with a leisure battery as it may be useful to some.

[mr_nunn]

Thank you again - great advice.

I will tackle this at the weekend, and yes I'll take the opportunity to give the blower its own fuse too as per your advice.

Much appreciated!

[CovKid]

Technically, fuse 9 SHOULD be for your stereo but no guarantee it was wired to there. Let us know how you get on. As it happens I'm working on my fuse box tomorrow too and I have the early one.

[mr_nunn]

Hello there.

Well it was a successful weekend mission and I now have leisure-powered lights and radio, and I put in a cigarette lighter style power/charging point for good measure (there wasn't one).

I ran a cable from the leisure "+" to near the main fuse box (fused at the battery side too as a guard against short circuit) and then made up a mini leisure fuse box there (as suggested by CovKid) with one side live, and the other side feeding the lights, radio, socket.

The light circuit was just a case of moving the connector from the main board, the socket was a straightforward new connection, and the radio....none of the fuses on the main board affected the radio, so I ran a wire from the new fuse box through the dash to the back of the radio, found the existing connection to live there, and swapped it for my new leisure live connection wire.

Somebody must have already separated the blower/wiper fuse circuit as pulling fuse 10 only killed the wipers, not the blower... so I left that alone.

Hope this may help someone in future. Thanks again for the advice, especially to CovKid!