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What color wires for stock ignition switch?

Blue71

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I am hooking a stock ignition switch back up in my '75. Someone put an aftermarket switch in instead. I need to know where the original pigtail wires go to as far as IGN, ST, BAT, and ACC. I have seven wires on my stock ignition stock switch pigtail. I have a large wire on a center stud "black wire w/green. Purple wire that attaches to the connector on the side which I think is the brake balance light. I have two red/ blue small wires which I think are neutral safety switch wires. I have a larger red wire with green ? And a solid Yellow larger wire. And last I have a green wire with red stripe.(UPDATE and pic is below in the thread) I opened the pigtail up and see where the two red/blue stripes attach together in the pigtail, the green/red and red/ green attach together, the yellow is alone, and the black/ green is alone on the stud.


So I have:

1-Large Black wire w/ green stripe center stud large wire goes to???
1-Purple wire goes to brake imbalance light?
2-Small Red wires/blue stripes
1-Large Red wire with green stripe goes to?
1-Large Yellow wire goes to?
1-Small green wire with red stripe goes to?


Can someone tell me what these do so I can hook them back into my stock harness?

Thanks

Blue71
 
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Blue71

Blue71

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I did more searching and came up with this info below for the ignition switch wire colors from Viperwolf. Kinda helps me, but I need it broken down even more basic. I hate electrical stuff:)


Ign switch

pink or red-green=12V in RUN, resistor wire to coil +, circuit #16
black-green=12v in RUN and ACC, to gauges, circuit #297
yellow=12V to ign switch, circuit #21
green-red=12V in RUN, to voltage reg, circuit #904
red-blue=12V in START, to starter solenoid, circuit #32
pink-white=GND in START, brake warning lamp, circuit #977
 

DirtDonk

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Where you at Viperwolf:)

Yeah, no kiddin'! I thought he'd have your troubles cured by now too.

There have been diagrams and descriptions of where each wire went, in other threads, but I don't remember each position myself.
Pretty sure you're right about two of them though. The wire for the brake warning light plugs onto a blade-terminal down low on the side of the switch.
The Black w/green wire mounts to the center stud, along with (I think?) one other wire.

You may have to get out the old ohm-meter and test the terminals yourself if nobody chimes in. You'd be looking for the easy ones first maybe. The only one (other than the brake warning light terminal) that should be connected when the key is in START would be the Red w/blue one for the starter solenoid.
One of them will only be active when in the ON position, and not in the ACC position. That would be for the Red w/green (Pink resistor wire), and the Green w/red regulator wire.
The Black w/green wire on the center stud would get a connection in both ON and ACC.

That cover it?

Paul
 

DirtDonk

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Well then, why don't you just plug it in? Isn't that the correct orientation for the switch you have? Seems to me that the center stud must've broken off the original switch?
If so, just undo the nut, let the stud fall out, then place this whole unit/plug/connector on to the back of the new Bronco switch and run the Black w/green wire and nut down on the stud to hold it all together.
It's "keyed", so to speak, so the wires will only go on one way.

Since they're all connected (even the Purple brake wire), maybe the whole back of the old switch fell off of and you've got it all in one piece? If so, you'll be able to tell once you get the nut off.

Paul
 
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Blue71

Blue71

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Well then, why don't you just plug it in? Isn't that the correct orientation for the switch you have? Seems to me that the center stud must've broken off the original switch?
If so, just undo the nut, let the stud fall out, then place this whole unit/plug/connector on to the back of the new Bronco switch and run the Black w/green wire and nut down on the stud to hold it all together.
It's "keyed", so to speak, so the wires will only go on one way.

Since they're all connected (even the Purple brake wire), maybe the whole back of the old switch fell off of and you've got it all in one piece? If so, you'll be able to tell once you get the nut off.

Paul

Thanks Paul...the switch thats in the Bronco now is the aftermarket switch that only has 5 terminal spades to connect to ...they say ACC, ST, BAT,and IGN on the 4 terminals and one is directly across from the BAT and is not used now making 5 total spades. I am trying to tie this old factory switch in to match the wires so it all works with the factory switch and get rid of the aftermarket one. "example" Just not sure if the factory switch pigtail wire say (yellow) should go to BAT, and or maybe the red/green and green/red should tie together on the wire that on my IGN terminal etc...

Hope that makes sense


Blue71
 
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Blue71

Blue71

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I need to go from the aftermarket 4 wires I have hooked up here on the right which works, to the factory pigtail on the left. Then I can use the factory pigtail to plug into the factory switch like normal and be back to stock. Just not sure where each of the wires that are connected to the back of the aftermarket switch spades marked ACC, BAT, IGN, and ST(left) needs to go as far as hooking them up to the facory wires. After taking the back off of the pigtail..I see that both blue/red wires connect together on back of the pigtail, red/green/green red connect together, and yellow is by itself as well as the black/green that connects to the stud. Sorry I am so confusing.

Blue71
 

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DirtDonk

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Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I temporarily forgot (until you reminded me) what you were trying to do. Ok, so I'll take another look and let you know what I think.
Be right back...


Paul
 

DirtDonk

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Ok, I'm officially confused now. I guess I was already of course, but just couldn't see it for the trees, so to speak.

So you're saying you want to use a factory switch and get rid of the aftermarket one. Ok, I get that.
And you have a factory type socket already pre-wired looks like. Got it.

So why can't you just hook the factory wires that still exist (it sounds like?) to your factory pigtail with factory wires still sticking out of it? Is your harness aftermarket with different colors? It didn't sound like it from your description. If not, then the colors should match perfectly (except for their extensions that the PO crimped on), allowing for an easy re-splice.
Is your harness spliced with non-factory colored wires, other than the two Black and two Yellow ends that used to go to the aftermarket switch? If so, it should be pretty straightforward to trace them back to the factory colors. And it looks as if you still know each of the old wires was which on the old aftermarket switch anyway, so that shouldn't cause any roadblocks.

Looks like the Yellow wire to the BAT terminal of the old switch goes to the Yellow wire on the connector for the new switch
Looks like the Black wire to the ST of the old switch would go to the Red w/blue ST of the new switch.
Looks like the Yellow wire to the IGN of the old switch would go to the Green w/red and Red w/green of the new switch.
So follow the other Black wire (ACC from the old switch) and find out what factory colored wires it's spliced into and let us know. Should be the factory Black w/green wire, but you'll have to verify. If so, it should go to the Black w/green wire on the center stud of the new switch.

If the problem is that there are not the same number of terminals on the two switches, like you were saying in post #6, it's probably because an aftermarket switch likely did not have the facility to work with the Brake Warning light wire. Separate that one from any other things you're trying to connect, and use it with it's own dedicated terminal on the new factory switch.

So, to follow up on what was already gone over:

Yes, your Yellow (from the battery) power feed wire goes to the BAT terminal. Nothing else will go there, except for something that you want to have power all the time. Nothing that I can think of right off hand. And it's already hooked up to the correct terminal in the factory connector, so just leave it where it is, splice it into the Yellow wire in the harness, and you're good there.

Green w/red and Red w/green go to the IGN post. They're already together in your factory connector, so just splice them in to the chassis harness wires with the same color and connect it.

Red w/blue goes to the ST post. Same procedure as above.

Black w/green has it's own ring still, correct? When you push the connector on to the factory type switch, the center post will stick through, and you nut it up to the post. This holds not only the wire, but retains the whole connector.

Pink w/white plugs onto it's own post separate from the main plug.

Is your dilemma what color wires are hooked to the truck right now? Are there more wires spliced together than you think should be? What am I missing?
What does the chassis side of your harness look like?
Seems to me that if you follow the Black and Yellow wires back a bit, you'll find the factory colors down there somewhere. Since your new switch connector already has the factory wires still connected, and you know from your charts what wire does what, and if you find those colors back there somewhere, you're good to go.

So what am I missing? Got a pic of the under-dash wiring we can see? If you don't have long enough wires, or you have too many wires hooked together into one, you may have to cut the existing Black and Yellow wires off and re-splice some different colors in there to keep things a bit cleaner.

Paul
 
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Blue71

Blue71

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Paul, thanks so much for making your way through all of my confusion:) I appreciate your time and help on this. You are correct in that the previous owner has put different colored wires to the switch and everything under the dash has a nice thick coat of red paint all over it wires, and heater box included:) They were generous enough to throw in a half box of wire nuts and 5 or six butt connectors as well:) Anyway...I was out of town yesterday so hopefully this afternoon/evening I might be able to dive back into it. Again...thanks for the time you took to answer my question(s). Its people like you that make that make this site, Broncos, and Bronco Folks so much fun to be around. Will keep you posted.

Thanks again,

Andy
Blue71
 

DirtDonk

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What!!!??? You haven't been laying there under the dash suffering this whole time?
Man, get back under there and start scraping that paint away so you can finally utilize some more of those wire-nuts! hah! Gotta love wire nuts. they actually work VERY well, but are not very weatherproof (or Bronco-proof for that matter) over the long-haul.

Anyway, good luck. Hope you can confirm all the factory colors a little farther back. If not, you can still find the right circuits through testing.

Paul
 
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Blue71

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Ok...worked on it a little. I am pretty sure that I am hooked up yellow to yellow for the battery.I tested it and it is always hot even if the switch is off.

I found the other end of the factory black with green that was under the dash spliced, and noe it is connected to the center post on the back of the factory switch and it hot when the key is in the on position.

I tried hooking the other yellow wire up to the green/red and red/green and that wont work...they spark and get hot. Hmmm! Ttraced yellow wire up to firewall and is butt connected by previous owner right at the rubber grommet so I cant tell what color it goes into. On the engine side comming out of the other side of the grommet there are a bundle of wires. The small bundle that this wire seems to follow goes over towards the distributor and also branches off to the coil. Not sure if that helps.

While looking under the dash I saw a wonderful wire nut that had two red wires w/ blue stripes.(like the ones comming off of the factory switch) which were wire nutted to a was a random solid red wire that had a hoop connector on the other end that was not connected to anything. Got rid of the random red wire and figured the red with blue wires both went back together?? Not sure if thats right, but no sparks:)

I traced the other Black wire that was previosly on the aftermarket switch and it definitely comes from the "S" post on the Solinoid. So with only the Green with red and the red with green left...I touched the black wire to them and it acts like it wants to start, but the starter seems to stay engaged even when I let off the key and its in run position. So I have to keep those from being connected.

Wonder what all I have done wrong now? I didn't get a chance to put the blue/ red wire to the black "ST" wire since I hooked those back up with their mates. Or at leadt I think thy are mates????

So now...with switch off...Yellow wire is only wire that is hot (battery)


Switch in on position after it springs back from normally starting:

Yellow is hot
Black/Green is hot
Green w/red and Redw/ green hot


Thanks,

Andy
 

DirtDonk

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I wouldn't say it's something YOU did wrong at this point Blue71. More like you're just dealing with fixing what the PO did wrong.

That Black PO wire to the "S" terminal on the starter relay needs to go to one place only. That's the "hot-in-start-only" post where the other Red w/blue wire(s) are. Sounds like you've got them hooked back up to the old ones, but they don't seem to be attached to anything any more.
Is there a Red w/blue wire near the starter relay? If not, just hook the Black one from the relay/solenoid to the ignition switches Red w/blue wire.

You may have another issue, with the starter running on, but wait till you've got all the wires hooked up to see if it was just a fluke.

The Red w/green wire goes to the ignition coil and Green w/red wire goes to the voltage regulator. As you can see, they both go to the same place on the switch, but that's just for convenience, and not because they end up in the same place.

Sounds like you've got a bit more tracing to do, but you're getting there.
Also sounds like a full harness is in your future at some point too. Probably well worth the extra effort and money to fix the PO's follies in one fell swoop.

Paul
 

DirtDonk

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There I go, reading through it too fast and ignoring the last part.

With that little list you have in the final part of your last post, are you saying that those wires are hot even off the key? Or are they hot when connected to the switch connector and the ignition switch is turned on?

If when turned on, that's good. If they're hot on their own, with no connection to the switch however, that's bad.

If the Black w/green wire is hot with any of the other wires connected to the switch, then maybe you're finding it AFTER the splice that the PO put in to one of the other wires?
Hope that makes sense.

Keep "pluggin'" away. Arrrrrrarrrr, electrical humor...

Paul
 

DirtDonk

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You realize that Viperwolf hasn't chimed in at all to help us out here? Wonder if he's on vacation? Hope everything's alright at his end.

Paul
 
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Blue71

Blue71

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Hey Paul...yeah I noticed that too. Kind of unusual. Hope all is well with him. Hopefully he is on vacation and takin a break.

Thanks,

Andy
Blue71
 

DirtDonk

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Hmmm, a few in "poster" size might come in handy, and dress up the garage in a very Ford-like way.

Paul
 
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