VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION New User Forum 6v to 12v 51 Styleline

Hello All:

I am new to this site and recently bought a 51 Styleline, Deluxe, 2 door. I am from MN so the car is a bit rusty but most everything is there and 75% original. I don’t plan on a complete restoration just going to get her road worthy and drive in the summer. The owner before me started a 6 to 12v conversation but I think they forgot a few important items. One, I do not see a voltage reducer “runtz” to the fuel gauge. Two, currently I do not have any power making it to the headlights, parking lamps, or stop/taillights. I do have power to the front left parking light and dome light, that’s it! Three, it does have the add on turn signals with multiple braided wires running up the steering column, but this appears dead too. No light when switched right or left and no sound in the flasher. Four, the headlight dimmer switch is frozen, just got a new one in the mail. Five, I ordered all new bulbs from internet front to back, including dash lights. Six, somewhere I read there should be an inline “diode” placed in the wire from the 12v alternator to the main power wire leading to the under dash area? Seven, let’s not forget we are talking about 95% original wires under the hood and dash, some of which the braided insulation is a bit dry and crusty. Eight, there is a junction board behind the firewall access panel, it looks original, with 2 fuse holders, one yellowish, the other red. I have power to the yellow one, but nothing coming out of the red one. The red one has a line running to a 6volt dial type switch, with a wire from there running to the blower motor on the passenger side.

These are some of my concerns and any input would be helpful.

Also, the car starts and runs by turning the original ignition/key to the first click right and depressing the starter button. To shut off just turn ignition/key to the left off position.

Thanks much!

I strongly recommend that you replace original wiring harness before doing anything else. Do not leave the car with the battery connected.

My best guess is that you are looking at the original harness. Wit the insulation breaking away like you describe there is a strong risk of a dead short. My next best guess is that the prior owner knew this and disconnected everything to minimize the chance of a fire.

Get a good reproduction harness from YNZ or Rhode Island Wiring. I expect that in the process of installing it everything will start working properly. The harness is the essentially the same for 6 volt or 12 volt.

Thanks much Rusty for your quick response. Not what I wanted to hear but not surprising for the cars 70th birthday.

I got my ”˜37 in late 2006. It was immediately obvious that i should never connect a battery given the condition of the wiring.

In the process of rejuvenating the car I discovered that apparently there had been some issues. In that era there was only one 10 amp fuse behind the dashboard to protect a few of the circuits. That fuse had been replaced with a 1” long piece of 1/4-20 threaded rod. That was one heavy duty fuse!