Hotrod wiring help.

[dragonator]

Hey guys, I am doing a few old hot rods and I cant seem to find any resources about wiring online. I dont know where all the wires are supposed to go basically. Unfortunately I am not a mechanic and dont know much about it, can anyone give me a basic "arm bone connects to the elbow bone" rundown on vehicle wiring? Does the distributor hook to the solonoid or the battery? What hooks up where with the starter? Battery red cable goes where? Alternator cable goes to what? etc etc... Sorry for being so daft here

[stevetriumph]

If you want to put a seperate solenoid in you will have red cable from battery to solenoid then another red (or black) cable from sol to starter motor. Most of the main wiring will pass through the solenoid so you could join your loom to it and have the other end dissapear into the bulkhead.
Depends what scale you are working in- easy for 1/8 and 1/12, tricky in 1/24 and micro-surgery in 1/43!
Google some pics of hot-rods and have a look. modern stuff tends to have as many cables hidden as possible. Just have a think about what will have wires and draw a loom from that, try to make it as flexible as possible and work in sections so you can join it all together when the engine is in, etc.
HTH, Steve.

[quadzero]

Here is a simple diagram of basic wiring. Hope it helps you get started.

[dragonator]

Thank you for the replies, much help. I've been looking at pictures of a 71 hemi cuda, which is what I'm working on right now. The pictures show 2 red wires running from the battery, but none of them show where they actually go... Based on their angle I'm guessing one goes to the solenoid, and one to the starter?

[Toolman56]

Goodmorning, what i do is take my small sony digtal camera too car show and then get permission from the car owner, then i get home , put on pc, and can blow them up, then print them off and place on my clipboard, that i stand up in front of me ,then as i work on my model, i can see were each wire goes, course ive been working on real cars and doing custom swap out on engines all my life, yes it does get tricky sometimes too a point of being a bear too do, one hot rod trick , is too put all the wires inside the frame rails then pop em out at the right places or use body channels for same reason, hope's this help you