The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts Electrical wiring.

Howdy all, I purchased a 1959 Viking 60 about 6 weeks ago, it needed clutch, brake work, a window, felt seals, etc. etc. Still need to work on the flat bed, cosmetic stuff, put in floor padding and new floor mat.

Gonna use it for a ranch truck at our backcountry place.

The wiring is confusing me, however. When I got it, all the wiring for the cab appeared to run through the key switch.
Even the dash lights and headlights would not work without the key on. Yet the windshield wipers would turn on anytime, even with the key off.

I didn't have a schematic to go by, but I got everything working like it should, and when it should, mostly by unplugging a few wires and plugging them into different terminals.

However, I'm curious about one thing. It appears that on the fuse block, the fuse for the brake lights is fed by the same bus as the heater, radio, and back up lamps. On modern cars, the brake lights will come on when the brake pedal is depressed, even when the ignition key is off.

It would appear that in my truck, when the key is off, the brake lights will not operate. What's more, the layout of the fuse block makes it so that there is no way to seperate the brake lights these other switched items.

Is this normal?

Thank you.

welcome to the garage, some searching in the electrical forum would help you out, and you need the the shop manual wiring diagram, although it won't show the optional fuse block.... sounds like some PO has modified things


Bill

Thanks for the reply. Yup, at some point the wiring was "modified". There are a lot of non-factory splices in the wires that run from the engine compartment into the cab. It looks like there was once a "tee" in the heavy red wire that comes into the cab from the engine compartment...and that "tee" burned off. There was also a "jumper wire" from one part of the fuse block to another that looked professionally done, but didn't look "factory" in that the terminal ends didn't have the plastic insulators over them like the rest of the wiring does. Apparently the jumper wire was providing power to the part of the fuse block that was supposed to have constant power, and a wire that provided "switched" power to the rest of the fuse block was removed.

Actually, the whole wiring system did not turn out to be the nightmare I expected. When I pulled the truck out of the desert about 80 miles from here and got it home, hardly any of the lights worked...no tail lights, no brake lights, erratic turn signals...along with the aformentioned problems.

Luckily, I methodically checked everything out (unusual for me!) before I started cutting and splicing, and it turned out there were several simple reasons for the problems...bad grounds in one tail-light, a bad turn signal flasher unit, a mal-adjusted brake light switch..etc.

Now everything works, but I still cannot figure out why they had the high-beams headlights pointed practically straight at the ground...

Thanks also for the links! Yup, that's the fuse block..which if it was optional it's interesting they bothered to put one in this truck..it never had a radio (there are power-take off pulls where the radio knobs would have been, and a factory blank plate where the dial would be), and I can find no evidence it ever had back up lamps..though it's possible it had them in one of the trucks previous lives as a fuel tank truck from new through about the mid-1980's, when it bacame a flat-bed.

it may be that by 59 the fuse panel was standard, at least at some plants, and it may be that a single item like a factory installed heater triggered it ... prolly the fuel tanker use was the beginning of the wiring mods, that would have been a buyer added body, and would have needed some unique electrical features

Bill

You may have hit something there with the factory installed heater requiring the fuse block. My truck has the deluxe heater, and as it made home in Durango, Colorado and nearby cold winter towns for much of it's life, it was most likely factory installed.

I was lucky enough to get a small file folder with the truck that included registration papers that go back to around 1965. Along with other papers which hint at the trucks history. Neat stuff always!

When I first went to look at the truck a couple months ago, I thought it might have been a dump truck at one time, due to the fact it has two power take-offs and what appears to be an underslung frame off the truck frame in the area below the forward edge of the existing flat bed, which looks like it could have supported hydraulic rams. I suppose it's still possible it was a dump truck for a few years before being a tanker...

Ironically, I'm going to use it for everything from hauling firewood, to volcanic cinders, to water in removable tanks..so it might soon morph into something like a dump/tank truck...maybe even turning the flatbed into a dump bed..

yes, a deluxe heater was nearly always a factory install, or an 'upgrade' done by the dealer ... the PTO's could have been used to run a hose reel and a pump for the tank, either or both of which were prolly mounted where that frame is .... could have been a home heating oil delivery truck, they had long hoses

Bill

I ran into that headlight alignment problem with a car recently. I remember as a kid aligning headlights, but that is apparently uncommon now and few service stations have headlight alignment capability. The ones around here all tell you to take the car to a dealer. I guess you can get close by parking on flat ground near a building. Make marks on the wall at the height of the center of the headlights and spaced at the center to center distance. If the vehicle is perpendicular to the wall and you align to the marks, you will probably be close enough, although they may still be a little higher than you like.

Believe it or not, my previous experience with this kind of thing was aligning tank gun sights on a special ramp. It worked surprisingly well.

The headlights could be pointed at the ground because the threads in the plastic adjusters are stripped. Reproductions are available.

Thats pretty common with older rigs. The wiring in mine had been monkeyed up pretty bad. Not a single fuse to be found, just one big wire from the battery, a couple wire nust, and a LOT of tape. It was so messed up I tore it all out and rewired the entire truck. HOPEFULLY you wont need t go that far.