Adding a customer relay box, sPod, ARB, winch and TPMS

Adding a custom relay box, sPod, ARB, winch and TPMS

I thought I’d show you something i’ve been working on for several weeks. It’s far from perfect but might give a few of you ideas of your own.

The problem
I added an sPod to control my new winch and air compressor. The problem was, I couldn’t fit the sPod quick connector through my overly stuffed firewall. Over the years as I’ve added bits to the Jeep I’ve created a spaghetti of wires running all over the place. All three firewall holes are stuffed to capacity and the engine bay is no better.




The solution
I re-wired everything, massively simplifying the number of wires running everywhere and moved all the relays to one place. Then I modified the sPod to host a cigar lighter into which I plugged the TPMS. It all works very nicely.






How
The first problem is where to place a box full of relays. The obvious place is behind the sPod but that’s where the ARB goes. I looked at placing it under the air filter but it’s really too low and I worried about river crossings.
I need space for 8 relays but they sell them in packs of 10 so I get two spare. No matter how many prototypes I tried I couldn’t get all the connectors, fuse panels and relays in to a small space. That’s when I discovered relays with built in fuses. They come in packs of 6, so now I have 4 spares. The smallest I could make this actually fits nicely over the master cylinder.
By using the Barnes ARB mount rather than the popular M.O.R.E mount, I had a frame to mount the box too.
Step 1: fab a mounting plate and paint

Step 2: add a sticky rubber sheet to the underside. By drilling the wire holes a fraction too big, and then cutting holes in the rubber a fraction too small, you’ve added a grommet to every hole (very clever!)
Step 3: epoxy glue all the relays in place
Step 4: bolt on the other connectors and wire the whole thing up

This is what the finished thing looks like. It has a single positive pole to power the whole thing, a common ground bar for the attached devices. Then there’s two connector strips: one takes wires from the switches, the other feeds power to the devices. Simple.

Step 5: Next I needed to make a cover. It’s actually really easy to do by cutting and bending a thin sheet of metal. The whole thing is held together with two rivets. I ever stenciled a name on the box but it looks like a kindergartener did it.

Step 6: relocate the horn and alarm siren to under the air intake
Step 7: relocate (lower) the factory relays by an inch
Step 8: modify the Barnes mount to house the air manifold on the side rather then the traditional top. I also welded two bolts on to the frame to hold the box in place. Well, actually I didn’t weld because I can’t. I used metal patching putty.

Step 8: I needed a solenoid to isolate the winch power so I fab’d another mount and modified the Genesis Dual Battery to hold one. There’s space for two so, now I can also isolate the Subwoofer and Amplfier that are hanging under the seats (river crossings again).

Step 9: replace the air compressor gauge that comes supplied with the sPod with a cigar lighter.
Step 10: my third rebuild of the switch panel. It now has less wires coming out (single common ground wire), and a quick disconnect