Dan

This is a how-to on converting your fusible links (FL) and relays to a Power Distribution Center (PDC) with Maxi fuses and Bosch style relays.

A special thanks to Chris, aka Dodge2004srt4 for providing this article for the website!

The conversion was done on a 1989 Dodge Daytona TII Manual with AC.

Tools required:

  • Small pick or circuit tester
  • Wire strippers
  • Solder (rosin core NOT acid core)
  • Soldering gun 150W-230W+ (Do not try to use a 50W iron, it will not work)
  • 13mm socket
  • 10mm socket
  • Heat shrink
  • Electrical tape
  • Zip ties

Parts required:

PDC from a 90-92 Lebaron – should have 10 Maxi fuse slots, 6 ATM fuse slots, and 7 Bosch relay locations. This PDC also has the battery quick connect and alternator quick connect, so you don’t have to get anything else or splice 8 gauge wires. Make sure you get as much of the harness as possible from the donor PDC.  You will need 8 of the Maxi Fuses, 1 of the ATM and 4 of the Bosch relays.  Try to get all the Maxi fuses and relays when you pull yours so you don’t have to buy more parts. If you get a bare one you will need 4 Bosch relays, 4-40 amp Maxi fuses, 1 50 amp, 1 30 amp , and 2 60 amp if you are using a 120amp alternator. The fuses for the alternator are in parallel so if you are using a 90amp you would need a 40 and a 50 amp fuse.

Note: 1994 and newer PDC’s use a different wiring scheme, proceed at your own risk.

The Procedure:

Start by removing the upper cover of the PDC (See picture).  Looking at the cover’s label from left to right you will see the Radiator Fan relay, AC clutch relay, HL motor O/C, HL motor O/C, HL motor power, Fuel Pump (ASD) relay, Starter relay.

Fuses are labeled, from left side you have the hazards 20A (not needed) and below that is ignition 20A. Maxi fuses are labeled ABS (empty), Alt 1 60A, Blower motor 50A (not needed), Radiator fan, AC 40A, Rear Defrost 50A, fuel sys, elect Trans 30A (ASD, ECM), Ignition 40A, Park Lamps 40A (Ignition 50A), Headlamp sys 40A (HL), Alternator 2 60A.

Next to the fuses labeled in (parenthesis) will be what you will change that fuse labeled to what we will use it for. Make note of the changes on a piece of paper or modify your cover so you know what locations are for your fuses. Slot 1 ABS and slot 3 blower motor should be empty in the end.

Picture of Fuse and Relay diagram on cover

Remove all the fuses and relays that are installed. Remove the lower cover to gain access to the wiring. You will need a small pick, or I like to use the end of a circuit tester. You will be removing wires and the pin for what you don’t need. This will help to eliminate clutter. There are some wires you will notice that get jumped to the relays.

NOTE: If you plan on just using the PDC for converting the FL’s only then remove all the wires going to the relays that don’t have a jumper to a fuse – leave those alone.

Now assuming you want to use the relays in the PDC, start by removing the yellow and red covers for the connectors. There are 2 tabs underneath that you can see when you flip the PDC over. This will allow access to the release tabs so we can remove wires. To release the pin you have to lift away the black tab securing it and gently pull the wire out from the bottom. You will need to remove all the wires for the headlamp relays. You have all the needed relays and wiring under the dash cover so we don’t need to mess with this. That will clear up a good bit of wiring. The only wire you want is a single wire coming from the output of the fuse for the HL system. Remove the gray cover from the ATM mini fuse slots and the 2 Maxi fuses. Remove the pins for the Hazard fuse as we won’t need this either. Last remove the wires and pins from slot 3 Blower motor as we won’t be using this. Now separate the remaining wires you have left into 3 groups and wrap a little electrical tape around each bundle. Take the wires coming from the Maxi fuses and bunch them together, there should be 5 wires. Do the same for the wires on the radiator and AC fan relays. Last bunch is the ASD fuel pump relay and starter relays. This should leave you with the two 10 gauge wires for the alternator, and 3 bundles.

Now pop the hood on your car. Remove the positive battery terminal from the post of the battery for safety. Locate the quick connect on the battery (black connector) and alternator (Natural or white connector) and disconnect them both. Locate the starter relay, Radiator fan, ASD and AC relay. Unbolt all the relays from the fender and strut tower using a 10mm socket. Now on the engine side of the passenger strut tower locate the bracket that the clutch cable mounts to and remove the 2 nuts securing it with your 13mm socket. This will allow us to get the main harness up higher so we have an easier time working on the wiring. There is a single wire that runs to the proportioning valve, this has to be disconnected or the harness won’t move more than an inch. Now lift the harness up and over the studs that your clutch cable bracket was attached to. Now remove the coverings from the harness; most harnesses will have rotted a bit so remove all the flaking friction and electrical tape from the FL’s all the way to the relays. We will button that up when we are done so it’s nice and neat.

What I have noticed from mother Mopar is that a lot of the wire colors labeled on wiring diagrams are not always correct, sometimes the wires are dirty, faded, or just plain wrong. Keep this in mind. From the battery quick connect, follow the 8 gauge wire down until you see where it splits to all the FL’s. You should have one black wire on the back side without a FL and 6 other FL’s on the front side.

Wiring

The alternator FL and the AC, Radiator relay don’t need to be rewired. This leaves us with 4 FL and the b ranched off FL for the ECM and ASD. Once we have spliced our connections from the FL harness to the PDC we can remove the FL harness and get it out of the way.

You should be familiar with splicing and soldering, what we will be doing is cutting the wire at the FL on the harness side (not the battery side), stripping about 3/4″ of insulation off of the wire on the harness and the same length off the wire going to the PDC. Put some heat shrink (about an inch) on the wire for the PDC side and slide it up and out of the way so it doesn’t get hot and shrink. Make an “X” with the wires and wrap each wire around the other (western union splice). Once you have made your splice, heat and apply solder to the wire, not the soldering iron tip, until you have coated the wires.

NOTE: On a properly soldered connection will see the strands of wire through the solder. If you can’t see the strands, then you have used too much solder. Slide your heat shrink around the connection and apply some heat to shrink the tubing.

Here is what you will be splicing from the harness in your car to the harness for the PDC. Wire colors can vary so pay attention to where the wire is going to verify the color is correct for your application!

  1. Gray FL – Black/red wire (defroster)
  2. Gray FL – Red/white wire (Headlamp switch)
  3. Gray FL – Pink/bl wire (ignition switch 50A)
  4. Orange FL – Red wire (ignition switch 40A) branches to (number) #5
  5. White FL – Red wire (16 gauge) to ECM and red wire (12 gauge) to ASD, this splice will go from the ASD ECM fuse directly to the ECM red wire only. You don’t need to worry about the red ASD wire since it’s jumped in the PDC.
  6. Green FL – Black wire to Alternator (no need to splice) this has its own connector from the PDC
  7. Orange FL – Gray wire AC and Radiator fan relay (no need to splice) this has a 12v from the PDC and jumps directly to the relay you are using.

Take these wire listed above and splice them to the wire for the fuse in the PDC. A lot of the wires were either the same color or very close, so just trace the one you think is correct back to the PDC and verify before you splice it. Do these one at a time so you don’t get them confused. Now that you have your FL’s out of the way and converted to fuses it’s time to work on the relays.

Relays

Start with the starter relay so we can get the old FL harness out of the way. This is the old type of relay we are converting. You should only have a single black wire coming from the back side of the FL harness going to the starter relay. Cut it anywhere you see fit and get the FL harness out. That wire is already a jumper in your PDC going from the starter relay 30 pin to the ignition fuse. Unplug the starter relay from the connector. There is a blue clip blocking access to the release pins (see picture), gently push in and up to release each side and slide it up and out. Remove the brown wire from the old starter relay connector and the brown wire for the new starter relay in the PDC and put this in its place. This will leave you with a Brown/yellow and a Yellow/Black. Remove the yellow black from the starter relay clip and the double yellow from the PDC, plug the Yellow/Black from the old relay into the spot you just removed the double yellow. Last is the Brown/Yellow, you will have to splice this to the Brown/blue coming out of the PDC for the starter relay. It is too short otherwise. You are done the starter relay now.

Blue clip for starter relay connector

Now for the ASD relay. It is already a Bosch style relay but we want to move it to the PDC. The red wire is not needed because it has a jumper in the PDC. Now you have 3 wires left. D green/black, dark blue/yellow, dark blue/white. You have to take the black clip (see picture) off to access the release clips for the pins and wires. This is located on the opposite side from the relay release on the connector. Push them in and up to remove it. Now remove the pin on the Dark green/black wire on the ASD connector and the same color wire for the ASD relay in the PDC. Replace the wire you pulled from the old location and plug it into the new location. Now remove the last 2 wires from the old connector and splice them with the last 2 wires of the same color from the PDC and the ASD relay is finished.

Push in and up on both sides as shown

After pushing up it will look like this

Now we are going to do the AC clutch and Radiator fan relays together since they share connections (see pictures below). First we have to unplug the relays from the connectors and harness. Once that is done there are covers on the connectors we must remove to gain access to the retaining clips so we can extract the pins and wires. The radiator fan relay has 3 yellow or white clips (old relay type) and the AC relay (Bosch style, 1988 and newer) has a black cover. Remove them by pushing in and up at the same time until they are released. Now the gray wire can be removed from both connectors and tossed, we have a jumper in the PDC already so we don’t need them. Next are the green wires, remove them from the Radiator fan and AC relays. Now remove the green wires in the PDC and place the green wires from your harness into the PDC, location is not important as they serve the same function. Now the Blue/Pink and Blue Orange wires can come out of the old connectors and one by one remove the same color wire from the PDC and replace that wire with your wire from the old connector. Now you have 2 wires left. Take the blue wire from the Radiator Fan connector and put heat shrink over the end. We don’t want this to ground out but we also don’t need it for the conversion. I don’t see any need to cut this when it’s not being modified, just heat shrink it and set it aside. The last wire is the Blue/black from the AC relay, remove this from the old relay connector, then remove the Blue/Black wire from the PDC and plug your old wire into the PDC. You should have 2 wires left in your PDC, an all Blue wire 12 gauge and a red/white or red wire. Cut these short so they are inside the PDC and put heat shrink on them so they will not make contact with anything inside the PDC. These wires have a jumper on them from other relays and fuses so we can’t remove them. Now you are done all your wiring!

Picture of the Radiator fan (left) and AC relay (right)

Picture of yellow clip you have to remove

Wiring competed!

Testing

Make sure you have soldered all connections and put heat shrink tubing over them. Look twice if need be!

Next, test your work before you get the harness buttoned up to make sure there are no problems. If you did this just as the how-to states you won’t have any problems as long as you didn’t make any errors. Put your covers back on the PDC, 2 yellows, red, gray. Replace the relays, some have a pin so they only fit certain locations, and replace your one 20A ATM mini fuse, and your 8 Maxi fuses. Use the ratings I specified earlier, no more, no less. Plug in your alternator connection and PDC to battery connection, and then hook up your battery terminals.

  • Verify you have interior lights and that your horn works.
  • Flip on your headlamps and check the running lights.
  • Key on the ignition, verify that your accessories work (radio, cluster, blower motor, trip navigator if equipped, rear defroster if equipped, etc).
  • Now start your engine, this will make sure the starter relay is functioning and that the ASD relay is correct.
  • Now turn your AC on fan on to test the AC clutch and radiator fan relays. If you have AC it should blow cold as usual and the radiator fan should come on, verify the fan is on to be safe.

The final test is the load test, turn all the accessories on in the car, blower to max, defroster, headlamps, fogs, and radio to a safe volume. You should be around 13V since your alternator is working, and should not have blown any fuses. Nothing should be warm in the PDC or in your harness; no relays should be hot either. If anything has been sitting in the sun take that into account. If everything works fine as it should go ahead and disconnect the PDC to battery connection and alternator connection once you remove your battery terminals.

Final Assembly

Take a deep breath, you are almost done! Now if you did this properly you have your wires routed from each area of the harness to the PDC so they are somewhat neat. Now you have to cover (wrap) the harness like your factory harness was. I used zip ties to hold the harness together in spots where the wires spread out, and then wrapped the wires with electrical tape. Finally I used some friction tape so if the harness moves along bolt heads, metal, plastic or whatever, it won’t be abraded and cause a short.

Push the harness down to its stock location below the clutch cable once it is ready, then reinstall the clutch cable bracket and secure the 13mm nuts. Now reconnect the lead going to the brake proportioning valve. You can replace the 10mm bolts that secured the relays if you want the holes covered or if you didn’t get the bracket for the PDC. Connect your alternator (white) connector, your PDC to battery (black) connection, and your starter connector (2 wires). Reconnect your battery terminals and you are done! Don’t forget to label your PDC legend for the locations of the fuses. Not that the FL’s were labeled but it is nice to have, at least they were color coded.

The PDC takes up more room than the FL’s and relays did but if you need to replace a relay or fuse it is very easy, quick, and cheap. There are also some additional spots in your PDC for anything you want to add in the future, such as fog lamps if you don’t have them. You can add relays since you have 3 spots open. Just keep some of the wires you removed for future use and adding a relay or fuse will be easy. Enjoy your PDC and a clean engine bay!

Pictures

Before

After

Ignore the 3 wires hanging there; I am doing some custom headlamp upgrades.

Custom Fuse Cover

Optional Relay Upgrade

If you want to only convert the starter relay and Radiator Fan relay to a Bosch style relay, grab 2 connectors from your local junk yard. You could use the ASD and AC clutch relays from one car. On the back of the Bosch relay you have pins numbering 30,85,86,87. Remove the wires from the relay and the wires on your original connectors and insert them into the appropriate locations on the Bosch connectors.

Starter Relay:

  • Brown – 87
  • Black – 30
  • Brown/yellow – 85
  • Yellow/Black – 86

Radiator Fan Relay:

  • Gray – 30
  • Lt Green – 87
  • Dk Blue – 86
  • Dk Blue/Pink – 85

Enjoy!!

Dodge2004srt4