Alan's 1988 S-10 Plow & Spreader Wiring

The wiring for the plow on my 88 S10 has been in place since 1996. There was enough corrosion on all the connections that I thought it was best to pull everything off, clean the connecting points and put it back together with heavier and shorter cables wherever possible.

The S models have this bowling ball sized vacuum reservoir on the left inner fender. Right in the middle of the available space. I needed to have room for a serious junction post, two high amp circuit breakers, a solenoid and a ground junction. This is what I came up with.

From right to left there are mounts for the vacuum canister, the plow solenoid, a 100 amp breaker for the spreader, a 150 amp breaker for the plows (this truck is wired to carry a pull plow as well) and a marine grade junction post. Near the top center is a stud where all the grounds will come together
 

I've got a major case of do-it-right-itis when it comes to my wiring. Battery cables are done with soldered connections and sealed with adhesive lined shrink tubing. Length is kept as short as possible and the wire is way oversized for the amp load. But once it's done it's usually done for good.

In this picture the wiring bracket is in place and everything is connected. That's #1 cable from the battery to the junction post. Then #4 from the junction to each breaker and breaker to solenoid. I've added a Boss style plow plug in addition to the stock Sno-Way harness, just to cut down on current loss to the plow motor. The difference in operating speed is noticeable.

I ran out of the smaller red boots before I got all the connections covered so I left the ones furthest from the engine bare for now.

Across the mounting pad from the right is a marine junction post, the stud is stainless steel. Then the 150 amp breaker for the front plow. Then a 100 amp breaker for the Snow Ex hopper and vibrator. That is currently only being fed with a #10 wire. It's not enough and you can hear the vibrator slow down when you hit the spinner control. I'll be replacing that with a #4 to a firewall junction block and taking two #8 off that, inside the cab to the controls and then back to the spreader plugs.

The firewall junction is an insulated housing with a connecting stud passing through it. It eliminates needing to have grommets protecting the hole a wire runs through. It screws to the firewall and lets you make a nice safe and sealed cab access.

Next in line is the solenoid for the Sno-Way front plow. Hooked to the input terminal on that is the power out to a connector for a Snowman pull plow. This truck doesn't carry that plow but when I was building the body I added the wiring for it, just in case.
 

Since a large portion of 12 volt wiring problems can be traced to bad grounds I take a lead off the battery to a common point and bring all my accessory grounds to that. To the right of my hand you can see the ground stud and a mess of wires attached to it. Using a dual terminal battery I can run the stock wiring off the side posts and all the accessory stuff off the top terminals.

The unshielded terminal on the plow solenoid is dead until the plow is activated, so not having a boot on it is not a safety concern.
 

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