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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