Hey everyone, My Pa and I thrashed all day yesterday to get the overdrive working on 12 volts in my '54 ford. (The existing wiring was crap to say the least.) Unfortunately it still didn't work. We are taking this car to the Hunnert (leaving Friday AM) and I want to have this working for the trip. 4:10 gears and 60 mph don't play nice together at 1:1 ratio. We replaced the solenoid with a 12 volt unit that we tested before installation. It worked great. We replaced the relay with a 12 volt unit from a different car this one had 4 terminals, the one we took out (6 volt) was only 3 terminals. The only extra terminal was the "Battery" terminal which according to the instructions we were using just needed a wire from the positive side of the battery (starter solenoid) to that terminal. All the other connections should be the same, correct? (i.e. ign to ign, sol to sol, etc) How do I test the relay to make sure that the one we put in is good? (speak slowly, I HATE electrical stuff! ) How do I test the governor to make sure that isn't the issue? The only thing we didn't do (mostly because we were running out of time) is pull out the kick down switch and inspect the connections. It is hard to get at and the previous owner mummified it in electrical tape. The hook ups on the kickdown switch should be the same for 6Volt and for 12 volt, right? What would the test be to determine if the wiring at the kick down switch is kicking my ass? Thanks for any and all help! I am going to need to tackle this tonight if I am going to fix this before Friday morning. Mike
supply power to the hot wire and ground to the ground wire for the relay. it should click. If it makes you feel any better I just wired up the horn on my soon to be driver. I used an old Sparten horn. I only had a 6V relay so I used a resistor that I had laying around, it let a little more than 6V though but not enough to fry the relay. After I couldn't get the horn to honk I pulled a hot 12V wire to it and blam it honked like crazy. I looked closer and it is a 12V horn 6V won't honk it. DOH I am pretty good with electrical. I only wish I had 4.11 gears for my driver. it has 4.88s and no OD.
I will try to figure out which one is the ground tonight. Anyone else with any of the other answers feel free to chime in. BTW, I run a 6 volt horn on my 12 volt system. It is F'n LOUD. I just have to remember to just "tap it" to keep it from burning up.
The governor terminal grounds at approximately 25 mph triggering the relay that sends power to the solenoid, and opens when vehicle speed drops below 25 to release the solenoid. The relay can be a simple horn relay (worked for me). I use to eliminate the kickdown switch and used a simple switch (normally closed, push button or toggle) to open the relay. There are some experts here that should add some help. Good luck, Frank
I'll bump you for my own interest. Have OD in the Edsel but never messed with it beyond changing a fuse on the firewall.
Here is what I believe your wiring should be. At least this was the BW R10 wiring diagram for a Plymouth. Here is a link to the Borg Warner R10 Manual which has some trouble shooting instructions. http://www.merc583.addr.com/misc/BW_OD_Info.pdf.zip
Thanks everyone. I spent last night under the car trying to locate the source of the problem. It is now narrowed down to the governor or the kickdown switch or both. The solenoid tested great (for now. keep reading) and the relay clicks in and out when you ground the TH SW post. We didn't mess with the kickdown switch and I wasn't happy with the way the wiring looked. But time was against us this weekend so we figured it would be ok. Guess not. Big problem showed up overnight. The solenoid is leaking bad both at the mounting surface and out the weep hole on the canister. I know that the oil seals are important and there was one on there (but it was old) but DANG! That is a lot of leakage for such a small hole. I also know that if you soak the solenoid in oil it will FUBAR it so tonight I am pulling it (didn't have time last night). Does anyone have a seal for one of these that they can get to me by Thursday? Does anyone know of a suitable o-ring replacement that will do in a pinch? The worst case scenario is that I need to put the 6 volt solenoid back in just to stop the leak. It didn't leak, but the seal looks worse than the 12 volt one that I put in.
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