How to Wire the Hydraulics of a Car

If you add a hydraulics system to your car, you're going to be dealing with relatively complex wiring tasks. Car enthusiasts with a good working knowledge of wiring and electricity can wire their own hydraulics, though inexperienced individuals should leave the job to a professional.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Pliers
• Industrial rubber gloves
• Wire cutters

1. Take stock of the different switches with which you'll be dealing. They are the front pump, the back pump, the front right dump, the back right dump, the front left dump, the back left dump and the constant power source. The power source for most systems is usually 24 volts.
2. Familiarize yourself with the structure of a car hydraulics kit. In an eight-switch, two-pump, four-dump system, you'll have four sides: the right, left, front and back. Each side has six slots: top right, top left, middle right, middle left, bottom right and bottom left.
3. Ignore the switch slot that is located at the far bottom right of both the front and back of your hydraulics system, because you won't be using it. The back, front, left and right sides all have six switch slots, but only five are used on the front and back.
4. Begin at the top left slot of the right side of your kit, and wire the front right dump to the very left slot of your kit's front side.
5. Move to the top right slot of the right side of your kit, and connect the back right dump to the top left slot of the kit's back side.
6. Connect the front pump wire from the bottom left slot of your kit's right side to the bottom left slot of the kit's left side, ending by wiring the front pump to the bottom left slot of the front side.
7. Wire the back pump next, starting from the bottom right slot of the right side and connecting it to the bottom right slot of the left side. You will finish by running the wire to the bottom left slot of the kit's back side. (Note that this pump is wired right-right-left.)
8. Move to the left side of your kit. Starting from the top left slot of the left side, wire the front left dump to the top right slot of the front side.
9. Wire the back left dump from the top right slot of the left side to the top right slot of the back side.
10. Wire your constant power source through both middle slots on all four sides. You will end up with eight different power source wiring end points in both middle slots on all four sides.

Tips & Warnings

• Your hydraulics kit may not feature eight switches for two pumps and four dumps. Other common configurations include: eight switches for three pumps with four dumps, eight switches for four pumps with four dumps, 10 switches for two pumps with four dumps and 10 switches for four pumps with four dumps. For information on how to wire these systems, consult the wiring pages at LayItLow.com (see Resources below).