Electrical: So I've been creating colorized wiring diagrams

[cinco]

A bit over a year ago I bought a '57 Silver Hawk with its share of problems. Chief among them was the wiring system, which had been hacked to death by someone who didn't seem to understand what anything did and who was apparently making it up as they went along. I ran into things like a replacement brake light switch which had been taped onto the master cylinder, with new wires which had been spliced into the running light circuit. So, no turn signals, no running lights, and dim brake lights. That sort of thing. Clearly, it would be nice to have something which would make the job easier. I made a colorized, multi-layer diagram for my car in a vector graphics program, and then split off each layer into its own pdf file so I could create one big pdf with a different page for each subsystem to reduce the clutter. I've been daily-driving the car for about a year now (the original engine tune was a bit of a head-scratcher, too) so the effort doesn't appear to have been wasted. A few months ago I decided to try to help anyone else in a similar situation by giving the same treatment to other cars when I can find a good factory diagram to start from. I contacted a vendor who seemed enthusiastic about hosting the files but haven't heard anything since I emailed them, so here they are on a google drive.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1eSSmIKiSS8lzc9kPYRm4Uk3yeu72TIlj

So far you'll be able to find:
1939 Studebaker Champion & master
1940 Studebaker Champion
1941-46 Studebaker Champion
1941-46 Studebaker President
1957 Studebaker Silver Hawk
1960-62 Studebaker Hawk
1960-62 Studebaker Lark
1963-64 Studebaker Hawk
1963-64 Studebaker Lark

I'm working in my free time so updates won't be the quickest, but if anyone has a request I'd be happy to move it up the list. I don't like working with National-style diagrams (too squeezed together) so if I can't find a factory diagram I'll ask that you take a decently hi-res photo of the diagram in your manual (along with accessories and key-page, if applicable). And, of course, if anyone spots any problems let me know. Hope this helps someone out there.

[StudeRich]

Thank you very much Chris for helping others with their restorations and repairs, the World needs more people who will help others.

Colors on the Diagram sure will help rather than trying to follow Wire Code Numbers and going to the Color Chart list to find out.

[christophe]

Thank you very much for sharing this top notch job and welcome to the forum. It was a very clever idea to separate all the different circuits. Your link should be incorporated into the sticky section of the forum for better visibility. Clark should be able to do this.

[SurfaceNavy]

Thanks Chris! Super helpful for me as a new Studebaker owner learning how things work.

[SurfaceNavy]

Chris, I'm trying to print out the diagrams using my Mac and I'm getting a message that says the files are password protected by the owner. Can you unlock the documents so we can print them?

[cinco]

Here we get into a rant but I'll try for the short version. You may have noticed that it's getting pretty difficult to come up with a color wiring diagram that doesn't cost money these days. Since mine are better than the expensive ones I expect a high likelihood that someone will try to steal them and make money off my work. So I locked functions other than viewing because I'm a big fan of helping people for free but not at all a fan of working for scumbags for free.

[christophe]

That's interesting. So, are we supposed to ask you how much we owe you if we don't want to be considered as scumbags?

[cinco]

Download it, use it, don't try to make money off of it. Philosophically, it's not a hard concept. Practically, it's impossible to prevent. But at least I can try to slow them down.

No good deed and all that...

[Buzzard]

Chris,
Now that is a real cool tool you have provided. I don't need it at the present time , but thanks for your efforts to assist everyone.
Cheers,
Bill

[64Avanti]

Nice job. Perhaps you would like to sell them so people can have them as hard copy references. Make sure you copyright them. That way if someone tries to make money off of your work you can identify it as your work.

[ndynis]

Wow! This is a great help! Thanks for making them available.

[cinco]

Added:
1941-48 Studebaker All Trucks
1947-49 Studebaker Champion & Commander
1949-53 Studebaker 2R Trucks

[mw2013]

thank you for the hard work

[arts54LC]

Thanks Chris, this will make my project easier to tackle. I did not see a diagram for a 54 Landcruiser, hoping you will.

[creegster]

Hello and thank you for creating these!
If you have time, can you create one for the 59 lark? It might be the same as the 60 lark, in which case I will be all set.

Thanks again for these!

[Hugh]

I have to congratulate and thank you for the service you have extended to all of us. I don’t believe you are fully aware of the magnitude of what you have provided to the membership as a whole. My sincere thank you for not only spending the effort and then providing free access to what seemingly was a dry, time-consuming project. I’m sure you will be showered with all kinds of suggestions for revisions as more of us understand the effort you have put forth.
My only regret is I rewired my 51 commander in 2022, sattempting to find and follow the only diagram I could locate in the shop repair manual, that was almost bordering on impossible and now you are making such clear and very easy to follow diagrams, I can only say thank you.

[cinco]

No worries. I worked at a restoration shop for most of my adult life and have been around old cars since I could drive - my first car was a '74 Plymouth that I bought in the mid-'90s. The biggest and most impossible to solve problems were always centered around the absence of information. Since I was the wiring guru at my shop, since everybody (including me) hates dealing with it, and since I had the skills to do this I decided to make everybody's lives easier when the time inevitably comes. Nobody thinks this sort of thing is a big deal until something goes pop . So I didn't really expect to hear a lot of appreciation and I'm not doing it because I want statues to be made in my likeness, I just know exactly what it's like when the resources you need simply don't exist. But thanks you for saying that anyway. By the way, I'm done with the diagram for your car but haven't built the pdf or uploaded it yet. It'll be coming in a few days.

[cinco]

arts54LC: I haven't gotten to the '54s yet but I'm going to do diagrams for the Champion and Commander as well as the 3R truck. Those are the only diagrams I have access to but since it looks like yours is probably based on the Commander it'll probably do. However, if you have a factory manual which has a specific diagram for the Land Cruiser and can take me some pictures I can work up one for that model as well.

creegster: The only diagram I have for the '59 Lark is done in the style that National Service Manual used for their stuff and they're a pain to work with. As above, if you have a factory diagram and can take a good photo of it I'd rather work from that, but if not I'll either do the National diagram I have or take the time to translate it into the factory-style diagram I did for the '60. I don't know which of the two will be less of a pain so I'm hoping you can come up with a factory diagram.

Either way, you're both next on my list after I get out of the quagmire of insanity that is the '47-52 passenger car diagrams. I can only imagine the drug-fueled chaos in which that draftsman must have lived his life, and straightening out that nonsense (as well as tracking down some mistakes) has driven me slightly crazy myself. If I survive I should have something for you guys in a week or so.