Porsche 356C Relays

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Eric McKinley
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Porsche 356C Relays

#1 Post by Eric McKinley »

I came across a problem today with my relays , the headlight and the horn.

I bought these a number of years back from Roger Bray in the UK and had them painted the correct grey and black colour.

The first problem I encountered was the relays have spade connectors and the originals I believe had bullet connectors, confirmation of this would be appreciated.

The new YnZ harness I have purchased has bullet connectors, and it is not like this company to get something wrong as they work off an old 356C harness when reproducing.

The second issue is the fit, the holes for the mounting brackets do not match up and would require elongating, not a huge issue but something I wanted to avoid as they have already been painted.

Ideally I would not want to cut the wiring harness and attach spade connectors also.

The car is 12 volt and I have searched around the usual vendors for 12 volt horn and headlight relays but have come up blank.

Can anyone point me in the direction of anyone reproducing these or if they have any for sale.

I have attached a picture I found recently showing the relays I need but in 12 volt.
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Doug McDonnell
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#2 Post by Doug McDonnell »

Eric the only thing I know about electricity is how to plug in an electrical outlet. But this thread seems to say original 6 volt relays will work fine with 12 volts. viewtopic.php?t=28706. And yes the original relays are bullet connector. Which is why your Y&Z harness has them. Y&Z would have built it with spade connectors if you had asked. Center of course are my Leoni relays with spade connectors. With a 12 Volt conversion the Devil is in the details as you are finding out. Time to get out the soldering gun and heat shrink tubing?
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relay wiring.jpg
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1965 356C 2000 BMW 740i Sport 1967 Honda CL77 There is never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.

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George Hussey
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#3 Post by George Hussey »

yes the harness and the relays had bullet connectors. (even the 356C in Bullit had bullet connectors LOL). Hopefully you can find good relays and not cut the new harness
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Mike Wilson
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#4 Post by Mike Wilson »

I've seen the relays on The Samba but I'd check with some of our used parts vendors like Bill Perrone at The Parts Shop, Ed Rutherford at Klasse 356 and Ron Emory. Another option would be to make short pigtails using a female bullet terminal and a female spade terminal. I've made pigtails for the new repro turn signals that have screw terminals so you don't have to cut off the original bullet terminals.

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Doug McDonnell
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#5 Post by Doug McDonnell »

The small pigtails are a great idea Mike.
1965 356C 2000 BMW 740i Sport 1967 Honda CL77 There is never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.

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Eric McKinley
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#6 Post by Eric McKinley »

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yes the first problem I came across a while back was the spade to bullet problem, I did consider the small pigtails and even got them off YnZ but they do look a bit of a mess when connected up.

The second problem which only came to light this weekend was that the relay does not fit the holes on the bracket, forget the soldering iron and shrink wrap Doug, the drill would need to come out at this stage to elongate the holes to make the relay fit, sold as a 356C relay but does not fit the bracket.

I like the idea of the 6 volt working on a 12 volt car, this would make it easier to find relays, is there any downside to this.

I will contact the vendors you mention however if anyone has a good working 356C horn/headlight relay please get in touch.

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Doug McDonnell
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#7 Post by Doug McDonnell »

Eric Try Gary at Parts Obsolete. I think he and his son bought all of EASY's parts when Jim retired. Of course your favorite seller on TheSamba has them too. Also the pigtails won't show when you have your fuse box cover on!
1965 356C 2000 BMW 740i Sport 1967 Honda CL77 There is never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.

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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#8 Post by Hugo Karasawa »

I think you will not find 12V relays with bullet connectors. The ones you bought are probably for a 912.
I really do not know if the few original 12V 356s had relays with bullet connectors.
The pigtails are a good idea, I made some adaptors spade connector to bullet, but as you say it does not look good.
I will post some pictures when I find those.
Do not cut your new harness, if it is the only solution, just unsolder de bullet connectors and crimp or solder some spade connectors.
There spade connectors that you can modify to be soldered, again I will post pictures later.

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Eric McKinley
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#9 Post by Eric McKinley »

Thanks Guys,

I am very reluctant to cut the harness, i know i wont.

Doug, your right it wont be seen, but i will know!LOL

I saw those on samba, no commitment though to working or not.

I will try Gary and see how I get on.

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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#10 Post by Hugo Karasawa »

I found this picture, how I did my adaptors.
Other solution is to do "major surgery" to your relays, you will need to disassemble both the 6V and the 12V and change the internals from each front plate. I have done that to the round relays from a 911.

adaptador bullet to spade 02 small.jpg
adaptador bullet to spade 02 small.jpg (181.75 KiB) Viewed 3044 times

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Eric McKinley
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#11 Post by Eric McKinley »

Hugo,

That is a very tidy connection, a lot better than pigtails which just look a complete mess.

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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#12 Post by Al Zim »

It is a very interesting assessment that 6 volts will work on 12 volts! See how long it takes to melt your 6 volt coil when you change your car to 12 volts! When changing from 6 to 12 volts the amperage across the contact points in the relays and on the headlight dimmer is substantially reduced. The voltage in the coils that activate the points IS CRITICAL. 6 volt wires are thinner than 12 volt wires the added voltage will eventually will melt the wires. Put 12 volts into your 6 volt horns and they will scream for a while then decide to die. For nearly 20 years we have been making parts to easily convert your car to 12 volts. We are the only ones that have manufactured an alternator stand to adapt the VW alternator to the 356 and 912. This produces 66 amps which is 3 time the rated amperage of the 90MM 12 volt generator. Give us a call we have a solution to most situations. Your relays will be under a cover and no one will see your pigtail wires. It has been 65 years since the production lines stopped and the parts that Porsche had anticipated that we would need to keep the car running have long been used up! al zim Zim's Autotechnik 800.356.2964
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#13 Post by Hugo Karasawa »

Here some pictures of the 12V relays with the bullet to spade adaptors.
The 12V horn relay with the adaptors.
The 6V flash signal relay and the 12V flash signal relay for size comparison.

Relay horn adaptor.jpg
Relay horn adaptor.jpg (129.62 KiB) Viewed 2995 times
Relay flash signal adaptor.jpg
Relay flash signal adaptor.jpg (173.17 KiB) Viewed 2995 times
Relay flash signal adaptor 01.jpg
Relay flash signal adaptor 01.jpg (160.03 KiB) Viewed 2995 times
relay flash signal 03.jpg
relay flash signal 03.jpg (158.4 KiB) Viewed 2995 times
[attachment=3]

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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#14 Post by William Block »

Bullets are soldered on. Just heat with solder iron and they fall off, without cutting wires. Solder on female spade connectors -- done.
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Re: Porsche 356C Relays

#15 Post by Mike Grant »

Hi Eric, my 64 SC was converted to 12V and has a new YnZ harness like your car. My resto shop reinstalled the original original 6V relays and said they would work fine. That was a few years ago and so far no problem. The flasher works fine. I don’t drive at night much so I haven’t used the flasher a lot, but again no problems as yet.

My original 6V horns were re-installed in series after the 12V conversion. My limited understanding of auto electrics tells me is equivalent to 6V at each horn. I never liked way that sounded, possibly I had a bad horn. I swapped the 6V horns for a set of 12V horns and they are outstanding; great tone and very loud. No issues to date with the 6V relay and 12V horns.

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