Organizing Automotive Electrical Stuff...

[tylerdurben]

well, i dont wire up cars on a daily basis but like most do it yourselfer's i have just enough to get by. my problem is the mess! im looking for some advise / help in organizing / storing basic automotive related electrical stuff. id like to be able to take 1 "station / bag" to my work area when needed so that all is there to do the job.

such as...
wire crimpers
heatshrink tubes
electrical tape
rolls of wire
bits of wires (you know, the leftovers that come in handy)
wire terminals
volts reader
ext...

ive seen some neat stuff here on organizing and thought id ask. maybe some of you have already found a good way to keep all this stuff together without tangling up all the wires.

Thanks!

 

[Titus]

I have an old fishing tackle box that I use for all my Electrical stuff. It works very well.

 

[D KRAGER]

I have two different boxes for such stuff.

I have a large tackle style box, but made for parts. In the top you can keeps the tools extra wire and such. The bottom has two removable trays I keep the electric terminals and stove bolts in. That way you can remove the drawer and take the connections where needed.

Also for the spools of wire I have a larger plastic tool box. The tray is big enough that you can have two rows of wire on the spools, I used a piece of redi bolt from side to side to hold the spools. YOu can remove the top tray and take the wire where you need it and spool it out. Works excellent! ALso all the other **** can go in the bottom. Wire loom and other odd ball wiring....

 

[D KRAGER]

Had to add some pics to describe my earlier post.

 

[tylerdurben]

Great! thanks for those pics D Krager.

i found a Northern Tool box that looks promising. ill keep shopping around, but something like what you've posted looks like will work for what i need.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200145024_200145024

 

[Brad54]

I made a tool cart for my shop, with a 3-drawer Clark tool chest on it. Within the last few months, I cleaned out two of the drawers and house all my electrical bits in it. One drawer has a couple of those compartment boxes with an assortment of electrical ends and connectors, and a small assortment of heat-shrink tubing. The bottom drawer has my strippers, crimpers, a small butane torch for heat shrink tubing, a selection of soldier rolls, electrical tape, my multi-meter and my soldier iron.

I don't have enough rolls of wire to worry about it--just two or three rolls, and they're sitting on the shelf.

However, that being said, the shop at my last job had a pretty cool solution:
He used MDF to make a storage bin. We'll call it 18 inches tall, 3 feet long, and 6- or 8 inches deep. It hangs on the wall, like a cabinet without doors.

He then took two more pieces of MDF that would mount on the inside of the 18-inch tall pieces, in effect making a double-layer on the cabinet sides.

He drilled two holes, evenly spaced, down the middle of these side pieces, and took a saber saw and cut slots to the holes. When installed in the cabinet, the slots allow you suspend a piece of conduit or dowel rod inside the cabinet. Then he hung his spools of wire on it. They had several rolls of wire in this cabinet.

You could also make something like a paper-towel holder and hang it under a shelf to hold spools of wire.

-Brad

 

[tylerdurben]

well i was strolling around Harbor Freight, yeah i know quality? well they had this deal on a tool box thats 20+ inches and comes with 3 more boxes inside, so thats 4 boxes for $30! couldnt resist. sure they are plastic but for what i will use the boxes it should last a long time.

i chose the second biggest box for the electrical sotrage stuff. top cover has 2 pull out clear bins with 5 separate compartments each. so i filled them with the wire terminals i mostly use. then inside the box i put the smallest box with audio speaker wires and such cause i rarely use that. around that small box i neatly wound all my wires and stacked them by color. took the tray form the 3rd smallest box (wish it was for this box cause it doesn't sit where it should), but used that one for heat shrink tubes, electrical tape, cutting blades, wire crimper and some lighters (for the heat shrink tubes). still missing a few nick nacks that ill pick up along the way, but wow now everything is in 1 neat box that i can carry out to any electrical type job i need to do.

thanks for all the advice everyone!