It says replacement for the 1116685 switch so it might. I still need to determine the difference in the 65 vs 66-67 switches before I say yes, he can use this.

Looking closer, I'm gonna say it's a new repop since it's advertised for 67 Camaro, and we all know a catalog and a checkbook will restore one of those. It may or may not have deep enough threads that the 65 Olds switch retainer ring will grab it.

 

Use heat shrink tubing only on wire splices after soldering. if the individual metal terminals clean up nice and shiny, then no replacement is needed. If they are burned, then they need replacing.

 

Just tried to drive car out of garage to wash it and lo and behold I heard sparking and saw smoke behind the dash...Checked the ignition switch...all good. Tried to start car while had my head stuck behind dash, found where the smoke was coming from. A wire on the main harness has melted and about one third of the copper wires inside are broken. Thank god none of the other wires on the main harness were affected...what do i do now?

 

Ahhh. Excellent!

You've found the problem (after fixing something unrelated, but that still required fixing).

Now you need to get to work:

• Disconnect the battery (duh.).
• Get under the dash with a good light and a razor knife.
  Have a copy of the wiring diagram handy.
• Gently slit the tape wrapping the harness and pull out the wires.
• Examine each one for burned spots.
• Mark the bad areas (may be just an eighth of an inch), perhaps with baggie twist-ties.
• Tightly and carefully wrap electrical tape around each bare spot on every wire.
• If you have one or two wires with long runs of melted insulation, cut out those parts and solder in replacement pieces of the same or larger conductor diameter (gauge).
• Use shrink tubing on those connections (has to slip on BEFORE you twist the wires ).
• Use the wiring diagram to answer any questions you might have while you're under there.
• Re-wrap the entire harness with electrical tape, just like it was before.
  The original tape was non-adhesive, and this is available, as is double-wide tape, but just wrapping it with regular electrical tape is fine.
  High-grade tape from 3M or similar is absolutely worth the extra dollar or two a roll if you're doing this.
• Be sure to identify the offending wire and follow it to its destination to see what caused the original short, so that you can be sure it doesn't happen again.

Remember, usually in these cases, a single wire has gotten hot and melted its insulation, and has softened the insulation of adjacent wires, maybe melting through their insulation in just a few places. Everything else should be fine, but you have to check it.

Good luck!

- Eric

 

I have parted out a couple of 66 88's and the wire harness would be the same. I am not sure what I have or what you might need. It is a pretty big job to replace the entire wiring harness and the best thing would be to identify the bad wires and solder in new ones like Eric said. If you get lucky it may be a lesser harness that could be replaced alone.