so in my adventures of looking through the car i have noticed kinda how S@#$ty the wiring is in the car and so i am wondering, how easy is it to rewire the whole car?

thinks i would be looking at:
cost
easiness (have a pretty good knowledge of electronics)
thinks to look out for
etc.

thanks guys for the help and advice i am surely about to recieve

 

here are some pics on what i am talking about

also in picture 3 is there a reason the white thing gets SUPER hot?

 

I have tryed to get some paper tools to work on these types of things that looks like a lot of custom work i wonder if american wire or m&h could build you a starter kit off the stock wire block?

 

lets try this again.

 

yeah it is alot of custom electric work it seems lol. but in my adventure on restoring this bad mamba jamba these are the things i am/should be looking into i think. is it worth trying to get it back to original wiring do you guys think or stick with the aftermarket electronics?

 

I like stock looking but upgraded like a a m&h breaker less set up. They sell wire kits Too
I would think ttey could build one to have the resister bypass wire to the distributor so you or I would not have to deal with that ? problem in my opinion is what is said unite that is all wired dies can you get another one and how fast so you dont have to re wire it all again?

 

The white thing is a ballast resistor for the coil and they get very hot. I would try to neat up what is there rewiring jobs are a nightmare if you have not done one befor. And while you can get help with almost every part of a project no one wants to help with wiring it seems. If you do decide to rewire spend the bucks to get a correct factory harness. painless and ez-wire is not have a project sitting right now due to no one wanting to help on a 64 ranchero. good luck.

 

M&H makes great factory replacement harnesses. Well worth the money.

The ballast resistor isn't needed in out cars unless the factory resistor wire is not feeding power to the coil. I have a unilite comp 9000 in my car with no ballast and it hasn't failed me yet.

 

I've been looking into replacing the engine harness and forward lamp harness for my 71. Safety reasons and peice of mind of course. Really want brighter headlights too. Might just do it this winter.

http://www.wiringharness.com/modelsearch.asp

Looks like M H have these things covered.

 

yeah i think i am going to rewire the damn thing lol. walked into the garage and smelled some plastic burning. i think that ended up being that white ballistor

But not going to take the risk on the S$#@ty wiring. Some of the wiring is changing colors (splices).

so with that being said where can i get a wiring manual for the beast i got?

 

Sicky,

The white ceramic ballast resistor is allowed to get hot while the engine is running.
That's okay, it's doing its job by turning excess electricity into heat. It should be mounted somewhere that the heat won't damage anything.

As far as what to do with all those wires, changing a harness is a big job, and always turns out harder than you thought it would. I'd just go through the wires you've got and fix any problems that you find. It's actually easier, and you'll know exactly what's going on in there.


Don,

Replacing one factory-type harness with another will not make your lights brighter.
Cleaning all of your connections will, and it's a lot easier than changing an entire harness.

If you want to run mad-high wattage bulbs (I've got 130W H-1's in the high beams in my Chevelle), then you'll need to run heavier wires with a relay.

- Eric

 

my harness is working fine i was thiking more along the lines of going through and replacing all the wires and connections. i will have to see where i can mount that ballast but looking at the bigger picture as far as wiring also

 

I wholeheartedly have to disagree with that. I replaced my harnesses last year and my lights are two fold brighter with the same bulbs. It was all in the wiring as I had replaced the connectors trying to fix the problem to no avail.

Over the years the wires will actually build up resistance and the voltage will drop at the lights with or without clean connections.

 

Well, okay, I can't argue with personal experience, but if the ends have been cleaned and soldered, there is no logical reason why subsequently replacing the wires themselves should reduce resistance. The chemical composition of the wires remains the same, as does their resistance. So long as the wires are not physically damaged (most strands broken by being pinched, etc.), and so long as they were adequately sized when manufactured, all significant resistance should exist at the connections, both those where the terminals connect to the lights, switches, etc., and those where the wires themselves connect to the terminals (which, for the most part, were not soldered at the factory).

I do not doubt your experience, but I have no explanation for it, and would welcome anyone who can come up with a definitive explanation, if this has been others' experience as well.

- Eric

 

Once had '69 442 w/ starting issues, actually caused by unconnected ground wires to the engine.
After discovering corroded cables to the battery, replacements corrected the problem!
Both cables looked fine from the outside, but were green on the inside!
Have seen crispy, corroded, cracked wires on many cars over 30 yrs old, and wonder why there aren't more major car fires than we here about!
I believe OEM manufacturers used the best wire for their time, but what effects longevity??
Do dry climates dry-out insulation?
Do damp climates cause corrosion?
Does no current going through wire for years have an effect?
Have OEM manufacturers "cut-back" on wireing specs in order to make cars 'more affordable'?
I've found, over the years, that bad grounds can wreak havoc on any electrical system, rusulting in many unpredictable problems!

 

Tom- spend the $$ and get a correct repro wire harness. Looks like what you need is the engine and maybe forward lamp harnesses.

You might have to pull the left inner fender to get the harness loose from the fuse block, but an underhood wiring job is not a big hassle. Now a dash wiring job is a grade A prime bi**h.

Get a 1969 Olds Chassis Service Manual if you haven't already. It has all the wiring diagrams (in color!) and also a bunch of working drawings showing locations and layout.

That ballast resistor is an add-on. My guess is someone buggered up the factory resistance wire to the coil and put the ballast in. Seen it many times. Also seen it installed in series with the original resistance wire; you talk about a ragged running engine... The points never burned, but they didn't have enough voltage to trigger the coil properly. That ballast is what I like to call POS- Previous Owner's Stamp.

Get the repro wire harnesses and Rob and I can probably walk you thru the installation, but do get that service manual. It will pay for itself many times over as you learn your Hurst.

 

well you know what they say, and since the under the hood be bad the under dash is worse i feel lol

 

Ain't you still young and skinny and flexible?

Hm. That prattle you were laying down about a 454, maybe you need to get a Chevelle harness and change everything over? Hmm? You talk about a PITA, every wire on the car would have to be changed... Oh wait- the buggered up wiring would be right at home with a Chevy under the hood, cause that's the way they do things!

Yeah, I'm picking and being a general nuisance, but if I never have to fix Previous Owner's Stamp wiring on another Chevrolet, I won't cry. I have repaired many botched wiring jobs on Chevy, Ford and Pontiac musclecars thru the years.

"Man I gotta find me a hot wire under here somewheres..." and then you start finding cheap black electrical tape, twisted-together splices, wire nuts, cheap insulated crimp terminals, lamp cord spliced into the harness...


It amazes me more cars haven't lit off and burned from bad wiring than have.

 

Hey, you're describing my Olds!

(and I've been under there with a soldering iron straightening it out...)

- Eric

 

[begin rant]

Sorry to be a wise guy, but I've seen a lot of freely given advice to just buy new stuff all over these boards, and I really believe it's not always necessary to trash your original factory parts. Many things can be fixed with a little effort and knowledge, saving money and time, and keeping your car as original as possible.

Yes, copper turns green when it oxidizes.
This has no effect on the ability of the continuous strands of copper in the wire to conduct electricity - only on their ability to offload it at the beginning or end (provided that the strands have not lost a large amount of their cross section to corrosion - corrosion of this degree is generally limited to marine applications and to areas affected by battery acid spills).

The case of heavy battery cable is the extreme case here, and the only one where actually replacing the wires MIGHT be a good idea. In heavy battery cables, there are very many strands of copper across a large cross section. Only those strands on the outside of the cylinder of strands are able to make contact with the lead terminals and conduct electricity through them. The current is conducted through these outside strands and proceeds through them into the rest of the cable. If all of the strands of the cable are coated with oxidized copper, then none of them can conduct the current to its neighbors, the current remains in the outer strands, where it meets high resistance due to inadequate cross section, heats up, thereby increases its resistance, and generally doesn't work. In this case, coating the strands at the cable end with a good flux and soldering them to the terminal with good penetration of sufficient heat (usually a torch) will solve the problem. As this is a pain in the butt and often doesn't look as pretty as we'd like, replacing heavy battery cables makes practical sense sometimes.

The case of smaller wires is entirely different, though.
Smaller (say, 14 to 18ga) wires have only a few strands compared to their cross sections. When crimped into their terminals at the factory, all or nearly all of the strands are in contact with the terminal. If soldered by a later owner, all of those strands are placed in permanent and oxygen-free contact with the metal of the terminal, and no matter what their surfaces look like within the wire, they will transmit their current to its destination, so long as they are not damaged somewhere along the way. Surface oxidation may affect heat transfer out of one strand to is neighbors, but if you are not overloading the circuit, this should not be a problem.


Good question - as a Northeasterner, I've never seen it.

Definitely.

No more or less than a voodoo curse might, BUT the passage of current through dissimilar metals (copper to lead on battery terminals, for instance) CAN lead to oxidation, if oxygen is available (contacts not protected by Vaseline).

[end of rant]

- Eric