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I’m going through the harness before i drop the engine back in my 64 442. These 2 wires were tucked in the harness and are in bad shape. Can i just shorten them and splice them back together with butt connectors and heat shrink? Any idea what this yellow connector goes too, it needs repaired also?
If you can identify which wires you need I have an old harness that I might be able to salvage the wires from. If you are going to repair them I would not suggest butt connectors, solder and heat shrink would be good though.
The heavily frayed cloth wire is the resistance wire feeding ignition power to the coil. This lowers the voltage at the + side of the coil to around 9v while the car is running so you do not burn up the points. It would be best to try to replace this if you can find one from a decent used harness like Joel mentioned. If you are running HEI or another electronic ignition, you should replace this with a properly sized (gauge) copper wire to supply a good 12v source to your ignition. There would be a yellow wire in the original harness that feeds 12v to the coil (attached along with the cloth covered wire on the + post) from the starter while cranking, but the yellow wire in your pic looks like the feed wire for the wiper motor.
Last edited by Loaded68W34; March 9th, 2021 at 04:44 PM.
Also note that the resistance wire can't be soldered easily. Quality butt connectors used with a more professional ratchetting crimping tool are acceptable.
I wrongly assumed this was for the car in your profile pic, I reread the post and now see this is for a 64. My harnesses are all 70-72. I do have a pretty decent resistance wire that I could remove complete at the bulkhead connector, I’m just not sure if it work for you.
I appreciate the offer, i did find this harness in the trunk that the coil wires are good on. I also found the starter harness that i will need to repair, but that should be easy.
Wiring condition (especially the condition of the insulation) can vary greatly with the climate and region you live in. Here in PA we get a lot of rust and corrosion issues, but one of the few benefits is that most of the time wire insulation will be in pretty good shape. In hot/ dry climates the insulation can get so brittle from age that it crumbles in your hands. The same can be said for a lot of other "soft" parts on the car. I too usually repair harnesses rather than replace them. The one exception to this is rear light harnesses that include tail light sockets. If reproduced, they are usually cheap enough that it is not worth fooling with old sockets that don't make contact with bulbs.
March 9th, 2021, 03:51 PM
