I'm in the midst of a 18 month restoration of my '68 442. I pulled the wiring harnesses early on in the process and recently pulled them out to start the cleanup process. While the main harness itself is in decent condition and needs minimal repair, the fuse box shows a fair amount of corrosion both on the fuse clips and also where the wire connectors attach to the panel.

This car has had an unanticipated plethora of MAW's which have put a serious strain on the budget. I really can't afford to purchase a new main harness. I have a 18 circuit harness available that was purchased for another project and am considering using it as the basis for the underdash section of the harness.

I guess the question is how much corrosion is too much? I recall posts from gearheads78 who restored the original harness but can't recall the condition of the fuse panel.

The last thing I want to do is give this car a reason to go up in flames...

 

As long as the wiring is overall serviceable, you can burnish the fuse contacts and replace any bad single wires or terminal ends and be good to go.

 

You can get individual fuse block terminals from one of the wire restoration companies, too.
I forget which one, but there was a post on here about two years ago about it, if I recall.

- Eric

 

Most of the fuse blocks I do are not available new. I use glass bead at low pressure and clean them. Then wipe the contact points with dielectric grease, and spray with detail clear. I have a small blasting gun that looks and works like the old style siphon feed paint guns. I think HF has something cheap like that. Pretty handy little thing for restoration.

 

A Dremmel tool with a small wire wheel brush gets in there pretty well too.

 

Could you post pics of your old one?
Was it an a/c car by chance?
I may have an oem unit, under dash side
I think. Shoot some pics and I will looksee
if you want.