Now I only bought this car last aug so been doing repairs to the 'rigs' the previous owner was obviously fond of.

So I have been trying to get everything fine tuned on the car. Decided to check the voltage at my HEI , there was a drop of about 1 v. Doing a little tracing a but connecter was loose and the hei b+ is sharing power with the b+ on electric choke cap.

There was a small drop at this connector, but no where close to 1v so kept digging deeper. Ultimately as one probably could imagine i quickly ended up under the dash.

To my horror I found the dash harness zip tied together and mutiple wires in the middle of bundle have apparently overheated and since were all so close together it is now one big mess.

I've seen others experience dash fires and dont want that, but right now don't have the money for a full replacement harness. Does anyone know where i could get correctly colored pieces of wires to splice/solder in a temp repair. I was even considering taking a trip to the junk yard and just cutting about a foot of the loom from some car just so i can replace damaged wires with correct colors ( or as close to possible )

The section of the bundle that is damaged is almost 9in that i'm looking at replacing. of course will have to clean as i go and find out what wire caused the problem and correct it.

At first glance I think he had to much running off same hot wire resulting in my current mess.

any advice and recomendations are greatly appreciated

 

If this is a temporary fix you may be better off going to radio shack and buying one roll of and a roll of self adhesive wire numbers, this way you could number both ends of the splice. As you go you can make a list matching the numbers with the original colors for future use if needed. It would be cheaper than buying a small roll of each color.

 

Rhode Island Wiring Service sells tracer wire.
Try posting in the parts wanted section , may be able to get a decent used harness or a section.
Soldering sections in probably would be okay as long as it's done right. If you use heat shrink tubing to cover the connections always remember to put it on and slide it up out of the way on the wire before you solder the wires together.

http://www.riwire.com/

 

If you're thinking of actually cutting and splicing the wires, you should think of cutting and sliding shrink tubing over them - half as many cuts and splices and just as good as though you'd replaced them. Just cut at a good point, slide along enough length of shrink tubing over to completely cover the bare part, shrink, then re-splice.

Also, if you start picking apart the harness, you will probably find only one or two wires with actual damage to their insulation - others may be a bit stuck together, but once they're separated, their insulation will be fine.

- Eric

 

I agree with MD & if id too bad try & find a used harness or make one,If you find a used one I would take it out my selfe

 

What kind of car?

 

I agree great idea with the numbering. Priced the dash harness and at $400+ just cant do that right now but don't want to have her unusable.

I hope you are right and there are only a few burned up wires, and I definately going to use some shrink tubing. My initial plans are to pull seat , lay out and take my time do it right.
Definately, going to visit a few yards this weekend and with any luck find a harness, that would be a best case scenario. But if all else fails will have to mend and just keep an eye out or save for a repo harness.

1970 Cutlass S

 

And don't forget to solder the splices, not crimp them.

 

Finally got new harness installed and got car back on the road. Was able to get an orig harness off a member here that had never been cut, worked like a charm. while I was in there was able to also find a dash in better shape than mine on ebay. Overall I am pretty satisfied with the outcome.

 

more pics

 

last ones

 

Looks great..wiring is a PITA but once its done...

 

Wow. That was one serious case of the "mightaswells!"

Looks nice.



- Eric

 

great story g77 - congrats! i am having an identical problem trying to fix my dash/engine harness "issue" [with replacing the fuse block AND bulkhead] on my 64 olds f-85. new dash harness is $430 and engine harness is $110... argh. i can do a complete car kit [90+ % of all car's wiring] for $750 OR find one/pick-a-part [pull] one.

how did you run across one here? just by asking around? i am still trying to figure this out

 

yeah another member on here (507OLDS) had an unmolested harness, I lucked out. Just post in parts wanted section and see whats out there. Don't forget ebay, you may finds something there as well.

 

yes it was lol, I do tend to get carried away. But seriously the repair was needed and the dash just happened to be in the right place at right time since it was all already disassembled.