I have a 68 Cutlas in which the factory wiring harness has been hacked a thousand times and while I have a degree in electronics engineering, in my opinion it is well beyond any repair. It is a complete hack and is going to take days of effort to get it working and even then will just be a hacked harness.

I looked at painless wiring kits and also another complete kit from American.... Wondering what your thoughts are on a complete car harness? Plug and Play type would be preferred with all original plugs and sockets.

Recommendations on which company to go with?

 

While plug and play is easier, it's also the more expensive way to go. You can also look into M&H Electric Fabricators, they also make harnesses.

 

^x2^ what Eric said. I couldn't think of the name of the company, but M&H sells select areas of the total wiring package for a vehicle. Here's what they have for a 1968 Cutlass:
http://www.wiringharness.com/pdfs/20...ss_442_F85.pdf
http://www.wiringharness.com/

 

More expensive, yes, but with the labor to install may not make a difference.

I'll check out M&H for sure. Americanautowire.com is one I found already.

If anyone else has any feedback as to the company and brand, it would be much appreciated.

 

I replaced all the wiring in my 1971 Convertible and used both M&H and American Auto Wire (mostly M&H though). Really could not see a difference in my case between the two. They were accurate with the correct plugs, colors and lengths. It is not a difficult process, on the more complex harnesses, like the engine harness, just remove one plug at a time and replace it with the new one. Also helpful to lay it out on the ground first to get a feel for how it all is interconnected. Make sure you have a CSM, or at least a wiring harness diagram in case you get into a confusing situations.

 

This is what I did for my dash harness:

- Lay the existing harness out on a large wood topped table and used sheet rock screws to define every wire intersection. The sheet rock screws will also hold it in place.
- photographed everything in detail.
- carefully unwrap the entire harness making note and taking pics of factory spliced wires within the harness (there are a number of bare factory soldered splices, particularly in the courtesy light wire circuit)
- inspect any wires for fraying and replace as necessary.
- starting at the fuse box re-wrap everything using electrical friction tape.

You'll find that missing or cut wires can be identified pretty easily if you have a good wiring diagram (I can e-mail you one if you don't have it for 68). Generally wires to most things won't be cut and discarded. Usually people splice crap into existing circuits like the radio. For full length wire runs I re-used the existing plug ends and crimped new connectors which, with a little research, are usually easily sourced. I even added the tach lead through the existing body harness. It was helpful that I had a couple of spare junk dash harnesses to steal things from. I didn't purchase much that was new. I even took apart a couple hard to find connectors at the ends and re-crimped them. I found that in general most wires under the dash weren't brittle or burned. The headlight connection on 68's does have a tendency to get cooked at the firewall connector. It's worth paying particular attention to it

For the engine bay harness & forward light harness I'd buy new. they are much smaller than the dash harness. My tail light harness was pretty good. I didn't do anything with that except checked continuity. Tail lights on 68's are notorious for not staying grounded but that really isn't a wiring harness issue, it's the ground tabs on the tail light bulb sockets

 

I have had great success with American auto wire. Good luck
I have a 67 cutlass supreme