In the hierarchy of automotive dreads, rust repair and wiring rank near the top for most people. Rust repair we get, but wiring doesn’t have to be a nightmare. After all, a wire just goes from one place to another. How hard can that be?
The problem is there’s always more than one wire. And those wires connect to things. And …
1. When we pulled the dashboard out of this Factory Five Coupe, we found a typical wiring mess: wires of all colors and lengths, some up to 6 feet too long, plus relays that couldn’t be serviced without removing the dashboard. Terminals ranged from quality and properly installed to tape and wire nuts. Overheated and partially melted wires and terminals had simply been left in place. We had a lot of work to do.
2. After spending a little time trying to remedy things in situ, we realized we’d save time by removing the fuse box and main dashboard harness from the car. We labeled and photographed everything before pulling it out so we had good references for later.
The easiest way to make wiring serviceable is to untangle the mess and neaten everything. Our neatness rules include not crossing wires; keeping appropriate wires bundled together, often in subbundles; and keeping lengths exactly appropriate. This neatness takes time.
3, 4. Along the way, we found some wires tangled right at their multi-wire connectors. We de-pinned those connectors and organized the wires, making sure to keep them in the right place and not cross them. In this case, we used some temporary zip-ties to keep the bundle neat.
5. Some of our multi-wire connectors had melted. Fortunately, American Autowire sells replacements, so we reterminated the wires and then neatly inserted them.
6. At this point, we had the harness roughed out. We used more temporary zip-ties to keep the subbundles organized. We could then reinstall the fuse box and harness and work on routing and neatening the subbundles.
7. Dealing with 15 to 20 circuits and a lot of colors can be overwhelming. The American Autowire harness had printed circuit names on the wires, so that made the job easier for us (and less reliant on a wiring diagram). Where we needed more information, we got out the tape and Sharpie to label things.
8. We then neatened each subbundle. After determining appropriate lengths and reterminating wires as necessary, we neatly held…
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