What's next?

[51Patty400]

I've finished the motor and the rest of the stuff under the hood. Car is still assembled and drivable. Do I tackle the wiring harness next or wait until I start taking the body apart (for prep/prime/paint) before the harness.

51 Patrician 400
- Mark

[imported_Speedster]

That depends on how much disassembly you will be doing, but usually you want to do harness before final exterior paint, but paint firewall before putting wiring thru it. Having the hood and front fenders off and front seat out really helps when doing the harness. Usually the wires to front lights go thru front fenders tho. Do you plan on removing the dash? If so, you can put harness thru firewall before installing dash. You may want to pull the old harness out with the dash, makes it much easier to label and disconnect them that way. If Not, Be sure to label the old harness wires, behind dash, before removing or cutting them, so you can use it as a reference when connecting up the new harness. Don't discard any of the old wiring until everthing is reconnected and working.
The first thing you want to do is remove the front seat and get a nice soft pad to lay on, while working under dash <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, after disconnecting the battery of course. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mark: My advice is the same do the wiring harness, when you have the car apart for the paint and body work.

John F. Shireman

[BigKev]

Since you are going to replace the harness anyway this is what I would recommend.

If I need to disconnect something (like the insturment cluster) but I need to know where everything went. I cut the wire close to the termial leaving a inch or so of the wire on them and the leave the terminals attached to where it is supposed to go. You just unhook the old terminal and plug in the new one.

Then when I am going to put the new harness back in I can match up the colors (or the colors to a diagram) easily. So basically what you are doing is leaving the original wire termial connected to the Cluster (in this case) to use as a roadmap so you know when the new terminals from the harness should be hooked up. As long as the wire colors are the same, or you have a diagram it makes this very painless.

This also make disassembly quick as you dont have to try to unscrew all the terminals or have to unplug a group of termials blind and try to figure out what went where.

This also takes the guess work out of trying to decypher cryptic notes or lables you left for yourself months ago when you try to put everything back together.

Obviously if you are keeping your harness, this is not recommended.

[Clipper47]

I did the harness on my 47 before paint. I had good plans with the harness I bought from Rhode Island Wire so I hacksawed the old harness off at the firewall and pulled it through to make moving the old harness wires around under the dash easier. It is much easier with the seats out so you can lie down under the dash as you work. It was easier than I thought. One consideration is that if you want to paint the firewall it might be easier to do if you don't push the new harness through the firewall until that job is done.

[51Patty400]

Thanks everyone. The old harness has already been butchered by the previous owner. More black electrical tape than copper right now and half the stuff doesnt work. Kanter has my harness and I have the original wiring diagrams. Soon as I find a translator for them, I will be all set.

How hard can it be. LOL!!!

On a serious note. Tools? Wire cutters and strippers, heat shrink tubing. Anything else? Does a harness come with all the "ends" for connecting?

- Mark

[BigKev]

If you buy a harness made for your car. It should come with all the correct OEM style termials. Most of which should already be installed. I would doubt that you would need to cut or prepare any of the wirirng as it should already be cut the proper lengths with everything ready to go.

[Albert]

Mark, if you need a hand with the harness let me know, there is not that much to these cars as far as wiring goes.. I would hate to restore a 2006 cadi 50 years from now,, can you imagine the cost of a new harness??