Second Gen wiring harness

A friend of mine had an electrical fire in his 1966 Riv GS. The engine harness under the hood burned but he was able to get the fire out before any damage was to the paint or body. My question is, would the engine harness in the Riviera be the same as a 1966 Skylark Gran Sport? There is no visible damage to the dash but since the engine harness plugs onto the back side of the fuse panel all of the interior wiring needs to be checked out.

He was pulling into his driveway when the car quit and then he saw the smoke coming from under the hood. If he had a battery cutoff there might have been a little less damage but he was even more lucky that the car was not in the garage when the fire started. I would suggest to everyone that you install a simple battery cutoff and use it.

He was very lucky and any help/idea's here is greatly appreciated.

Probably not a match to the '66 GS. The Riviera needs wiring to operate the hidden headlights for one thing. I'm sure there are more.

Ed

Ed, thanks for the thoughts but the headlight wiring is a separate harness from the engine harness and I am just trying to come up with what would be different on the engine harness. The engine harness connects to the distributor, blower motor, alternator, temperature and oil pressure sending units and the A/C compressor. That is why I am thinking that part just might be the same as on the Skylark GS. Any and all thoughts are appreciated.

Don,

Yes mostly the same devices but not all under the hood is same aside from major differences like wiring for headlight motor & both relays, cornering lights, cruise, blower resistior bank, etc. Lengths will be off and most importantly the firewall bulkhead connector will undoubtedly be different and some other termination connector configurations as well. If you have a chassis manual you may be able to deduce some info by comparing wiring diagrams and then on the pages that show the actual routing of the harness under the hood of where each component is like horns, parking lights, for example. 66 Rivs are wide and the wiring going across the rad support probably will be too short from a Skylark.

This is one of those things where its hard to think of all the differences but there will be more than your friend will want to deal with.

Should be able to locate both engine bay harnesses in used condition. They are tough to find that don't need any work at all but usually simple repairs can be made fairly easy and cheap. Those engine side harnesses take some abuse.

A friend of mine had an electrical fire in his 1966 Riv GS. The engine harness under the hood burned but he was able to get the fire out before any damage was to the paint or body. My question is, would the engine harness in the Riviera be the same as a 1966 Skylark Gran Sport? There is no visible damage to the dash but since the engine harness plugs onto the back side of the fuse panel all of the interior wiring needs to be checked out.

He was pulling into his driveway when the car quit and then he saw the smoke coming from under the hood. If he had a battery cutoff there might have been a little less damage but he was even more lucky that the car was not in the garage when the fire started. I would suggest to everyone that you install a simple battery cutoff and use it.

He was very lucky and any help/idea's here is greatly appreciated.

This is a no brainer. It would make mucho sense to ante up the extra money for a repro harness. It doesnt make much sense to go thru the labor of installation for a used harness, especially an engine harness which will likely be brittle, etc.

Tom Mooney

Thanks for all the input. The car will receive the repro harness' as soon as available as this car has won numerous awards. I was thinking that if the Skylark GS engine harness is the same it might be more readily available. But typically folks like M&H make the harness after one is ordered and that carries a six to eight week lead time plus shipping. The forward light harness did not appear to be damaged but that still remains to be seen plus the engine harness was toasted all the way to the fuse block. I sure would like to know what started this.

Thanks again,

Don,

I get asked about this occasionally. For future reference, can they make a correct 66 Riv harness without a donor? Did they quote a price?

Jason, I will be checking on this again on Monday. The car is at a professional restoration shop and I am just trying to help out in anyway that I can. I will check with the owner of that shop and post any information that I can.