First Gen Wiring

[CTX-SLPR]

Howdy,

I'm getting annoyed at the electrical problems of my '64 Riviera and I keep looking at my pile of junkyard relays and other electronic gizmos and thinking about stripping the whole wiring harness out of the car and redoing it from scratch with a Painless or equivilent 20+ circuit harness. Fortunately, taking inventory of the shear number of things I'd have to wire up even with a harness kills that idea quickly.

In the past I've been trying to cut the stock harness up minimally but I think that is causing some of my issues since I've done some rather elaborate taps and splices to try and keep the stock wiring intact. I'm just about ready to start cutting off peices I'm not using to make my connections and completely replacing the stock headlight and taillight harness with relays and the like.

How precious is the stock wiring harness on the first gen cars? In the various different things I've done to the car I've tried to keep the ablity to return it to stock if I or someone wanted to, this would be the first serious deviation from that strategy as I'd be cutting large sections and/or lots of connectors off of the wiring harness.

Thoughts?

[60FlatTop]

That is a serious consideration. My wiring harness needed a few repairs and sprucing up. The wire ends were painted black, some terminals were loose, and the plugs needed real cleaning with lacquer thinner.

I took the whole harness out and unwrapped each section. Lisle tools makes a neat little terminal release tool: http://shop.advanceautoparts.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_x_22984255-P_x_x?cm_mmc=ACQ-_-Google-_-enhancedRM-_-22984255&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=22984255&ci_gpa=pla&ci_kw={keyword}#utm_source=acq&utm_medium=google&utm_campaign=enhancedrm&utm_content=22984255

It lets you get the ends off easily.

Most of the terminals are available at NAPA.

I replaced the purple #12 wire to the starter. I ordered a short length from Rhode Island Wire Works to get the right color. The Apple Green temperature sensor wire was cooked from engine heat. I couldn't get the correct color so I repaired it with a section of yellow painted green with Krylon.

Year One sells the non-adhesive wrapping tape for re-wrapping.

I put about 6 finishing nails into a 2X6 that I held in a vise. Then I could slip the terminal end over the nails and keep the harness tight while I re-wrapped. You work from the ends inward. Pay attention to the way the tape stretches out the branches and wraps back. I was real happy with the results and that was almost 15 years ago; still looking good.

I still have a stock of terminals if you find any no longer available.

Now, not that a ex-Navy Boilerman would challenge an AF Physicist............... well, you know I have a big smile right now, don't you.

Bernie