Wiring help needed

[Guest]

Hi

I'm restoring my 63 Wildcat and I would like to rewire the car for safety (don't need a fire in a fresh resto!) Does anyone know of a shop that will do a harness for me? I expect some of the accessories may start working, too.

Thanks.

[NTX5467]

Unless someone's hacked into or modified the various wiring harnesses, I somewhat doubt there would necessarily be a problem with the production harness. If you are doing a full restoration, you might be removing much of it anyway so you could inspect, rebuild as needed without automatically replacing everything. If you replace the harness with another one, you'll be pulling the old one out so why not just repair as needed (with QUALITY repairs) instead of just figuring it's bad to start with?

In the GM Parts listings, there are many smaller harnesses that make up the total wiring for the vehicle. There's a forward lamp harness. An air conditioning harness. An instrument panel cluster harness. Body lighting harness. Rear lamp harness. An underhood engine harness. Others too. All of these probably go through the bulkhead connector near the base of the steering column on the firewall. You might find some questionable connections at that point which could explain your accessories and such not currently working.

Also, consider that getting a reproduction harness might not be exactly the same as your existing harness. Always REQUEST and DEMAND the wiring, connections, insulators and other components of the repro harness to be AT LEAST equivalent to GM production OEM specifications--period. What might first look correct and such could well have smaller gauge and lesser quality wiring, insulation, and connectors than what you now have. Be an informed buyer and don't automatically expect the replacement to be like what was originally on the vehicle from the factory.

There are some good and trusted vendors, just ask the right questions and get the right answers from them.

Otherwise, the main areas to look for on your existing harnesses would be connections/terminals that are broken from flexing or loose when pluged in, insulation that might be chaffed and could soon short against another wire or "ground", and the bulkhead connection terminals that I previously mentioned. Most, if not all, of the OEM spec/production terminals and connectors can be found in the restoration industry or from GM entities themselves. If you were rewiring a street rod from scratch, I'd recommend you contact Painless Wiring in Fort Worth, TX.

There are some cases when it could be better to check first and go from there instead of automatically presuming that what you have is faulty when it might not really be.

I fully understand your concerns on having a trouble free vehicle--they are much nicer that way!

Enjoy!

NTX5467