Installing a new wiring harness - pics

i built my own wiring harness from scratch. i had never done it before. i also would never do it again.

so - now that my car is 99% finished - i wanted to revisit some of the things i was not happy with. sort of like the suspension and how i installed / pulled / changed it close to 8 times until i got it right.

so - first things first. i did some homework.

i ended up with a kit that had 20 fuses (21 circuits) and a mini fuse panel. it's highly popular with the hot rod crowd, is small and came with LOTS of extra wire (along with fuses, relays, etc). Some of the kits are way over priced for what you get - and the length of wire you get in some is also not long enough for me. i already had the switches.

it was called an 'ezwiring mini 20'.
http://www.ezwiring.com/wiring_harness.html

I bought it on ebay and paid $135 plus $40 shipping (USD) to Canada

now - on to the pics of the installation.

















and this is where i left it last night.

so far i probably have 5 hours into it.


i spent a bit of time changing the harness to fit a rear engine car and moves some circuits around (fan to the rear, compressor to the front, etc). i also mounted it (as you can see in the pics) on the other side (passenger). i did this because i always found when i wanted to do something under there - the drivers sidfe was jammed with stuff (my air suspension stuff takes up quite a bit of under dash space).

Amazing how much of a rat's nest of wiring is in even simple cars like these.

Make a man buy a gun

aaaa... that's easy stuff !

Ya done good. first time has a slower learning curve.

Im just injoying your interior color combo... That's nice.

I love the colour !!!!

Would you be very pissed if I choose the same colour for mine......???

I'm 3.5k miles from you so its probably unlikely that we would meet :)

Are the colour coded wires labeled as well - their site is a bit confusing on this point and like 10% of males I have trouble with colours

I spent 27 years in the automotive wiring business. You should see the size of the harnesses in your daily driver!

Hey Smooth one, very unique tub, I like it a lot....
would like to see some pic's of the engine bay at some point..

Hey Mango..

I understand that you made your interior carpet, with that adhesive edging. Where did you get that carpet? Is it just indoor/outdoor marine carpet? I really dig the stuff you picked. Looks like berber carpet.

Mike

it's not that glue on edging - it's properly bound. it is berber carpet from home depot 'beaulio of america' i believe.

vinny - I'll snap some pics of the engine bay next time I'm out there with the camera.

Gerry - it's your car to do with as you wish. :)



as for an update - i spent a few more hours under the car last night. front wiring is all removed and the dash has been cleaned up significantly. i have a ball of wire on my workbench that is close to 2 feet in dia. that is just the extra wires! I'm trying to save the actual harness.

Cuz Vinny just check out his website www.mangosmoothie.ca
He has more pictures on there I think than most of us put together, a very thorough build diary.. If anyone wants to attempt one of these builds they should definitely check out the Mango site.

Simon

I'm surprised very few seem to be aware of Mangosmoothies site...a very well done production of a work of art!

Wolfgang, are you reading this?

Mango, Dude, that's an incredibly high degree of patience you have there.

Cory - i am going to take that as a compliment. :)

Ryan - The foil style heat shielding in the engine compartment is from home depot. There is sound deadening / heat shield under that too.



Update: I pulled the old wiring harness out last night - completely. i held it in place with the dynamat stuff, so it's sticky in places, but complete. pulled all the lights / seats, etc, so next step is to lay the wires one by one.

i decided to make my own ground bus bars with some steel stock i had and used a tap to make threaded mounts. I'm mounting one big one in the front and another under the dash and the third in the rear.

I'll upload pictures when i get the camera card with me.

I'm, as they say, over the hump

You can just run your dash grounds to the forward ( hidden) side of the 2 x 2" horizontal dash brace, I use self tapping hex screws...easy peasy.

Yeah. All I did was thread a couple of 10-32 studs into the cross brace and loaded 4-6 ground wires (ring tabs) on each. Work great.

For Mike - An older carpet-related thread; esp., Instabind link:
http://speedsterowners.com/forum/readmsg.asp?t=17165

alan & gord: my frame is SUPER thick (seems like unnecessarily thick steel), so running a tap through a hole is tempting fate. i've done a buss bar out of mild steel, so i drill / tap 2 holes in the frame and get 7 ground mounts.


update:





pulled the lights:



old wiring from car:


now we're starting to get somewhere...



Should be noted that this kit assumes fuse panel is installed on drivers side, so some wires are long enough - but do not have an extra 3'




and here is the engine shot (sans filters):

Scott..... Thanks for the link.

Mango.... Lookin good man!! ;-)

Mango, I can't believe that's a CMC. Beautiful work.

Great attention to detail. Nice series of images as well.

I love that engine

One of my fav.speedsters

After you "right it" there's nothing wrong with a CMC..great base line to rebuild with.

thanks guys :)

it is surprisingly thick fiberglass on the CMC. fix the bum sag and pay attention to details and it's as good as any other.

re: update...

have the dash mostly wired now. putting the fuse box on the passenger side made things a little more tricky than i thought. I've had to re-route the high-beam switch, etc.

another (mild) complaint: all the plugs are GM - which use these odd connectors and plugs. I've cut off most and install my own, but for others considering this kit - it's slowing me down a little.

i used the power window circuit for the driving lights

i used the cruise circuit for the heated seats (and upped the fuse 5 AMPs to 15 amps)

i used the power locks circuit for the ignition system / coil-pack.

with 21 circuits - i still have some leftover

I'll post pics later (i have plenty more for the visual folks)

update:

have a show on the weekend, so i have been pulling midnight sifts in the garage to get this done. it's taking longer than i though/planned.

few technical points on this particular kit:

1) headlight plugs don't fit (they are the correct type, but too deep, so the headlight can't sit flush), so i had to wire VW ones back in.

2) putting the harness on the passengers side had required me to extend more than a few wires.

3) flashers that come with kit are two prong and as a result needed to be swapped to 3 prong (and rewire slightly), the indicator light in speedo is uni-directional

i put in a bunch of plugs (driving lights, portable sterio, under dash panels, etc), so this takes a bit more time.

I also am being anal about neatness on routing, length of wires, zip ties, etc, so i *know* this is slowing me down. as a result, i am very happy with the install so far.

I'm done the whole front of the car, rear, battery, ignition system, and ~75% of the dash. i'm in the home stretch.

i figure i have maybe 10 hours into the harness in total so far with another 2 remaining.





these are what needed to be swapped out to VW style that are less deep:




front ground bus bar (it's all tidy now BTW):


and another thing - i am documenting the whole process, so taking notes is actually taking longer than the harness install...

ignition system (old wiring harness schematic - note the old colour changing wires as i ran out of a particular colour? that is all fixed now):


headlight /dimmer switches:


gauges:


front:


i am going to put the whole schematic into a colour wiring diagram. the kit instructions are dumbed down way too much and have no technical value.

Mango, that's a tremendous amount of work there. I'm more and more impressed every time you post, and I'm especially impressed with the simplicity of your diagram. I did mine on a cardboard box flap, and I probably threw that away. I can't find it anymore, and I sometimes wish I'd have kept it.
Keep up the good work!

Great looking car. At first I thought it was one I saw up in LA area that has a turbo type one in it. I guess I'm going to have to come up with a different color sceam for mine.

As for the wiring I know your pain. Here is a wiring system I'm doing from scratch because of all the off road light this guy wants to run. I guess its good because these will light up the night in this nightmare.

nice work Kevin!

you gotta be feeding all those relays with some 4AWG (?)

is the air tank for a horn?

and Cory - i hear you. my previous wiring diagram was scribbled on several pieces of paper and was incomplete. i decided to take my time with this one and do it 100% right.

done midnight Friday.

sorted out some minor last minute issues. the alt exciter kit isn't fed by the dash light - it's fed by the fuse box. i didn't see how, but i interrupted the circuit and used the standard dash light instead.



I made a show on the weekend and got my first first place.


Unfortunately i didn't take any pictures cause i literally was answering questions from a line up of people for most of the day. The air ride was pretty popular.this was my first public display and i was surprised how much of a draw these cars are. from little kids to old ladies (and lots of middle aged guys).



and here is my little helper on Saturday AM cleaning the car:


oh - and this is what is hanging on my rear view mirror: LOL

1. Your Speedster is F'ing AWESOME!

2. Congrats on the show award!

3. Did I already say that your Speedster is F'ing AWESOME?

4. What a great dad to include your little 'helper' in the project.

5. Your air ride RULES!!! I love the look when its slammed.

6. Continue to 'Represent' with awesomeness!

Peace - Out!

Mango, no denying it's a beautiful car, just a little disappointed to see that your little sweetie wasn't decked out in some sort of matching mango green outfit. You're slipping. Must have been the rush at the end where that detail was overlooked. :-)

LOL

Funny you should say that...







she is still a bit young to figure out the gas pedal / steering thing, but i already have the paint mixed and interior 1/2 done (yes - it will match the mangosmoothie).

i know i have a problem with this whole do-it-yourself-car-thing, but as i keep telling my wife - there are worse things to have a problem with.

I resemble THAT !

Think you can handle rewiring that puppy?

That picture of Alan should be on the cover of Kit Car Magazine.

I second what Rich said.. Your doing a fine job !!. I would run 2 extra 10 gauge blk grounds .

One fron the dash ground stud out to both head lamps with 2 grounding eyes , one on each side up front .

That gives you a place to ground the fog lamps and horns,, making it pretty falure proof

Then another 10 gauge ground to the rear also tapped to the dash stud. to the rear frame corners for the tail Lights


And yeat a third ground at the rear from one of the rear frame corners Again with eyelet connectors to the Alternator or Genrator (whatever is used for charging). there is a hole on them for a ground stud.. 6 mm .100 fine thread ,, USE IT!

That insures a total car ground link,

I deam it a MUST for a plastic car, to get good reliabilty. out of the system and it's a cheap addon , well worth the do it and forget it cleshiey

I second what Marty said.