Wiring harness help

pictures:

http://www.mangosmoothie.ca/wiring

specs:

http://www.mangosmoothie.ca/specs (scroll down to Electrical section)

My advice: if you don't understand electrics that well, you don't want to wire your car.  Pay your local guy the $500, and earn that money doing what you know. 

Jim Kelly is correct.....  I'm in the middle of "rewiring" a 1st time electricians attempt at doing a Spitfire.....    Not pretty, and will probably cost twice what he originally planned....

no - you *can* do it.  believe me - i had never done this before either and i didnt even know how a relay worked.

the internet is a beautiful thing.  bring a laptop into the garage, run into a problem, 3 minutes on google and you have pictures and a detailed answer.

it's not hard, it just takes time.

don't underestimate your own skill.

"Easy" as long as you understand electrical basics...i.e how to correctly wire a bulb, switch and fuse that to a power source.

For the beginner, each time you do a few connections ...CHECK... that it works correctly and if a problem arises it can be found in those few previous steps. Doesn't hurt to have help on the first adventure. If this still baffles you then cough up the $500 as that isn't such a  bad deal. ~Alan

every car is different.  i ran my first harness down the drivers side, then the harness in the pictures above is on my passengers side.  it doesnt matter.

do it

do it

do it

Last I knew, Jack Crosby had a full VS wiring diagram in his photo section.

Also, the Vs wiring harness is the only one used by Alan Merklin on his builds.  Easy to install and everything fits.

The Library section has a full-high resolution wiring diagram.

-=theron

Thanks, Theron.

The VS harness includes a segment for the gauges and assumes a 3-gauge VDO/Porsche cluster.  It continues with additional segments for the rest of the car and all of the wires are pre-terminated so all you do is plug them in or crimp the end to your lamps.  Easy-Peasy.

Speedstahguy the techno-geek

I've done a couple of dozen speedsters w/ the VS harness  feel free to ask questions  Alan

Yes ignition and headlight wiring is included if you opt for H-3 bulbs you'll need to go with heavier gauge headlight wire. Only things you need to additionally run are the power and ground connections to the gauges and run various additional grounds

( VS supplies the sender wires only)

I do alot of wireing and $500nis a bargan if it done correctly.. Id get the Vintage Speedser harness and Do a little up grade here and there   Get a better fuse box that has a cover and have acess to it from the trunk  add a extra  10 gauge black wire Ground harness that covers  the intire car

before you pull the plug and buy a VS harness (only to replace the fuse box, etc) - look into the hot rod ones out there.  the wires are literally labelled ever 5" and are colour coded.  it's pretty easy.  only difficult concepts are to split the one wire into two or three (for brake lights), adding relays, etc.

seriously - look into it.  it'd be a waste to buy a harness only to cut off the brain and be left with unlabelled wires that are bound with crimp / electricians tape anyway (i think).

I'm torn, here.

On one hand, the VS harness is already cut to length for everything (including the gauges), but you'll potentially be replacing the fuse panel as it's really old school.

On the other hand, you could get a complete VW modular wiring kit from www.watsons-streetworks.com, like their VW-WK for $350 which would give you an easy wiring interface and modern fuses, flasher and a few relays plus all the coded wiring, but you would have to fabricate your own harnesses to the front and rear.

Or, if you want to build a hybrid system, call the folks at Watsons Streetworks (tech line:  860-859-0513 ) and tell them what you're up to and see if you can buy JUST the fuse/relay panel (it has screw-in wire connections, rather than a crimp system) although the $350 price tag is pretty reasonable in my book.

Hope this helps a bit.

Gordon

The Speedstah guy from Grafton

The VS box that is on mine had the wire incerts wth the screw you tighen down  to hoils each wire.  Not nice!!!   I soldered  the wires on to it..  and thats not easy.

 I cut a slot inside the trunk the size of the fuse surface  and flipped it over so you can slimply open the trunk to check the fuses . Nicer fuse boxes are out there..  Like Streetworks or American Autowire offers. Also Amercan autowire has the packard style connectors that are as nice as factory Vw.. Exspecive but worth it.. to do  a factory looking job..  make sure your wiring guy has this info so he can get good parts.. to do a custom job .. I've never bought a streeworks harness so i can't say yea or ney . Stop and do some home work first  Get a VS wireing Diagram from Mr Duncan at VS  even if you don.t use his harness..  Pick the fuse box  that had good connection mountings  that wont come lose. Do run a 10 gauge black wire from both the rear frame ends to the dash and another to the 2 front bumper brackets   have them meet at the steering colum support and ground there . 

Yeah, I went the nutso-extravagant route and used a fuse/relay panel from a Stirling.  I would only recommend this to someone who is seriouslyconsidering flogging him/herself about their life decisions.  I ended up getting a few boxes of new fuse box terminations (they used several different ones, depending on location/usage) and a settable, crimp-limiting crimping tool and went at it.  In the end, I probably spent more than just getting a purpose-built harness the way I wanted it, but what the hell ....It was only money back then.

I did have the forethought to mount the panel in the trunk, but that has its own problems, too.  At least it all works and doesn't seem to give me any troubles.

Gn