The 4/4 looks really clean under the hood and dash - mainly because there are
no wires in it. The harness has been laid out on the bench and disassembled.
The scabbed-on wires for additional gauge lighting have been removed. The
melted wire (LH headlight lo-beam) was traced back to a short under the dash
(I can't believe that those things are not fused). Someone had cobbled a
(too-small) lighting wire onto the outside of the harness to replace it and
hadn't fused it either. A rolling firetrap to say the least.
I don't mind paying money for things I can't do or don't have time to do. I
can't build gauges, so I'm happy to pay $50 or $100 to buy one. I can't
make a radial tire, so $60 for one seems like a bargain to me. I can't cast
a water-pump housing, so $75 looks like the deal of the century compared to
what it would take me to do it.
But this wiring harness looks like shooting fish in a barrel. 5 large and 34
small insulated female blade connectors and a few feet of wire and I'm in
business. So it's just plain against these same principles for me to pay
$400 for a pre-made one, especially since the thing is not designed for
efficiency or best electrical design, but to be easy for a manufacturer to
install. Any first year EE student could come up with a better plan. I
mean, the horns have their own seperate fused circuit, the tail end of the
car shares the one other fuse with the gauges, etc, and the headlights have
none. Was there any reason for this? The headlights are the
highest-amperage things on the car outside the starter. Why did they design
such a thing?
Most of it looks like it could be reused, but the poor old tired spring-clamp
blade connectors have been cooking under the hood or behind the dash for 33
years come November, and it just makes sense to replace them.
So there's bound to be a catch. Can I buy the same insulated female blade
connectors that are on these cars (not the NAPA crimpies)? Can I buy the
Lucas color-code wire so I won't have to label them separately? Can I buy a
four-fuse box (like on my MGB) and run the lighting circuit through it too?
Fred's book has some suggestions as to where to look; can anyone tell me a
good uptodate source for standardized electrical stuff that they've used for
similar projects? (Linda, my address is Lannis Selz, Rt 1 Box 920, Spout
Spring, VA 24593 if you have a catalog/parts book you can send; tell me what
it costs and I'll send it on). Has anyone ever done a similar project? Did
you wish you hadn't?
Thanks for sharing your experience in these matters........
Lannis
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