Technical Question for the wiring gurus

The subject of this thread (the car) is very likely to turn up in a future thread posted by a new owner asking:

How in hell do I fix this mess ?

 

Start here:






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Lol. All I have is a dull butter knife.

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Hey, at least get a Knipex wire cutter, good stuff.

 

Had a friend show up with a 40 coupe that was a typical back yard job. He asked it I could help him a bit with the wiring as he said that at night when he turned on the lights smoke came from under the dash so he shut the lights off.. I looked it over and it was a mess! weird splices. oddball connectors and it looked like it was thrown in with a pitchfork. Told him no problem and handed him a pair of Klein cutters. He looked puzzeled. Told him to cut every wire there was and trash it. Bought a 12 circuit kit and rewired it. Have seen quite a few like this that were actually pretty nice cars other than the wiring mess.

 

12 circuit kit. $64.00 @ Ace Hardware

 

I am already dealing with someone else's hack job and original wiring with a lot of unprotected circuits. Kleins were already used to start over on POs mess now I need to get rid of the old wiring. Oh and Squirrel, yes I had to remove wires that were both soldered and had wire nuts,,,ugh.

 

A friend of mine called me about an electrical issue they had on a very high end 8 second drag car they were tuning in prep for a race. They said they had sparks coming from the throttle linkage at the carbs!! Told them to stop and unhook the battery. You guessed it-was missing grounds! The wiring was done by a so called professional. We rewired the whole car. On another one they were having intermittent but similar issues. They were at the track. I loaded up a bunch of wiring stuff etc. Went over the car with a meter and could not find an issue. Told them to start wiggling wires etc. Ohm meter showed movement. Started pulling on cables etc. They had the cables made by a shop and they looked ok. Pulled hard and pulled the cable right out of the lug.. They had used some type of indent tool on the batt lugs. Made new ones and pressed with an old overhead line press-solid now!!

 

If my brother had his way I'd have that in the trunk and a sub-panel at the battery

 

My Dad always told me temporary becomes permanent. When I was in the Navy we never had the time to do it right the first time but always had the time to do it again
just my 2 cents worth.
Todd