Hiding wires in a car Neatly..Lets see yours

I did a search..
Didnt find anything on hiding or tucking wires neatly under your dash or your engine compartment....Lets see what you have come up with.
Post some pics up, i think that is a very over looked part of car building, unless your spending $100k..

 

I don't have any photos man , but I like to hide um in the wide open. I will bend a piece of fuel line and run it threw that. Works like a dream

 

In the 58 I ran the wires along the oil pan. 1990s Fords used valve cover bolts with tall pins on them that accept a snap-on loom for ignition wires. Those bolts also work for the oil pan bolts. So ignition wires are routed neatly along the sides of the valve covers (instead of over) and the ignition leads from the MSD and the choke and 3G alt sense and warning light wires run along both sides of the oil pan and up the front of the engine behind the brackets. The top of the engine remains wire-free.

 

no pics, but wireties are your best friend. my $0.02

 

Very clean engine bay!!! You did a great job of hiding the wires. IMHO...if you could hide the plug wires say..under the headers, it would look even better. Thats just me

 

I've done alot of rewires, when I started I tried to hide everything, later I learn that problems do happen and the better I hide things the harder it was for me to work around, my suggestion is this, if it is not a SHOW car then run the wiring in an accessable way just cover it nicely, my oppinion is wiring is a part of the car and seeing it does'nt make it look worse if done with some patients, Now if it is a drag car wire everything out in the open and don't cover it at all, just use wire ties, nothings worse than cutting open a covered harness at the track. When I say covering, use some friction tape or reinforced electrical tape, none of that convulated tubing junk.

 

On my car, after I boxed the frame, I made a loom and ran it inside the frame rails from both ends of the car. It comes inside the car in two small holes with grommets. One runs wires to the fuse box mounted behind the panel behind the seats the other runs wires behind the kick panel up to the dash. I made a loom for the stuff behind the dash and mounted it to a couple of hook like clamps that were there when the car was built. My car isn't very complicated, no AC or other things except lights and gages. Like someone said wire ties are your best friend. I might be able to get a picture of the stuff behind the panel behind my seat. I'll try tomorrow.

 

I use electrical conduit...it bends nice and holds paint nicely...

Sorry, don't have any pix...

R-

 

I, like others, use the same tricks. Using a fuel line, heater hose or aluminum tubing works great for hiding wires and vacuum lines.

Every time you pull a wire or wires through a loom, always pull a dummy wire or heavy fishing line in case you have a need to pull an extra wire at sometime.

Using the frame rails to run wires is a given. Using the frame rails to run fuel and brake lines is stealth.

 

I don't get it, you want pix of something that's hidden so it's out of site?
In my opinion as already stated, run them neatly thru some tube if you need to but they should be accessable in case of trouble.
I wired up a '32 roadster, all black car with black trim, engine block etc. he wanted black shrink tube over all the wiring so that made it less noticable, try that if you like.

 

Run 'em thru hard lines... I'm toying with wiring ideas for my 223 at the moment... I'm using cloth wiring also which I think looks a hell of alot better than the plastic insulated wiring...

Oh also if your wrapping looms please don't use electrical tape... Use loom tape, it's not sticky so if you have to cut into your harness there's no black sticky shit every where... A friend of mine wrapped all his wiring on his o/t '70 Chevelle with it, looks really good... Then again it better, I think he paid insane $$ for NOS loom wrap...

 

we do a bunch of wiring.

here is the most recent example finished,

http://www.allwayshotrods.com/fgallery/36

as you start routing, is looks messy



Organize each circuit as you go, wire ties are your friend (or use twist ties as go, and replace them with zip ties at the end)



in the end it all nooks clean and neat.



wires for the engine in heat shrink and clamped.



in plain sight, but look clean.




its a lot more high tech, but we hid tons of wire in this car.

http://www.allwayshotrods.com/fgallery/7

 

Very nice!

 

My 31 coupe

 

Before the car is finished.Just trying to strike some intellectual postings thats all...there may be some super slick trick that some builders do , and others have shown on this post so far.

 

These pics were taken while we were in the middle of the wiring. I found a bunch of different sizes of high temp/high wear cable/wire protector. I hate split loom, it looks like crap. with this stuff the hardest part is running the wires through it. it expands & contracts like a strain relief on an industrial cable. looks good & is cheap too. it was 55 cents a foot for the biggest size IIRC. the 1/8 inch stuff was like 7 cents a foot. attached the zip ties loose & threaded the wires through them. tightened them up when all of the wires were run. Looks fairly neat but is easy to access if needed. the thick bundle of wires in one picture is the engine/horn/front lighting wires going down through the floor to under the car & the smaller bunch is for the tail lights & fuel sender. Neither one is attached to the car at the time the pic was taken. nice & neat & hidden for the most part. under the car the wired drop through the floor & make a turn through a rubber grommet to inside the frame rail. from there to the front of the car & out through the frame horn & behind the splash apron.

 

ditto

 

Do any of you guy's that run the wiring through the frame allow any provisions for removing the body at some later date? I am looking for a real trick to incorporate some type of snap together connector in line so that the body could be removed easily.

Scott...

 

just get some of those late model multi connectors from the yard and solder then inline, then you get a modern watertight connector. Oh if you solder anything this heavy,don't use an iron, get a quality soldering gun like a pro weller, there are two grades, a cheaper version with one heat setting, and a heavy duty pro version that will really hold up, I would try to find a used one, I'm not sure if they still make them here. you can get replacement tips. I've dropped mine and everything else, and it still works. the little lights that come on when you pull the trigger never work though. Evey one I've ever owned has been the same way. the onlt decent solder i've been able to find anymore locally is the house brand from Nappa, make sure to get 60/40 rosin core, don't use the lead less junk. I still use paste flux on the heavier connections, it seems to help and sometimes on the heavier wires, the rosin core just isn't enough.

 

Toner what are those white anchors your using? Do they go through or just stick on?

 

Your best bet is WeatherPak connectors. Helps keep the elements out. They will take up to a 12 gauge wire.

http://www.kwikwire.com/cn_weatherpack.html

 

My plan is to strip factory wire sheaths out of cars in the junkyard. They gave me one free today. They work good enough for GM, they should work fine for me.

 

i was wondering about that,i could never get them to stick

 

I think I did a thread on this, hit late model minivans, they have long harnesses and the mother load of wire. I hit one recently that had all the wires running through a channel in the middle of the floor,very easy to get out. the more options it has, the more wire.

 

Wiring can be a taboo subject. I think its cool if you know how to wire a car...and many of us know how. If you want them hidden, great. If you show them, run'em like hard metal lines. Bend each and route each in a uniform manner. Do not be afraid to take your time. "Rat nests" are for cars pulled from the field, not the car you plan to take out...as shitty wiring just takes away from your workmanship, no mater how functional. Just my opinion.

 

I was thinking about running mine through some polished copper tubing, not really hidden but think it would look cool under the hood.

 

I think I've re-wired every car I've owned.

 

Thats an art. I have always been scared of wiring and Im in the process of teaching myself. I think i have an ignition problem so I looked into how to troubleshoot it and then when I actually understood it I said, screw it im going to try to learn it. Any good books or something I could just study off to learn more of the basics? EZ Wiring and all must have DVD's to teach you when you buy the kit huh?

 

wiring is something every one can do but most are afraid of. every thing has a hot and a ground, usually the body or frame is the ground the charging circuit and turn signals take a little thought but most of it is really easy. don t try and hide it, make it look so cool it s a feature of the car. before he got big time with street rodder and all TOM McMULLEN USED TO DO SOME BEUTIFUL WORK and it always showed

 

Here's the wiring in my roadster.