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wtf do some people think when "fixing" things

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by shocker998md, Feb 4, 2011.

  1. shocker998md
    Joined: May 17, 2009
    Posts: 873

    shocker998md
    Member

    So I'm working on cleaning up the wiring under the dash on my truck so the I can fix my turn signals. Some jackass wired stuff with friggin extension cords! I'm not a pro wire guy by no means, but that is just nasty how its done. The windsheild wiper switch musta gone bad at some time, so they put in a two speed switch and hacked it all up and popped an extension cord in. I'm going back out to clean up somemore stuff and hopefully prime the inside of the cab tonight.
     
  2. Master of None
    Joined: Dec 18, 2009
    Posts: 2,279

    Master of None
    Member

    Sounds like I'd be investing in a new wiring harness,hate to have your project burn up.
     
  3. texas rattler
    Joined: Nov 10, 2009
    Posts: 66

    texas rattler
    Member
    from texas

    rule no 1 never ever let a home/commercial electrican work on a car! they love to use wire nuts and romex .they may know 120/220/440v etc but 12v throws em every time!
     
  4. newsomtravis
    Joined: Jun 1, 2009
    Posts: 562

    newsomtravis
    Member
    from pville, ca

    finally someone else said it, i got into a huge fight with a couple of electrciians on here about some auto wiring........and it was pretty simple.......the guy thought he needed 2 wires for everthing on his car, and another electrician was telling him yeah, the frame and body aren`t good grounds.......had a friend whos dad was an electrician, he brought his car to me to rewire, found enough extension cord type wire and wire nuts to wire a house.......
     

  5. davidwilson
    Joined: Oct 8, 2008
    Posts: 595

    davidwilson
    Member
    from Tennessee

    i've seen cars where trailer wiring was used (yellow-green-brown) why not buy the right colored wires to use?
     
  6. shocker998md
    Joined: May 17, 2009
    Posts: 873

    shocker998md
    Member

    I dont get why someone would even put the time and effort into doing it wrong. I mean ive made stuff work, and im not building barret jackson stuff, but jeez man. I cant get over me looking under the dash and just saying WTF.
     
  7. violet springs
    Joined: Apr 2, 2006
    Posts: 389

    violet springs
    Member

    I agree 100%, I had friend who bought a Turbo Grand National Regal that caught on fire because the guy that owned the car before him did not wire it properly, my friend was driving down the road when it caught fire and he could not put it out. He watched his car burn to the ground. :(
     
  8. Zombie Duck
    Joined: Oct 6, 2010
    Posts: 101

    Zombie Duck
    Member

    I know what you mean, I'm working on a old ranch truck and that thing has more bungee cords, bailing wire, duct tape and JB weld holding it together than anything.

    I just rebuilt the carb on it and I'm going to have to get another one from somewhere because it looks like half the insides were missing. The metering rod, pump check weight, choke piston and the hose from the pump diaphragm were missing. I'm surprised it ran so well, aside from having to prime the carb from a gas can everytime I went to start it.

    It also looked like everything under the hood that could be bypassed was.
     
  9. bfink55
    Joined: May 31, 2007
    Posts: 247

    bfink55
    Member
    from Turlock CA

    im an electrician and am getting ready to rewire my truck , but ive been researching it and i think im ready . 12v is a different ballgame for sure . but back to the orig. question , ive thought this many times when working on my old truck .....but you gotta figure not everyones a "car guy" and at one time your truck was just transportation for somebody . quick fixes often result from lack of funds or knowledge .....hell , the guy who did that wiring was more than likely just try'in to make it to work the next day !
    just my 2cents , you shoulda seen the wiring i pulled out of my truck , speaker wire used for alot of it and NO fuses ! lol
     
  10. Whats even better is when they use all one color wire for every fucking thing
     
  11. texas rattler
    Joined: Nov 10, 2009
    Posts: 66

    texas rattler
    Member
    from texas

    we bought a 68 f-100 for my kid that has 6 holes cut in the top of the radiator with 6 chunks of broom stick filling them.when it soaks up water they swell and dont leak!we asked the old farmer why ? he said back in the 70's it ran hot so he cut the holes to run wire down through the core to clean it out, then plugged his holes w/ wood! how much could it have cost to get it cleaned at a rad. shop back then,plus this old cat said at the time he worked at his local ford dealer!
     
  12. louie the fly
    Joined: Jul 3, 2006
    Posts: 178

    louie the fly
    Member

    Some people need to learn how to leave shit alone. Like the famous old Chinese proverb "don't touch things you know nothing about!"

    I'm amazed at the amount of times I've seen people rewire their factory trailer light socket so their trailer lights work properly. If you know how to do that, why not do it properly? Rewire the friggin trailer plug!
     
  13. JF
    Joined: May 15, 2008
    Posts: 519

    JF
    Member
    from Utah

    LOL, reminds me of an old farmer I talked to about 8 years ago, he was driving about a 67 ford F100 and mounted on the column and along bottom edge of dash he had quite a few light switches... ya like the ones in your house!!!! I don't think I would have wanted to see what it looked like under the dash. :)
     
  14. AlbuqF-1
    Joined: Mar 2, 2006
    Posts: 909

    AlbuqF-1
    Member
    from NM

    What always surprises me is what the PO's use for tape: band-aids, masking tape, duct tape.... How much is a roll of good 3M tape, coupla bucks??
     
  15. rustyangels
    Joined: Sep 28, 2010
    Posts: 182

    rustyangels
    Member

    Then some International Harvesters will drive you crazy! ...all black wiring under the dash
     
  16. PhilJohnson
    Joined: Oct 13, 2009
    Posts: 906

    PhilJohnson
    Member

    I have to be honest, a lot of my fixes fall into the WTF category. I am guilty of using extension cord wire on my vehicles, after all it is just wire. I've used house light switches to turn on lights, my tractor for the longest time had one of those inline lamp cord switches to turn the ignition off and on. I had this old 77 F100. Got it for real cheap and stuck as little money into it as possible. There were a lot of random wires on that thing. I rigged a boat gas tank under the hood when the original steel gas tank rotted out. When the shifting linkage gave out I took a hammer and chisel and made two holes on the transmission hump. Truck originally had a three on the column. After my handy work the truck had 3 on the floor actuated by two separate shifters. One for 1st and reverse, the other for 2nd and 3rd. I made a wood bed out of scrap wood from my fallen down barn. I found some electric fencer wire laying around and wired the bed super tight to the frame. It held up pretty well, I got hit by a semi going 65 mph and the bed didn't come off the frame.

    I had a Suzuki Swift I bought for 125 bucks. It was laying on top of a couple other cars in a scrap pile. Guy said the block was cracked. Did a little work and it turned out to be okay. The rig fix came after I fell asleep and t-boned a post. I drug the car home and pulled the front end out with my tractor. I made turn signals out of soup cans and an ice cream bucket cover. Plumbers tape helped attach my homemade turn signals to the car. It worked well enough.
     
  17. rustyangels
    Joined: Sep 28, 2010
    Posts: 182

    rustyangels
    Member

    You, PhilJohnson can make this shit twice!! I admire that
    [​IMG]
     
  18. Nitro Junky
    Joined: Dec 25, 2010
    Posts: 6

    Nitro Junky
    Member

    I think the one that ticks me off the most is when they use red wires for grds and red wires for .pwr. also it is only a matter of time until the smoke starts
     
  19. grimmfalcon138
    Joined: Jan 14, 2010
    Posts: 164

    grimmfalcon138
    Member
    from az

     
  20. newsomtravis
    Joined: Jun 1, 2009
    Posts: 562

    newsomtravis
    Member
    from pville, ca

    yeah grimm, thats what they were trying to convince me of..........they needed 2 or even 3 wires to run shit.......funny.....i would name names, but won`t, they are common memebers around here is whats bad!

    love it when i see duct tape, might as well leave it bare, duct tape conducts!.......lol...........


    in a pinch, or just for shits and giggles, some things are acceptable........but not for building your hotrod!
     
  21. You have to remember that at one point they were just old cars no one cared much about - the fix was just to keep it going doing whatever they needed to do with it, usually with whatever was already on hand. If it worked, it stayed that way until something else went wrong. Most of the time no thought was given to anyone else having to work on it or correct all the things they hacked up.

    Some guys still do it that way. Like the guy who put a boat tank on the top of his pickup when the fuel pump crapped out. You think mixing up wiring is bad....
     
  22. bobj49f2
    Joined: Jun 1, 2008
    Posts: 1,926

    bobj49f2
    Member

    I worked in a truck body shop. One day a White cab over tractor came in with a crunched front corner. I pull the corner sheet metal off and find a combination of lamp cord and other pieces of wire joined together with wire nuts. I pull all the crappy wiring out and replace with the proper wire soldiered and double covered with shrink tubing. Put the truck back together and paint it. A couple of days later my boss calls me into the office bitching at me for screwing up the wiring and the customer is really pissed. He says the truck is coming back and I have to fix it on my time. The truck shows up, I pull it into the shop and turn on the lights. The side I worked on works perfectly but the other side is doing all kinds of strange things. I call the boss out to look at it and all he says is "Fix it". No recognition that he bitched me out for something I didn't do plus he made more money for having me fix the mess. The other side was just as screwed up as the first side I worked on.

    BTW, about working with electricians. I run my own business building industrial controls. Some of the hardest guys to teach how to wire industrial controls is veteran electricians. They can run wires to outlets and switches and install electrical services all day long, a lot better than I can, but try to get them to understand there is special wiring for low voltage and low amperage circuits it next to impossible. They want to wire every thing with 12 and 14 gauge black and white wire.
     
  23. A previous owner of my car used a 2 wire lamp cord for the headlight wiring & a household light switch & wire nuts for an electric fuel pump cut-off switch. I'll never understand what goes through some peoples' heads.
     
  24. silversink
    Joined: May 3, 2008
    Posts: 916

    silversink
    Member

    Maybe all black but there is 5 wires under a 1948 KB1-- not too hard to figure out compared to what you guys deal with.
     
  25. ok it may look hacked, but as long as its stranded core who cares? as for the wire nuts.. well they are offered in "automotive" electrical kits.. id say that a wire nut would conduct better then a butt connector because with a wire nut the 2 wires are actually touching whereas with a butt its copper - aluminum which can cause heat and corrosion (check out current through dissimilar metals) like a "lead free" battery terminal with a huge heap of corrosion on it. and there can be ground issues using the chassis, bolts get corosion between them and such. However I don't know if wire nuts have a tendency to wiggle free. anyone ever have one wiggle free when it was correctly installed? but it all doesn't really matter because most electrical guru's solder all there connections right?
     
  26. Muttley
    Joined: Nov 30, 2003
    Posts: 18,500

    Muttley
    Member

    He was probably thinking "I need to hurry up and Okie-rig this thing so I can sucker deathbound into buying it". ;) :D
     
  27. 56oldsDarrin
    Joined: May 9, 2009
    Posts: 396

    56oldsDarrin
    Member

    I once jumpstarted a car by touching the bumpers together and using all three wires in an orange extension cord, doubled up (thats 6 wires), on the positive
     
  28. 40fordtudor
    Joined: Jan 3, 2010
    Posts: 2,503

    40fordtudor
    Member

    I had a friend rewire a '40 Ford fordoor I bought for almost nothing in the early "60's"--he did it all in red--the right guages but all red. wierd.
     
  29. AAFD
    Joined: Apr 13, 2010
    Posts: 585

    AAFD
    Member
    from US of A

    I'm guilty of doing some "quick-fixes" just to get back on the road, then forgetting about them for a while. Later I realize, "Oh yeahhhhh" and fix it right.

    I bought a car that had "all new wiring harness installed" yep, new harness, installed with wire nuts. They left every wire full length an just rolled them up and zip-tied them together. It took longer to fix it the right way than it would have taken to install a new harness all together.
     
  30. I bought a '64 Caddy years ago with a smoked up radiator wall harness. The PO wired it up with brown lamp cord.... A trip to the 'yard for a partial harness and a trip to the library for the schematic and about 5 hours later, it was back together and everything worked. I was about 20 at the time and made a cool $150 profit flipping it, lol.

    Bob
     

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