My son's 65 is due for new wiring. I've done it before successfully, but never as neatly as I would like. I've seen pictures of work some of you guys have posted that looks really nice. Looking for tips, suggestions and inspiration. Thanks, Devin
A 65 (insert make and model here) likely has an aftermarket wiring harness available that will be a plug and play installation. Unless he has extensive mods it would pay to buy the stock replacement harness IMHO.
It's a 65 El Camino, and yes, we can buy a plug and play harness, but it can either go in sloppy or neatly. I can make it functional and somewhat clean, but not as nice as I'd like. Devin
i'm in the prelim stage to redo most of the wiring in a N.H.A.M.B friendly (by a couple years) car and pretty much in the same boat. i think there's only two things you can do: research and up your game
A factory repacement harness goes in like the factory did it. Slap it in and send it down the line. You have 2 mins.
I think the way to make a wiring job neat and tidy has a lot to do with taking a extreme amount of time, planning , and care. It can drive some people to the point of tearing their hair out, like me.
I would have him go with the American Autowire complete wiring kit for his car. I’m a big fan of their products. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
After doing the 56 as anal as I did it (all factory color coded and per gauge size except a few gauge up grades on some strands and terminal sourcing) I was backwards in cost and time.
Here's the best way I've found so far. Start in the car with rope and string. 3/8 paracord works good and it's cheap. Let the ropes simulate the the groups of wires. Locate your attachment points, penetrations, branches, tape off the splits mark everything on the ropes and strings. Begin at the fuse box location or start at the other end and work towards the fuse box location. Try to tape the turns so they stay turned. Use a short piece of coar hangers if you need. Remove your rope harnes and lay it out on a table. Transfer all your marks and use pins to build a map. Trace around it if you want. Remove the ropes and put your wires in and build your harness. Tape off your splits and branches and put it in. Then all you need to do is connect the ends, one at a time as pretty as you like. A hot rod is easy
In the engine compartment of my 65 Chevelle, I ran the light harness up and over the fender well, outside of where the fender bolts to it so is hidden.
Well if you buy a harness kit that is an exact replica there is not much yo can do. But if you buy a new wiring harness from one of the universal harness companies you can lay it out the way you want. Take your time and make a plan. Decide how you are going to rout your wires early on and make sure you have places to tie the wire too off the dash or firewall so they are not just hanging loosely. I like to lay out the wires loosely, temporarily held in place with loose wire ties (velcro ties work well for this) Use rubber grommets at all bulkheads don't cut any wires to final length until you have double checked the routing and in some cases tested the circuit. Don't cut the wires too, short allow for some extra wire in case you have to make a change of equipment later on. Grounds are very important. Study up on grounding and make sure you make the connections to bare clean metal. Avoid grounding to painted surfaces. If you get a kit it should have good instructions with plenty of pictures and guides to help you through it along with tech lines you can call if you get stumped. Just take your time and enjoy the process it can be fun and very rewarding like any thing else we do in the process of building a car. I hope this gives you some inspiration . Oh and a very important thing....Take a few minutes to take the seat out of the car. It make it much easier to work under that dash! Things can look pretty intimidating at first but you just keep concentrating on one circuit at a time and it eventually all gets straightened out and semi organized looking. Keep you wires away from heat sources and oil leaks. Ron Francis offers this braided sleeve in various sizes to loom your engine bay wires. I eventually ran that mess of wires in the engine bay though this stuff. It works very well. This American auto wire kit is really nice. We had a lot of extra relays and a turn signal package that really made this system look complicated. In this 40 coupe we used a drop down panel so we had to allow extra wire length to allow for that function. I like to label all of the gizmo's because I tend to forget details and it is easier to find the system you are trying to trouble shoot a few years down the road. Notice the wires are not cut super short, but are tied together in bundles and secured in a way that they will not rub on moving parts. When drop down panel is up in place all of the wire is out of the way.
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