Thread: Electricals - phew

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Hi Dave...

Maybe too late but I was going to suggest welding wire for the main feed to the starter. I used 2-ought and it was easy to work with as the fine strands make it really flexible... I think I used about 17' from the trunk to the starter solenoid. It wasn't cheap at $4/foot but I'm sure 1-ought or 1ga. would be cheaper... something to keep in mind for next time

I went through my wiring project over the winter and it turned out to be a lot more work than I anticipated but it's worth it not having to worry about which electrical problem is going to bite me this week I used a Painless kit... and of course it wasn't (neither on the body or the wallet ) but it went pretty well and I didn't have to do any additional cutting on the firewall.

Good luck wrapping it up!

-Chris

Chris,
I considered welding wire but I already had a 20 foot chunk of new red 1ga Taylor wire so all I needed was a chunk of black. My never used buzz box almost sacrificed its' leads for the 'cause' but it is 4ga.

So far my American Autowire 'kit' has been close to pain free - it's just the starter and ground cables that haven't been.

Do you recall when Boyd's show was on - and on the list of work was "wire the car this afternoon"? No way did they custom wire a car in an afternoon - even with several guys working on it. I always got a chuckle out of that after doing a couple of cars previously. My dash, which is off of the car took 2 days to sort out!!

A tip for those who have not started their wiring yet. Regardless of if you buy a "wiring kit" or wire from scratch, the first step in the wiring project should be a drawing of the entire system....use 17" X 22" paper or larger (or multiple pages) and do a sketch of every component. Like the diagrams in the shop manuals, located the components in some order...like the tail lights on one side and the headlights on the other.

Then, you can lay in the locations of the fuse block, battery, etc. Your connecting wires are easy to draw and you can label them with their color, wire size, and wire number. As you run wires and attach them, you can mark off the completed wire with a yellow highlighter so you can keep track of the remaining wires to attach.

The diagram will also let you organize the wires and to see improvement possibilities.....

mike in tucson

Originally Posted by robot

A tip for those who have not started their wiring yet. Regardless of if you buy a "wiring kit" or wire from scratch, the first step in the wiring project should be a drawing of the entire system....use 17" X 22" paper or larger (or multiple pages) and do a sketch of every component. Like the diagrams in the shop manuals, located the components in some order...like the tail lights on one side and the headlights on the other.

Then, you can lay in the locations of the fuse block, battery, etc. Your connecting wires are easy to draw and you can label them with their color, wire size, and wire number. As you run wires and attach them, you can mark off the completed wire with a yellow highlighter so you can keep track of the remaining wires to attach.

The diagram will also let you organize the wires and to see improvement possibilities.....

mike in tucson

Mike,
This is why I like the "kit" that I have. My American Autowire kit has a full schematic ( on two pages that I have taped together - I also printed up several extra 17x22 inch 'B' size copies). Whatever I've added has been drawn in with colors of the added wiring labeled. AAW also break it down by system - which is another set of schematics. Then to make it even better, they have it drawn by individual significant component - it's almost an information overload Every one of these pages has instructions as to why you do what