Thread: Wiring Harness Terminations

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I start by laying the harness out and grouping the circuits together such as dash,rear of car,engine bay,etc. I'll then take a few small wire ties to hold each group together. Decide where to mount the fuse box and then start laying out your groups to where they go,planing the routing & mounting as you go. Once you get your groups in their general locations I like to wrap each group with good quality electrical tape sorta like an OEM harness,but leaving plenty of wire out the ends as you can finish wraping later. I like to start at the dash and column first,one circuit at a time, cutting to length, and connecting permanantley using solder and heat shrink,"never ever use crimp connecters"
Main thing is you don't want any dangling wires or extra wire that you have to roll up,everything should be nice and neat and as short as possible. You may very well have some extra circuits that will not be used at this time such as map lights,air conditioner,etc, with those its a good idea to roll them up and hide them behind a kick panel or such in case you want to use them at a later time. Don't forget about grounds, on a steel car you'll need battery to engine,engine to chassis,engine to body. On a glass car you'll need battery to engine,engine to chassis,and every componet mounted to fiberglass will reguire a ground to engine or chassis. Hope this helps ya. Just take your time and plan it out,you'll do fine.

Roger, I don't do any circuit testing or temporary hook ups for testing. Most of those kits are pretty good quality and your gonna eat enough time up as it is.

Originally Posted by HWORRELL

Roger, I don't do any circuit testing or temporary hook ups for testing. Most of those kits are pretty good quality and your gonna eat enough time up as it is.

Thanks. The biggest hurdle for me was deciding on the fuse block location and welding in the plate for it, knowing that it was a commitment that would be difficult to impossible to change. My EZ Wire harness came with general groupings by area, but those must of course be adjusted for the specific vehicle layout. I was at that point this morning and found that the wires for the rear area seem to be long enough for a Caddy Limo. That got me thinking about temporary connections, and I was seeing this wiring project going into December I'll start cutting & terminating, area by area.

Roger - what type of wiring system do you have? If it is already permanently terminated at the fuse block, then you probably should do a full layout before you do the final terminations at the powered device. I'm not real fond of them as sometimes it's a real PITA to make a run with all of those extraneous wires and the fact that sometime it is just plain easier to feed a wire the other direction or change a route. Since my block was behind the seat, it had other considerations, but mostly how to route the wires without being able to see them - I would do it different another time - but, it's done, everything works...... I did one system at a time, checking continuity with each by my powered tester/light. I then after getting a system in, turned on the master switch to check that entire system just to make sure. I used lots of masking tape as Dave S suggested and several hundred cable ties doing, redoing and re-redoing ad nauseum.



One rerouting shown above (i.e. re - re - re - redoing)

I am just going through this right now, installing a Rebel 9 + 3 set up in my 27. I spent one night just sorting through the harness and eliminating what wires my car didn't need, like radio, a/c, heater, and third brake light. Then I coiled up the remaining wires and marked them with masking tape as to their purpose (ie, rt frt turn signal, etc)

After that was done I decided on where the fuse block would go. Dan talked me into making a hinged panel to mount it, like he did, and I am glad that I took his suggestion. The underdash area in a 27 is very limited and having it swing down is making it easier and gets it out of the way while running wires.

Once it was mounted I started by running the main 10 gauge red wire back to the starter solenoid so that I had power to the block. Then I ran the wires to the ignition switch so it was live. As I continued to run wires I would temporarily wire tie them into the bundle, using 4 inch wire ties. These are cheap and are going to be cut off as I run more and more wires into that same harness, but they keep things organized as I work.

So to answer your original question, yes, I run one wire at a time, cut it to the correct length, and then terminate it with the correct end. I am also using Painless plugs in line this time so that I can unplug the wires in the event I ever have to remove the body, rather than having to cut or unscrew the wires at their ends.

Don

Originally Posted by IC2

Roger - what type of wiring system do you have? If it is already permanently terminated at the fuse block, then you probably should do a full layout before you do the final terminations at the powered device. I'm not real fond of them as sometimes it's a real PITA to make a run with all of those extraneous wires and the fact that sometime it is just plain easier to feed a wire the other direction or change a route. Since my block was behind the seat, it had other considerations, but mostly how to route the wires without being able to see them - I would do it different another time - but, it's done, everything works...... I did one system at a time, checking continuity with each by my powered tester/light. I then after getting a system in, turned on the master switch to check that entire system just to make sure. I used lots of masking tape as Dave S suggested and several hundred cable ties doing, redoing and re-redoing ad nauseum.
One rerouting shown above (i.e. re - re - re - redoing)

Dave W,
E-Z Wiring, 21 circuit pre-terminated fuse block. I have the fuse block mounted up high behind the dash, driver's side which I may regret in the future, but it is done and it eliminates a large number of wires on the floor. With the EFI ECU I have several fuse block circuits that will not be used, or which can be used for other purposes in the future, like the dedicated fuel pump fuse/wire - my pump is wired direct from the engine harness, controlled by the ECU. I also have circuits for power locks and power antenna that I don't have and likely will never have. Like HWorrell suggests, I will cut those a bit shorter and coil them for future use rather than cut them close to the block as suggested by E-Z Wire.