speedracer0626

You know what grinds my gears. When people do sh@#ty wiring jobs on there car not knowing that by and by they are compromising their safety and the safety of others. So I bought a 89 bird and got under the hood to see just how good of a hack job had been done and man am i suprised. A-1 hack job some of the best i've seen. Masking tape instead of electrical tape. Wire Nuts. Anyhow what brings me to this point is i was looking at the burnt wires and wondered do i repair the wires are replace the harness?

mlaskow86

iTrader: (4)

you should see some of the hack jobs i havent got around to fixing yet..... ill take pics tomorrow. plenty of pointless wires, wirenuts and tape connections, the deeper i look the more i find. ive probably taken out about a pound of copper just in useless wires so far.

BigBadLou

iTrader: (3)

Yup, I found the same on my car when I bought it. The best hack job was the electric fans wired into the ignition box with about 20 different splices. Including a twisted-wire connection with NO wirenuts, just tape.

You know how they say it: "You want it done fast or you want it done right?" Some people just don't have much free time.

Lou

mlaskow86

iTrader: (4)

heres some of my more recent discoveries....

BigBadLou

iTrader: (3)

Alright, time to post my pics.
This is how I found the fans wired up when I bought the car.

Lou

DerrickB4C

i feel you guys i dont realy like buying older cars if there not original at least untouched wire modds are a must.

I had an 84 camaro that was a rats nest of a car. it had all the power options and t tops i ended up giving it away just to git rid of it.

mlaskow86

iTrader: (4)

wow. Kudos to the previous owner

speedracer0626

Man I don't know about you guys but no mater how frustrated i get I still have to work on my car. I got off work and stayed up to 10 in my garage doing the wiring in my car. My Quiet Time. Any how I found some more hacking. Come to find out they used nuts as spacers instead of using the correct length bolts

mlaskow86

iTrader: (4)

i think once you find one hack job they dont stop. every new project i start i find something weird with the wiring... good luck

online170

Ive fixed many a hack job in my day!!! Dear frikin god. Butt connectors arent too bad. I used the correct sized ones, and then used wiring tape at the ends of the butt connector, so no copper was exposed, and it was not water proof at the connector. Also, i used a larger gauge wire to replace the old ones, and colour co-ordinated them. Then i routed them AWAY from the engine, and generally cleaned up the mess.

However, although i put in all this effort, my car still had a personality. Meaning it only ran when it wanted to, and my heart was always pounding when i drove, because i knew it may shut off at any second.

If you feel your hack-job correction work is reliable, the first thing i would do is install a couple of fusible links, past the main power wires past the alternator. And just before the fuse block. This way, if something ever shorts, it eats the links, and not your wires smoking them up and burning you down.

Secondly, if its in your budget, i would just get a new oem wiring harness. I beleive www.wiringharness.com or something to that effect has the cheapest ones. A couple $100 and you are worry free. They sell em for interior, just engine bay, or a complete A-Z kit. DEFINATELY worth the money.

Heres a before and after, the after wiring actually looks worse. But if you look closer, all the wires are grouped together, and routed in the same general way. Where as before they were running over the intake manifold, and weaving through the exhaust. All i did after that pic was taken is, put a sleeve around the wires.

Genhero

iTrader: (3)

I may be a bit late with this but speedracer, I personally wouldnt buy a new wiring harness because I'm cheap. If you know how to solder then just buy a good solder iron, some extra wires and a 6 pack. Some of those look pretty ugly but nothing a good weekend couldnt fix. Just go through and mark everything with tags or tape that need to be changed or fixed. Then just do all the soldering in one day while try to make it look good. If the wires insulation looks fried or ripping I would just replace it, better to just deal with it all at once then having a reaccuring problem. Worst case, junkyard run!


-Russ

Firebat

iTrader: (7)

In the technical articles section at thirdgen.org, go to 1985 wiring diagrams and 1986 wiring diagrams. Use those diagrams as a basic guide even if you don't have a 85 or 86.

Use 63/37 solder and heatshrink tubing for making neat wiring connections. Buy a soldering iron and a heatgun. If you're looking for a real good soldering iron, buy a used Metcal off of ebay for about $100-150. They go for $600-1000 brand new. I would only advise buying a real soldering iron like a metcal if you plan on doing a lot of soldering.

Genhero

iTrader: (3)

Soldering with a cheap iron or an old one with a funky tip can make the experience very unpleasant.


-Russ

speedracer0626

I'm going out to the junkyard as soon as possible so i can color code everything. I have a 80-85 305 in a 89 body. So I'm going to do my best with it. Pulled my manifolds and found two sensors under the pass side what are they one looks like a temp guage. I guess i need to buy a good book for the wiring diagrams cause someone just cut the wires. So I dont know what what is. I can read a wiring diagram somewhat so i quess time to teach myself. Yeah I Have a cheapo iron used it for my stereo install and PITA. Thanks Guys

online170

I would opt agaisnt the doing it yourself for one simple reason. Its just not worth it. The time and effort you are gonna spend, hunting good wire, and the money your gonna spend on an iron, the electricity bill, bandaids, and heat sink tubing is gonna surpass the bill of you buying a new engine bay harness. Doing it yourself saves A TON of money, if you know what you are doing, and have been doing it for a while. Wiring is probably the toughest thing to do on a car, and you gotta have patience. Its very difficult to do right and keep it clean. Thats why we end up with nasty looking hack jobs.

Save yourself the trouble, go to www.wiringharness.com and get one of their harnesses. I beleive they run $150-200 or so. Its just plug and play.

However, if you are insistant on running the wiring yourself, let me know if i can be of assistance. I have a 1987 formula firebird, with a 70s carbureted engine. The trick is basically to get the basics.

Battery to startor, startor to alternator, alternator to ignition, and accessories. After this point, you can pick out some of the bare necessity stuff, like certain sensors to make your dash work. Temp, oil, tach, etc... the rest can just be left unplugged. These are probably the ones they guy "cut off".

Also, if you are gonna fix the wiring, do one wire at a time, make sure everything gets connected to where it was. And when taking out the "old" wire, dont just remove it from where you see its been hacked into, take out a big peice, its probably worn up and down the wire as well. If you need pictures, i can get some for you from mine. I dont know if it was fuel injected, but its a relatively new car, with an old engine.

DerrickB4C

www.wiringharness.com only has a 82 camaro listed so us 89-92 guys are out of luck

naterman35

The person who owned my 89 camaro i belive was a collector of wire and to be super sweet decided he wanted to put them all up under the dash. Ive been working for about a week following wires and crap... I had 2 wires this is sweet. They went to a switch that they put on the kick panel... odd place for a button... But followed the wires they went threw a rust hole in the floor... under the car... up into the engine compartment on the drivers side. Then they routed it on the back of the fire wall.. fender then along the front end all to end up about 3 inches from the place they came up from the bottom of the car at.. and they were both just snipped. That made me mad.. i thought after following that much wire i might find a time machine... but then i followed at least another 75 feet of wire all which ended snipped... and none of it factory... so here i am now with a box full of nearly 100ft of wire, 2 switches, and a button. and still have 3 wires i do believe to follow. And this is just under the dash. I have no clue what else ill find.

Jproz1167

iTrader: (3)

God I feel sorry for you guys! ..... That would have to be a major pita to have to deal with. I remember when I put all 1990 electronics in my 82 I was fortunate to aquire complete un-tampered with harnesses which made the whole thing simple as plugging everything together and starting the car.

Should use this thread to post third gens best hack-jobs ... the best one I've ever seen is a guy who soldered his vats key to the vats wiring and called it bypassing vats.

LIL BASTARD

iTrader: (3)

Bought my car off a tweaker. All the wires were cut and left hanging everywhere. All the emissions stuff is long gone and so is the A/C. None of the interior wireing was hooked up or hooked up incorrect. I could of talked the price down because of it, but the guy was shaking and shivering so bad when I counted out the money, I just wanted to get the car the hell out of there. Plus I was in a area known for tweakers, they were all around us, thought we were going to get jacked for our cash, cars and teeth.