So Last week I was beginning the interior restoration in my car, and when I removed the top half of the console, I was immediately INSULTED by the hackjob a PO did while installing the B&M ratchet shifter. To start things off, the idiot use poorly connected (via butt connectors, surprise!) monster speaker wire to hook everything up . Things get even better when I discovered he had put a 30 amp fuse on a ground wire . The grand finale was the park safety switch. Instead of properly connecting it to the shifter, he simply touched the two ends of the wires together and wrapped them in electrical tape so the car would start . Oh and he also left off one of the mounting screws for the shifter . But that's not all. It seems he left me a mangled console support bracket, as well as a dead wire and harness to deal with. The dead wire is coming out of the same harness the shifter and park safety wires do, and it is black with white stripe but possibly black with gray stripe as I didn't get a surefire look. The harness in question is a 3 wire harness with a black, gray and orange wire. It is shown and it definitely is live as while I was taking the picture of it, I accidentally touched it to the shifter and blew the radio fuse. What are these for? Also, there seems to be a cable housed in black plastic just under the astray area. It can be pulled out about 2 inches and when you do this, something can be heard from the steering column/brake pedal area. What is this for? Park lock cable? Mt shifter can be moved to any position regardless of whether or not the brake is depressed/key is in. I kind of like it this way TBH.

Mangled support bracket and stray wire.

Dang, I just lost all that I typed up.
So in short:
1) The black/white wire is just a ground, don't worry about it.
2) The big thick black cable is the ignition/shifter interlock, as you guessed right. It doesn't usually work with aftermarket shifters so it's disconnected at this point.
3) The connector with the three wires doesn't seem familiar to me. But then again, I'm not an expert on 1985 or older models. It could be possibly a connector for the rear hatch popper (if you have one).
Did you test voltage on the grey wire? Is it a bulb dimmer wire by any chance?
4) I would strongly recommend fixing many of the nasty butt splices. I am truly amazed your car hasn't burned down yet. Your PO did an excellent hack job!

Hope this helps.
Lou

grey wire is for the light for the gear indicator IIRC.
ive never seen that black 3 wire connector before... and ive done a megashifter swap recently.

the shifter has a built in safety of pulling the t-handle up, so a brake interlock is not needed.

wire up some kind of starter safety switch so you cant start it in gear and fix the connections.
thats about all i would do though because for the most part, the wiring is correct, just badly done

I'm actually gonna put in a whole new shifter. This one is done pretty phucked. The idiot also JB welded the T-Handle on so it would stay straight. The gear indicator is also missing and the whole shifter just feels loose.

Dragon, gray wire can't possibly be for the gear indicator light, as it currently is in place and works.

There is one theory I have what this 3 wire connector is for. Take a look at this picture of my center sonole. It almost appears there used to be a light in place.

OR, could this 3 wire connection possibly be for the rare console clock option? But why would the harness be there if my car didn't have one...

My dimmer switch is broken, but still rotating it gives TINY fluctuations in the gauge lights. I'll hook in with a voltmeter and look for any voltage fluctuations.

I'm inclined to say that it's very likely the clock connector.
Don't question why GM put the wrong harness in yuor car, it's GM. Maybe they just had a few clock harnesses left over so they stuck one in your car.

Lou

Did your car not have the clock? Or did the master mechanic replace the shifter plate with a clockless console during the shifter swap...?

Thats pretty scary looking stuff. But atleast you sound like you have a hand on things. Im trying to think what else that little plug could be for, but cant for the life of me.

J.

im positive that my megashifter grey wire was to the gear indicator as i just went and looked...
as for yours, who knows.

the feel of the shifter is very dependant on who installed it, so its possible that he just messed up.

my gauges dim when i turn the knob, but the gear indicator does not. i have it hooked to a constant 12v because i could not find a convenient dimmed wire to tie it to.

Well, considering I have a Quartz clock right infront of me, with the connector on it. I can safely tell you that black connector IS for a clock.

Well thanks for clearing that up. But I will not be restoring the clock. I have a much better looking idea. I am going to take a high flow 80mm computer fan (55CFM that's monstrous for 80mm), mod some red led's into it and install it where the clock would be with a nice looking shroud and grill. I am going to repeat this process up around the radio area on the pass side of the console. The idea is to provide fresh air for the head unit since this get's fairly toasty.

I have an idea for you FireDemon

If you use those three wires from the clock for the fan, you can splice the 12v source into a switched source, like the blue switched wire from the radio. Then I believe the orange wire is the light source hooked up like your gauge lights (coming on with the headlights) then modify the LED's on the fan to use that wire so that the LEDs come on with all your interior lights...

just a thought