I pulled the side panel off the drivers side to get to the interior light switch, and this mess if wires spilled out everywhere...

My first thought was "that can't be factory"

What in the world is that harness and connector? I'm curious becuase there's nothing plugged into it.

 

LOOKS LIKE A AFTER MARKET ALARM ! TRACE THE WIRES BACK TO WHERE THEY GO ! GOODLUCK !

 

Interesting... I'd like to just get rid of it, but I don't want to just start cutting things..

 

ok, i traced part of the wires back to the cruise control, and some of them are spliced into other power sources under the dash, NOT FACTORY

I'm guessing your right about the alarm system, I'm going to remove most of it except the cruise wires, and see if that's something that is supposed to hook into something else, which is why I don't have a functional cruise

I should know more when my service manual gets here in a few days

There were a couple more wires that went through the firewall, one terminated in an open wire end, and the other one was a ground. I'm guessing that used to be hooked up to a siren (very small guage)

 

that connector looks like it attaches to the steering column for the blinkers and like you said the cruise control. but i am not sure why somebody would connect into that for an alarm?

 

it wasn't connected, and the blinkers worked fine

 

That looks like either an aftermarket alarm or aftermarket cruise harness. What's under the hood? Post a pic of the cruise control servo and we can tell you if it's OEM or aftermarket. A pic of the turn signal/cruise control stalk might also work. Look around for an alarm siren too, might be a give away. It's probably safe to leave it connected or remove it, but if it's an alarm with a starter defeat you might disable your car in the process.

 

I traced the wires under the hood, and nothing was hooked up. and the wires that went into the dash were only hooked up to the lonesome terminal in the pic, so I trimmed some of the wires, and tucked some more

The cruise looks factory, but i'll take a shot of it tomorrow. I'd like to get it going, b ut it confuses me that the OEM cruise unit plugs into this aftermarket alarm box. (if that's what it is. THe speaker wire going from the harness to a place on the firewall (where it looks like a speaker could have been, and then removed) makes me think it was an alarmed car

 

Usually an aftermarket alarm ties into power, ground, the power locks, the turn signals, the dome light circuit, etc. I've never seen one connect to the cruise.
A bunch of aftermarket cruise setups are designed to look stock, but if you know what the stock components look like they stand out.

 

That was an older alarm system, I'm pretty sure. I took an older Avital (before they aligned with Directed Electronics a few years back) out of a buddy's 93 Daytona a couple of years ago to get rid of the mess of wires under the dash (found out the problem under there was a bad ignition lock which had already been replaced before), and I put a similar one back in a couple months later, and both had connectors similar to that big one in your pic. If there were small gauge wires running under the hood, and especially if they were rather short (a couple of shops around here put the siren close to the firewall because that's where the space is a lot of times), I would guess that's where the siren speaker connected. A pic of where this mess "connects" to the cruise control may help.

AFAIK, the cruise harness is COMPLETELY independent of the main harness (secondary smaller harness that runs parallel to the main dash harness from one side to the other) and runs between the brake pedal and the module on the passenger's side, under the dash. I know this because I have removed it (and the whole dash harness, for that matter) before.

 

here's what that harness was plugged into... is this some sort of cruise control unit? according to my service manual, cruise of this year has a vacuum operated baffle, but I don't haveone of those at all on my car.

 

Aftermarket cruise.

Here's a diagram of the stock cruise...


I addition to having an entirely different servo (electric/vacuum operated) its also mounted down by the battery on the drivers side frame rail.

 

interesting... that would explain why it doesn't work

oh well, not worth losing sleep over. I didn't buy the car to go cross country in it

 

It gives you a green light to toss it, and if you really want cruise later you can get another aftermarket cruise or salvage the parts from a donor and install the OEM setup.