Ok. So I have two sets of wiring for my 1983 Z28, one is rat chewed and the other is a junkyard harness that is missing some clips and such. I want to combine the two sets, I have a total of 6 harnesses, 2 ecm, 2 engine, 2 headlight. My question is, would it be easier to repair all of the wiring in the car or should I remove them and fix that way?

 

Out

 

Adjusting the wiring in the car yourself is such a difficult and complex task, I tried it out and ended up short circuiting the wiring, I think these sort of stuff should be handled by the experts rather than us common persons.

Robert From--- http://www.westcables.com/

 

I've done it both ways - for different reasons. In Short; IMO it depends on which harness you intend to rebuild !

If the harness in the car is MOSTLY intact than I'd say IN. Pulling an entire harness just to change 2-3 plugs is a fools errand. Just consider all the time wasted by pulling and re-running the whole harness. ( or 3 harnesses ! )

If the harness you need to rebuild is out of the car AND you can be SURE that the wires/plugs are going to be installed properly - I'd say do that work while it's already OUT.

The LAST thing you want - as Robert1211 pointed out - is to rebuild a harness out of the car, then try to install it only to find that 1 (or several) of the wires/plugs are to short and don't reach properly. ( Wires that are too long are kinda' ugly - but at least they are easy to tuck away out-of-sight. )

 

I've worked on smaller electronic equipment for a living and I agree it depends on the job you're looking at. The best way imo with something that complex is to build a complete replacement and then swap the old for new. Pay attention to the way the engineers placed things like grommets, connectors, pathways and they also may have purposely added slack to avoid pulling etc. If it's just a couple of connectors for the replacement then there shouldn't be much down time, but look it over carefully and try to determine why the connectors are trashed.

If you need to splice in a connector I might line up the connector ends and add an extra 1 1/2" and then cut the wires, each matched individually at an offset. Then your connector will be approximately the same length, and the offset solder joints help avoid future shorts as well as provide the least amount of bulk.

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/h2weld

Otherwise you may be able to remove the pins from the connector body, separate, clean it up, remove some on the wire end and reattach it. It will be slightly shorter though.