1991 Z28. I completely took the car apart to paint, interior/engine/transmission/glass/weatherstripping. My painter took the dash apart along with all of the wiring and I have no pictures. I took pictures as I took it apart but nothing for the dash wiring to include hvac lines etc.

I’ve searched the website to see if anyone has taken one apart and wrote it up to make things easier but I haven’t found any.

Anyone have detailed pictures or know of a write up that has one?

Thank you.

 

Is the wiring still attached to the dash, or did they do some exorbitant amount of extra work to remove it?

 

They removed it

 

OK fine.

DID THEY REMOVE THE WIRING FROM THE DASH?

Show us a photo of the WIRING, not the empty space where it all used to be.

​​​​​​​Go visit a vehicle assembly plant and you'll understand immediately what I'm asking.

 

Also, I’m on AUSTINTHIRDGEN to try and figure out some wiring that I’m fixing. What is the gray box for? The small black connector with two wires for some reason has a resistor that is attached to it. The color on those two wires are purple w/white line and the other white w/black line. What does this connect to? Thank you

 

OK, that's not bad at all. Doesn't look like anything is hacked, which minimizes the effort required to put it back.

First thing to do would be to set that long black channel back into place, along the top of the firewall below the windshield. A whole bunch of the connectors will then sorta fall into places where they hook up to things.

Next thing to do would be to get the dash, and find all the connectors that plug into it; and plug them in. You'll find the headlight switch plug, steering column plug, ignition switch plugs, and so on. They're all unique, and only go to one possible place.

Conspicuous by their absence in that photo are the dash itself, which a rear view would be fantastic; and the fuse box.

The reason I mentioned a car assembly plant is because, that's where they assemble cars. (duh) Which of course is precisely what you're trying to do now. If you go to one, you'll see cars on a production line, kinda crawling along at a rate of a few feet per minute, passing workstations where they do things like lay in wiring harnesses, install seats, put in windshields, and so on. The line moves at a constant rate, meaning the next car comes to each workstation at specific intervals, which is called the takt time. Each "thing" has to be assembled to the car in that time. The whole process is broken up into steps that can be completed in that time. It varies from plant to plant, and from time to time within a plant, as production schedules change; butt obviously can never be less than the amount of time it takes to assemble each major component of the car to the car as it moves along.

Each component of the car is pre-assembled and tested, up to the point where it's ready to go into a car. So an engine for example is put in as a unit; they don't adjust rockers and put valve covers on, in the assembly plant. The dash works the same way. It comes to the assy plant from the dash plant, with all the plugs plugged into it, all the bulbs in it, and so on; all the assy plant worker has to do is, take it out of the box (or off the shelf or out of the crate or however it's shipped), carry it to the car (or have some crane or the like do that for them, for heavy parts), move it into place, and put in the hardware that mounts it. All the connectors that go to everything else are just hanging there. The fuse box is already attached to the dash, and all it needs then is to be clipped into the hole in the floor; the plugs that go the brake light switch, the steering column, the ECM, the HVAC system (which is a totally separate stand-alone system that goes in as its own assembly and only has a couple of connectors that interface with the rest of the car), and so on, are all right there waiting to be plugged in. Each of those other assemblies is either already in the car when the dash goes in, or some things such as the column, go in at a later workstation. In the case of the dash, there might have been more than one workstation involved; for example, the dash might have been mounted up at one workstation, then at the next a worker comes in from the passenger side and hooks up things that are accessible from there, then at the next few, workers come in from the driver's side and do some incremental part of the hookup there, and so forth. It's all very logical and rational and orderly, and proceeds in fairly large chunks.

Once you get past the intimidation factor, and instead use the logical and rational part of your brain, it's OBVIOUS how stuff goes together. So, be logical and rational, and it will reveal itself to you automatically. You don't even have to really even "think" all that much, except for making sure you put stuff in in the right order. Like, put the pedals in before the dash, put the dash in before the column, put the column in before the AC ducts that go below it, and so forth. It's just not that hard. It's like people who will tell you "oh I'm not good at math": once you put that notion into your head, GUESS WHAT? You're NOT. If OTOH you put the OTHER notion into your head, of "if a factory assembly-line worker can put this part in in 37 seconds, SO CAN I", then GUESS WHAT?!?!?! YOU CAN. Might take you longer than 37 seconds since you don't have the assembly instructions and you haven't already done 10,000 of em this month, but YOU CAN DO THIS if you merely decide that you can and refuse to be intimidated. Nothing and nobody can intimidate you without your permission.

The car was assembled by putting in the harnesses that go under the carpet and places like that, before the carpet. The wiring that goes on the dash, needs to be on it before you try to put the dash in. It will be OBVIOUS once you get to looking at it: the whole dash, wiring and all along with it, is a COMPLETELY SEPARATE STAND-ALONE component of the car, with plugs and clips and nuts and bolts that install it to the car. Once you identify those "interface" points, it's eeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzy.

So for example, every yellow connector in the whole car, has to do with the air bags. The little black connector in your hand goes to the cruise control. The blue and black connectors right below your hand go to the ignition switch. You might have noticed some commonality here: EVERY ONE of those parts is on the steering column, so all of that wiring goes to steering column things, which when it's mounted where it goes, it will be hanging right where it needs to be. And so on. You'll see that once it's all hung into place, because the connectors will all be just kinda dangling right in front of their mates just waiting to be plugged in. You may find that some, you've got a wiring breakout routed behind something butt needs to go in front of it, and stuff like that; butt it will all become apparent as you go along. It's just not that hard. You don't need to know what a part is, or what it does, or any of that; that grey box or that resistor for example, could do absolutely anything they want to; all you need to figure out is, where does it go.

 

Thank you I do appreciate your write up, I’m sure I can get it done I just like to be thorough with all things. I did find some pictures that show me where some things go and that is good enough.

The reason I asked about the wires in my hand is because the resistor looks to be done away from what is stock and need to know if I can take it off or fix it to make the contacts better.

There are some frayed wires that need attention and I’ve fixed most of them except for the one in my hand. I should do all of this before I install it.

Thanks again for your time and direction on the project.

 

I'd leave the resistor alone and get the car put back together first if it was me.

 

I found out the purple/white and white/black wires are VATS. I’m a slow, it took me a bit to find it.

 

I need help. I’m looking for a picture that shows me how the two wide black steering column connectors “snap” onto the column so they are stationary.

I was able to get the longer one on but not the smaller one.

I’ve looked all over the website and haven’t found any helpful pictures yet.

thank you.