Did the factory use wire loom to protect the headlight motor wires? I'm not finding any evidence of it, but it seems like it wouldn't have hurt to put it there. Anyone know?

 

On my 88, 91 and 92 there is loom on some of the wiring for the headlight harness, but nothing on the headlight door side motor wire stub, and I want to say not on the body side up to the connector, but I think it is on there across the radiator support opening area

 

yes all of that is definitely there. the harness connector side is wrapped in tape. but the side leading to motor is bare. looks like it could bang around on bumper bolt threads. which is why i was asking.


passenger side

driver side

 

Yeah, motor stub is bare on all my harnesses

 

Same, they've been bare on all of my cars

 

I've had the pig tail rub through once and it fried my headlight module when it shorted out so adding some split loom isn't a bad Idea I did so after fixing it.

 

any you guys have super low mileage car? the never drivens never show us this area. guess it’s kind of boring

 

I say this as a fan of the third gen... it's not a well-designed car.

My first 2 hours of working on it seriously, 1 hour was refusing to believe what I was seeing. "I must be confused, nobody would design something that does this it's completely stupid." After that I decided forget originality except for looks. Everything hidden is getting fixed, even if fixed means thrown in the trash, like in the case of my park lock cable which leaves the firewall and comes back in. That was apparently the intended, "correct" routing.

 

Sounds like someone had their dirty beaters in your car,
I have to say there aren't many things where I could say I was baffled by the engineering on these cars

 

First part is true, but last owner assures me that was not changed and someone here told me that is stock routing on the old ones. The places it passes through are definitely stock holes with stock shaped grommets. I only have the dealer manual from an 85-92, and the cables appear to stay internal on the later ones.

Another example of questionable design is that joint in the steering that adds the slop, and there's the headlight motors always breaking.

I do like the power wire color scheme and the load distribution blocks that let you pull the harnesses apart more easily, wish they were on more cars.

All I'm saying is if you can't see it on the outside, and you are sure you can do it better, it's probably a good idea to just do it.

 

My park-lock cable on my 86 was from the shifter to the ignition switch - totally inside the car. The plastic bits on the ignition switch end of the cable disintegrated and left my key stuck in the ignition. That was a fun day. I deleted that garbage.

GD

 

My 89 Formula 350 Conv has wire loom going to the headlight assy... It is a 37K mile car...

John

 

Thanks for chiming in John. did they tape each end of the loom? is the loom high temp with grey stripe? one more if you don’t mind. is it only the section from connector to motor?

 

IIRC mine is taped by the headlight for sure. Ususaly they tape the unions as well, to keep the loom from chafing on the wires. NOW I have to look and make sure.

John

 

What about your other cars? Did you buy the convertible new? Here is what I'm referring to just to be sure:

Arrow points to where taped - that is how mine is from factory
The red outline shows where I was wondering if high temp loom would be located and the stripes are the end sections that would normally be taped if loom was installed.

Not sure why it would have disappeared from both sides if it was ever installed, but stranger things have happened.......

 

ooohhhh I was thinking of the larger wire loom... I would have to look at those.