TaboII

This is a big question about the manufacturing process of the electrical systems in our cars. Maybe I can get ICAT to lend a hand and let me know what the best method will be for accomplishing this task.

I currently am looking at my engine wiring harness and it’s weak tiny wiring used in its manufacturing. I am considering completely rebuilding this using the existing harness as a guide.

Question one. Is there anything I should concern myself with regarding the resistance in the wiring of the engine harness itself, TO clarify… If I where to upgrade the wiring to a larger gauge wire thus possibly reducing the impedance will this be a problem in the operation of the vehicle?

Question two. I am getting a soldering pot capable of heating to several hundred if not into the low thousands. Thus giving me the ability to use about any type of solder I could possibly think of. I am considering a very hard solder using the pot to pre-coat all the wire leads with resin then solder. I will be attempting to reduce the impedance of the harness and in theory create a better functioning system for the vehicle to use.

I know this sounds like a monumental task, however I believe with patience and time I should be able to rebuild this harness to a much higher grade than originally installed into the car. This is not to mention that I have complete access or will to the entire electrical system of the vehicle as the engine compartment will be completely empty and the interior will be bear with the exceptions of the wiring itself.

Any thoughts on this process or ideas?

Thanks TaboII

IceShark

I don't think you will get many takers for an entire engine harness. Your real prospective customers would be people that had an engine bay fire and are going to try and salvage the mess. Not many people have a small enough engine fire to make restoration worthwhile; Perry951 is one of the only guys I know of that had minimal damage and actually went forward with restoration. For folks that aren't dealing with a fire, it would be fairly expensive and alternative solutions would be more attractive.

The light gauge stock wire in the engine harness is not really a problem since the current loads are so tiny. Ignoring other loads like radio, lighting, window motors, etc., the entire car uses under 7 amps to run last time I measured. And part of those 7 amps were the heater fan on low speed and going to top off the battery. The engine itself doesn't draw much.

If someone has a problem with the engine wiring it is going to be corrosion of the terminals. A good solution would be to just clip off the old corroded terminals and crimp and solder on new terminals.

But if you are going to do this anyway, using larger gauge wire and reducing resistance won't cause any problems.

BTW, why would you want to add more construction steps by buying slightly cheaper bare copper wire and then pre-tinning the ends? Just buy higher quality tinned wire to start off with.

TaboII

Keith,

Point well taken on the wire tenting, my original idea was to pre-tent the wires for soldering into new connectors i.e. the dme relay connection point. Though I suppose just buying the better wiring will be the best way to go.

My main reasoning for doing this is that the current harness “13 plus years old” just looks like crap and is in need of new connections at almost every point. I thought just by following the original wiring harness I could create a new much better and more reliable piece at very least in my own mind.

This is just the beginning step in the restoration and improvement on this car. I am seriously considering REWIRING much if not all of the existing system just to avoid problems in the coming years. So I suppose you could call this a dry run for the real hard stuff. The nice part about this process is that I will have complete access to the entire wiring system as the car will be completely striped in just a few weeks. We’ll see where it goes from there. Thanks for the information. Oh and I am not considering making these for sale, I have no desire to do this sort of thing for extra cash at the expense of all my time “If you know what I mean”.

Thanks for the info
TaboII

IceShark

Tabo, this is Dan here. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

If you are going to do this for your own purposes, by all means go ahead since you are already in there. And maybe a few other guys may be interested.

I just wanted to keep your expectations in line so you don't go and sink too many resources into this project.

On the wiring: this is going to be sort of expensive if you are going to maintain color coding considering the small scale of your project. So you need to consider consolidating the color scheme and maybe get some dye and just color the ends.

As I noted in my prior post, increasing the wire gauge in this application isn't going to change performance much, if any. And you may run into fitment issues if you increase the gauge too much.

Good Luck!

icat

I think TaboII has ICAT (who is a Keith) and IceShark mixed up. I assure you that I am NOT qualified to give an opinion on this subject - but I do appreciate the mention of my name!