89magic98

I cut some of the rubber wire looms looking for broken headlight wiring. Also, the rubber wire loom for the light under the hood has dry rotted and split.

Does anyone know a decent replacement source for rubber wire loom? All I can find is the plastic split loom or the spiral wrapped plastic wire loom. What I want is something that looks like the original, in other words, a rubber sleve that the wires are passed through. I'd like to try this before repairing the existing loom with heat-shrink tubing.

If anyone knows where I could get something like this, let me know.

Thanks!

-Kevin

IceShark

Rubber or plastic?

You can pretty much forget finding rubber. You might want to think about fiberglass sleeve or just put on some glue lined heat shrink.

89magic98

Maybe I mean plastic. The parts that dry-rotted looked like rubber.

What's the difference between glue-lined heat-shrink and regular heat shrink?

Also, I would need something that is somewhat flexible (could bend a bit like the original stuff).

Thanks for the quick reply!

IceShark

Most of the harness Porsche used was plastic, so nothing special. But some sections used rubber cast over the individual wires.

Glue lined heat shrink is a commercial product that has hot melt glue on the inside of the shrink tube. Rather than nothing. So when you shrink the tube the glue melts and seals everything up. It can take flex so should work for your repair. I buy it in 4 foot lengths, not sure if it is sold retail in shorter lengths.

Call an outfit named Waytek @ 800.328.2724 and get one of their catalogs. I use them when I need a small quantity of some items. They will sell to you if you put in a $25 order, if I recall correctly. Their quality on some parts isn't so good but the heat shrink is fine.

SoCal Driver

IceShark, Where do you get the fiberglass?

IceShark

The fiberglass sleeve I use is sort of special stuff that BentleyHarris/Federal-Mogul makes. I get it ordered for me by a local distributor which you probably can't order from since you need to buy 100's of feet at a crack.

I did get some fiberglass sleeve by other manufacturers which wasn't as robust as the BentleyHarris stuff. I'm not sure who's product Waytek is selling now, but they sell fiberglass sleeve in a few diameters in 50 foot spools. Which isn't so handy when trying to do a small individual job ..... and it costs well over a buck a foot in small spools.

SoCal Driver

So you could "kit" out the fiberglass sleeving you have if the price was right. Isn't sleeving also called spaghetti? Or is that only for a sleeve over a single wire?

IceShark

I only have some 5/8" diameter stuff now but I will sell it to you if that is what you need. But I'm not in the parts ordering business so forget other sizes.

I believe the vernacular "spaghetti" is very open weave that is only abrasion protection. The stuff I use is tight weave and also takes 1100 F* so it will take quite the fire to burn up the inner wires. Take a look at Wayne's rebuild pics he has on his web site.

http://home.satx.rr.com/grehome/kima...disconnect.jpg

See the cable that is wire tied with white ties? That is one of my positive cables covered with the fiberglass sleeve I'm talking about.

89magic98

Is your fiberglass watertight? I'm guessing that the answer is no.

IceShark

No, it is not water proof. You probably don't want waterproof anyway in normal applications because moisture can't escape unless you have sealed the ends pretty well. You are supposed to have done that, sealing, to the underlying cable beforehand. This is just abrasion, fire protection and keep the wires neat.

They do make a fancier version that is silicone impregnated, so waterproof. It costs upwards of $5 a foot in the larger sizes and takes awhile for the factory to run it. This is really special stuff that goes on nuc subs, usually. One of the reasons they cost 2 billion to build.