soontobered84

The wire colors will be correct to the year model of your car and the connectors will all be correct for your year model car. It has the potential to solve a lot of your problems.

checkmate1996

Agree. $750 sounds expensive at first however this is a super high quality part with all the right fittings, wires sizes and lengths. YOU CANT MAKE IT FOR LESS!! JUST BUY IT!

Mrmerlin

YOU CANT MAKE IT FOR LESS!! JUST BUY IT!
Hey I said that to someone once

VWGUYGOESPORSCHE

Going to have to just nut up and buy it. Again, I appreciate all of the feedback. I am really digging this community and you all seem like a great bunch of guys willing to help a brother out. The VW community here in Vegas is very similar.

STRIKEMASTER

French Fries Anyone?

With wires like this I'm surprised ANYTHING works... But (mostly) it does LOL

35 years old 70+K miles on it just cooking away

Snap! Crackle! & POP!

Crispy Critters
Put a harness from ROGER in my '83S-2...VERY NICE setup,,All the cable ends are both crimped AND Silver Soldered and TAGGED! The large cables to the Starter, Alternator and Hot Post are DOUBLED!! I think I paid somewhere around $650 for mine, but I have a K-Jet car so there's no injector circuit part of the harness....
Mine was so cooked that the insulation on the wires was like GLASS!! Every time I moved a wire, the "glass'insulation fell off..OR I could feel the wire break inside the harness....Yours looks ONLY A LITTLE worse than mine, and mine is 3 years younger...

STRIKEMASTER

French Fries Anyone?

With wires like this I'm surprised ANYTHING works... But (mostly) it does LOL

35 years old 70+K miles on it just cooking away

Snap! Crackle! & POP!

Crispy Critters
Put a harness from ROGER in my '83S-2...VERY NICE setup,,All the cable ends are both crimped AND Silver Soldered and TAGGED! The large cables to the Starter, Alternator and Hot Post are DOUBLED!! I think I paid somewhere around $650 for mine, but I have a K-Jet car so there's no injector circuit part of the harness....
Mine was so cooked that the insulation on the wires was like GLASS!! Every time I moved a wire, the "glass'insulation fell off..OR I could feel the wire break inside the harness....Yours looks ONLY A LITTLE worse than mine, and mine is 3 years younger...ALSO it's a "Never have to do THAT again "Job...I FULLY expect the Sean/Roger harness to last AT LEAST as long as the factory one (25+ years)

VWGUYGOESPORSCHE

I ended up getting the new harness that Sean makes of which Roger sells. Very impressed with the quality of work. It was truly a work of art. I did the tear out and install of the new harness this weekend. I would not call it easy but I got the job done. I think the install of the new harness was easier than taking the old one out. All in all..........well worth the money and I was very impressed. Thanks to Sean and Roger!

checkmate1996

If it weren't for guys like Roger, Sean, Mark, Carl, Greg - we would be in a world of hurt for these cars!

dr bob

For others playing along at home, the harnesses in our cars are 25 to 45 years old. Heat, age, exposure to petro products, 'brake clean', heat and age, along with heat and age, conspire to make the wire insulation crispy at best. Fuel hoses, and really anything that isn't metal, suffers similarly. That KS-2 "front of engine" harness is the most obvious for damage, sitting up there high on the fenderwall. As the engine rocks on the motor mounts, crispy insulation cracks and eventually falls off.

rjtw's advice to look at the other harnesses is spot on. The KS-1 "front of car" harness sees marginally better conditions. missing only the hot air behind the radiator. It tends to be out of sight and out of mind, but offers pretty similar failure modes. Even CIS cars have harnesses that connect the electrical bits on top of the engine. As you move into later EFI cars, then to S4+ cars, there are progressively more and more important failure modes available.

I suspect that a large percentage of our "engine doesn't start" and "engine runs poorly" cases can be traced to tired engine wiring connectors and insulation. I know mine was in amazingly good shape (per Rob...) when we did an intake refresh almost ten years ago. But that was almost ten years ago now. Should I have replaced a "still-good" original harness then while everything was apart and accessible? I wonder what it all looks like now?

----

The truth is that I've started a "Bob needs new wiring" funding opportunity for others who would like to help me out. There are several opportunities really, all prefixed with "Bob needs a ...". A new S8 or Pana TTS hybrid, the perpetual new tires fund, plus many others. If we hadn't replaced all the fuel lines way back when, that funding opportunity would top the list, where the new wiring opportunity perches now. Send checks to mrs dr bob. I'm not allowed to actually touch money these days.