michaelathome

Hello,

I was curious as to what you think. Going through my '83 944 and cleaning up the wiring I found the use of friction tape at factory points and electrical tape at PO's points. I am in the process of going through the car and was wondering what others thought.

I have already decided to use friction tape vs. any other type of wire binding material as it was obviously Porsche's first choice of tape as far as I can see

Would you be less offended seeing that in the cabin than you would electrical tape, heat shrink tubing or zip ties? How about a combination?

The reason I am asking is I am re-wiring my stereo and wanna leave some wiring in case there are changes later in my cars life and do not want someone else to deal with my frustration as I HATE electrical tape!!! The friction tape seems more original and does the job that I am looking at it to do, clean up the wiring mess.

I was wanting to know if anyone else chose this route. If so why, if not why did you choose an alternative method.

Michael

Jessa

Porsche did lots of things really right on these cars. The electric system, while it isn't the worst out there, is nothing special. I wouldn't worry about following exactly what the factory did just because they did it. Do what will work the best and last.

Honestly, I chose electrical tape because that's what I had on hand when putting my stereo in. It has held up for the past couple years just fine. Since it lives behind the panels and not in plain view, I couldn't care less if it looked factory, or had day-glo pink and green stripes

Garth S

In the era of assembly, cloth backed friction tape likely held up better than many plastic backed electrical tapes - which could go brittle, glue oozing out the side ....
- just a guess ,,,,, - but friction tape sure worked great on my hockey sticks!

Thaddeus

I use commercial-grade plastic tape... the stuff that's 5 bucks a roll instead of 1. Thicker.

dr bob

Soldered connections with heat shrink tubing do the trick for me as far as connections go. Depending on location, I use either the split accordian tubing for protection, or that spiral plastic loom that you wrap around the harness once it's all assembled. Inside the dash, the spiral plastic is my preference. You are just using it to hold the wires together so no need to have the bulk of the accordian stuff in there. Easy to remove or adjust, with no gooey mess like tape has been known to cause. In the engine bay, accordian tubing, sometimes with wire ties to secure it from sliding. This is as much for radiated heat protection as for mechanical protection of the wires inside.

I try to avoid using tape on the car, since it's not a matter of if, only when it will fall off.

My two sense...

Thaddeus

If there's any chance of the tape adhesive failing (i.e., outside the cabin) I secure it with a nylon tie wrap.

Mark87AT

If you have the choice then, from all stand points; keeping the elements out, longevity, strength, and appearance, a good quality heat shrink tubing of the appropriate size is by far better than either electrical tape or friction tape. This is especially true if the connection needs to be resoldered as the tape adhesive residues left on the wires make it difficult to get a good solder joint when resoldering. Also, any application where the connection will be exposed to any heat, electrical tape can be exceptionally bad as the heat will cause the adhesive to soften and the tape can then move or even unroll itself.

I would also agree, that zip ties and accordion tubing are very good ways of keeping things in the proper place, although for some applications large heatshrink tubing can work will to bundle wires.

Mark

michaelathome

Thanks everyone for the input!

Michael