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Rewire'n a car

Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:41 am
by douglovin
From what it looks like, my car has been ghetto wired so many times I am not sure what is what sometimes. I have extra wires and broken wires all over.

I can't find a place that sells a replacement wiring harness.

My only other option, and what I would like to do anyway to make it pretty, is rewire everything under the hood.

Anybody ever attempted this? And if so what were some issues you ran into, or some tips for doing this job.

Appreciate it.

Doug

Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 11:02 am
by AB
I've had the same problem with friends cars and have found that most people that do dodgy wiring don't do anything too advanced, the majority of wires are just positives and grounds which can all be easily removed. For any wires that don't go any where just follow them back as far as you can until they join another wire then cut it at the join and seal it up.

I don't think you should try to rewire it unless there is a short somewhere that you can't find or the wires have been cut and rejoined, and even then it would be easier to resolder the joins than redo the wiring. Then you can just cover the wires with that flexi plastic wire cover stuff and seal it up.

But if you really want to redo the wiring then I suggest buying a second hand wiring harness from someone parting out their car, it will be a hundred times easier to install that than to run new wires, and you'll get to keep your factory wiring colours with the appropriate dots/stripes.

Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 4:18 pm
by douglovin
Well I figure since I have to fix most of this crap anyway, id want to re-run all the wires and do a good tuck job while im at it. IF I could find another starion around here I would be amazed. I would definetly take some parts off of it.. But I have been to all my local junk yards plus the big ones in Houston. Nadda.


I've been reading the manual and tracing all the wires under the hood. they are all there. I have no idea what all this extra crap is tho.

Tomorrow I start the re-wire. I'm let ya know what happens.

Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 5:31 pm
by hcca
Unless you -need- to do a rewire (eg. for programmable ecu or something), by far the easiest way would be to find a wreck with an unmolested loom and do a straight transplant. The engine and body looms are separate so it's not too difficult to get the engine loom in and out.