Hello My Name is Tony and I have DWD, caught a bad case in the electrical way Options

[TonyAKAVW]

So the car that I'm doing my Subaru conversion on just had a major setback tonight. My body wiring harness is no longer installed (for the most part). I pulled the wiring from the front trunk and also from the dash area. Its going to get stripped of wiring that I don't need, and I'm going to add wiring that I do need that isn't there.

For instance:

Deleting:

> fresh air blower wiring (I'm going to weld over the fresh air inlet and not use it.

> side marker wiring (not using)

> dome light (not putting in a backpad, going to do something else for light)

> heater controls (Ripped out stock heater controls, going to do a custom variable speed control for the dual blowers that I'm going to install someday)

> Door switches (I consider this excess, useless wiring)

> Seatbelt relay and Logic relay (again, useless to me)

Probably more too...


Adding:

> OBD II wiring for Subrau engine up to dash board

> harness wiring for Subaru ECU (going to be mounted between seats at the firewall, on the floor.)

> wiring for windshield washer pump

> 12 volt distribution for engine bay, front and rear trunks and under the dash (for stuff like tools, etc.)

> DC and AC wiring for power inverter (to power a laptop, etc.)


So like I said I caught a bad case of Dirk Wright's Disease. I've taken it upon myslef to redo the wiring instead of use what was probably a 99% functional body wiring harness. Luckily most of the wiring will stay the same, but the way I do the fuses and relays in the cabin will change considerably.

I know I'm not the only one here who does this sort of thing. We need a 12 step program.



-Tony

[lapuwali]

The only reason to despise crimp connnections is if you aren't using the right connectors and the right tools. If you're trying to use the commonly available insulated "barrel" crimp connectors with the oval hole crimp tools, I don't blame you for hating crimps. Such stuff is indeed junk. However, if you use proper crimp-on connectors with no insulation and a thin-wall material, and use a proper crimp tool with the heart-shaped section, then crimping is faster to do correctly than soldering correctly, and the resulting connections are far more vibration resistant. If you can find the really good crimp-on connectors with the extra pair of fingers that grip the insulation as well as the wire, then all the better.

Soldering is not generally allowed in the aircraft industry because soldered connections are hard to visually inspect for flaws, easy to get wrong, and too much solder will make a brittle connection that will have a short life in a high vibration environment. I don't know of a single OEM manufacturer that's soldered their automotive wiring harnesses together in the last 40 years. The factory used high-quality crimped connectors that generally continue to work well for 30 years. Sure, they're corroded NOW, 30 years later after the low-quality rubber and plastic covering has vanished. With modern heat-shrink properly applied, there's little reason to believe a new harness made with such connectors wouldn't last another 30-40 years or longer.