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]

QUOTE (bondo @ Oct 16 2005, 10:27 PM)

QUOTE (lapuwali @ Oct 16 2005, 09:45 PM) I don't know of a single OEM manufacturer that's soldered their automotive wiring harnesses together in the last 40 years. Every little crappy bullet style connector in my 1970 MGB is soldered onto the end of the wire. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif) I can't tell you how many times I've tried to pull one out and had it break right where the solder ends instead of coming out. Lucas electrics: inventor of the 3 position headlight switch.. Dim, Flicker and Off. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/laugh.gif)

Hm. I've pulled apart a half-dozen Lucas wiring harnesses and only found crimped connections. And this is on older (early 60s) BMC and "Stanard" (the marque, not the adjective) cars. I've only had one MG, though, and that was 20 years ago. Are these the "cup-style" bullets, where the wire goes into the cup? I've seen those in catalogs, but never actually on a car. I didn't think Lucas could really descend any lower than I've already seen. This is the company that used plastic inline fuse holders OEM because they added a couple of circuits beyond the four fuses they allowed for in the fusebox, on high-volume cars...

Yes, you need expensive crimp tools, and said tools are more expensive than a soldering iron. However, they won't burn you or the wire's insulation, and they don't need electric power to work. IMHO, everything needs to be perfect for soldering to work, too. The iron needs to be the right temp, the wire and whatever you're connecting to need to be clean, and you need to provide some total strain relief after the fact, as soldered connections are structurally weak as well as brittle. Soldering works fine for attaching components to a printed circuit board, but for free-standing wires and connectors, crimping is far better.