I'd leave it and employee a relay to carry the load to the solenoid.

Thanks! I forgot to mention that I plan to install a relay. But I haven't looked at the schematics in Mark's how-to to understand how that would impact load on this wire. But now that I think about it, I guess this would be the relay trigger wire.

Photo of the whole harness please. That brown wire is only on the 70-72 ignition harnesses if it is a 914 harness. Not correct for a 73 914. The yellow starter wire increased in size in 1973. Recommend to avoid the starter relays. It's one more thing to fail and if you think you need one, it's an indication of some other problem like dirty connections or grounds, or a bad starter.

Now it gets interesting! I think this is out of my old '74 bus. The two wires running to the tach were cut so I need to repair or replace them. Sounds like I'll be upsizing the starter wire too.

No, I think it is a 1972-only 914 harness. It's hard if not impossible to replace the wires inside the casing. Don't think it's necessary.

The brown and green wires threw me because they didn't show up on the '73 schematic.

They would not be in a 1973 harness. They are the two wires for the heater fan in the 1970-72 engine bay.

So, I clipped them just behind the male spades and pulled them out. But just as I did so, I thought, "hey, rear window defrost." So I looked at the schematic more carefully and then pulled out your schematic for the rear window defrost. And sure enough, it matched.

Um no. The rear window defrost is a separate harness and it does not connect to the 12-pin connector and it routes through the forward fuse on the relay board. It has a special 2-pole female connector.

Then I thought, "Doh! Why did I clip those?" And yes, my bus had a rear window defroster. What I don't know is whether this was how the ignition harness was configured on a '73 914 with the rear window defrost option. Or maybe that option ran with a completely separate harness up to the 12-pin connector? This configuration seems more tidy, and the brown pigtail you noticed is the other end of the brown wire terminating at the plastic connector for the defrost.

The brown wire is the ground for the heater fan. Note the heater fan is not fused at the relay board other than thru the main fuse.

I'm assuming this is intended to connect to the multi-spade ground on the engine block. I have a rear window with defrost, harness, and switch coming from Chris (tygaboy). So figured I'd sort out the final configuration once I had the defrost harness in hand. But since I have the attention of the expert...

I've owned a '70 914/4, two '73 914's, and a '74 bus. So this harness had to come out of one of those. I didn't think rear defrost was an option in '70. I also have an alternator harness with a blue pigtail wire that from some quick googling, connected to the aux heater blower on the bus. So I'm thinking both these harnesses are from the same vehicle. Both alternator harnesses are trashed, so you'll be seeing an order from me before this project is over.

Click to view attachment

I've got another question. Can anyone tell me how long the lead for the tach wires is after it branches off from the supplementary air valve and oil pressure switch wires? Trying to figure out where to clip to crimp spade connectors on. Judging from pics on Jeff's site, I'm guessing 16-20 inches?

Thanks

Just lay the harness where it goes and you'll see where to clip it. Btw. Don't make it the "exact" length. You need some extra(several inches) to replace the spade terminal when the wire breaks.

Hoping someone can help me with where to clip these wires to the coil before sleeving and crimping on new spade terminals. Rodents ran off with the originals so I don't have a reference for how long the leads should be.

Click to view attachment

Thanks.

I have that harness in a box. If you can wait till this evening I'll lay it out, measure it and post the pic here.

Crap. I forgot. I'll get it in the morning. Got caught up in fabbing my exhaust system, which led to installing the rear sway bar, which let to painting and on and on.....