Hot Rods Thankfully -I was smart enough to have left it where it was.

I learned a very long time ago that if I had an original car and I added an aftermarket stereo, gauges, etc. I always left the oem stuff alone and added new wiring to whatever I added.

Made for a clean looking install and if I sold the car and wanted to keep whatever I added I could easily put it back to original configuration and no one even knew I was ever in there.

..

 

But nowadays a guy wouldn’t pass up a 40 coupe if was reasonably solid.
Wire nuts and all!

 

I had a friend offer his services wiring street rods many years ago and I always teased him that he "included a free fire extinguisher with every wiring job"!

 

When I got my car, it had a simple wiring job. Hot wire from the switch to the hei, starter wire from switch to starter, hot wire to switch from battery terminal on starter. All same size, same color red. Nothing else hooked up, not even the alternator. All the factory wiring was cloth covered, hard and crumbling, none of it hooked up, which was a good thing!
It got a complete new harness before it hit the road.

 

My 57 Vette Had had phone line going to the rear of the car zip tied to the frame with string and the guy was running 10's with it at one point . t
car must have had a dozen of those crimp on through the wire insualton connector's going to every thing. you w swwtich started oin fire the secind day id flip a turn signal and half the lights started flashing . the head light switch caught on fire the second time I drove it . I burnt my hand ripping off the cable on the battery. Almost lost the entire car .

 

You have to make a decision...either “re-wire” the car or “re-write” you post! LOL

 

I bought a '64 Caddy from a neighbor in 1974. It was in good shape, nice body and interior. The under-hood wiring was fried. He had "fixed" some wiring with brown lamp cord... nice... I took a look, went to the junkyard and took a front harness off a junker. I tagged the wires with masking tape and a pen as I removed them.

Next.. off to the library. In the reference section that had GM books galore. I photo-copied many pages from the Cadillac electrical book (at 10¢ a pop...) and headed home. I used barrel crimp splices and wrapped electrical tape over those. Well, everything worked, it even charged.

Next was my '68 Mustang, same method and it also worked. The '59 Ford I used a Kwik Wire kit, that was a blessing and I get compliments on how neat it looks.

 

When I was a teen, I was a “point to point” wire guy. One thing I never paid attention to. That changed when I met up with a friend building a ‘59 ElCamino. He pulled the seat forward for something and he had made a fuse block from a glossy board, all wires bent 90 degrees, routed down, etc. I started looking at his whole wiring job.
It was spot on. Started changing my ways then.

 

Clueless blissful me would've bought the car and a big new bag of wire nuts.
La la la la la la la la la...

 

I went to go look at an old Pontiac sedan supposedly powered by a 389 GTO engine. The wiring was made up of short lengths of wire twisted together and wrapped in electrical tape some of the wiring in different colors along the way. Steering consisted of a couple Craftsman Universal Sockets connected by actual construction reinforcing rod with welds that had no penetration and looked like bubble gum. The owner was proudly proclaiming he did everything himself. When I told him I wasn’t interested without looking at the rest of car he got rather angry about me wasting his time.

 

I remember wiring articles in magazines and just loved the look of a fancy wiring harness so I really became focused on learning how. With today's kits, nothing to it.

 

I purchased the Tex Smith book and it has been a lot of help over the years. HRP

 

If a car has the original wiring in it at this point in time, there is very little chance that it doesn't need replacement. Even if it never had someone attempt repairs, its most likely rotted and has hidden issues that will crop up. Also, most are going to want to run 12 volts and require additions and changes. Then there is the amp meter vs volt meter consideration. I would assume that any old vehicle that was never rewired is going to need a full rewiring, and I'd rather do a full rewiring than trouble shoot old wiring. Quite a few of the cars that have been "rewired " are going to need a harness as well. Fortunately its usually pretty obvious how good or bad the previous rewiring is........as opposed to the "yeah, it was rebuilt just a few years ago (ball hone and rering) and has been sitting, so it won't start now. Some of those "overhauls" were known as Krylon (spray paint) overhauls. At least with wiring its usually pretty obvious what you are looking at.

 

I got one too........

 

Reminds me of the old saying. Looks like it was brush painted with a live chicken, buffed with a pine cone and polished with a brick.

 

One small book I bought a while back and have found answers to questions that would require deep digging is Pocket Ref by Thomas J. Glover, Sequoia Publishing.
https://sequoiapublishing.com/
People sometimes ask what you would take back in time to help yourself. Aside from the usual answers like a sports almanac for betting, this should be in there too. Tons of material.

 

Once looked at an OT shoebox Bronco and all the wiring was the same color. With that and amongst other things, I passed. Only to buy a '52 Willys (Jeep) pickup a few months later that had all orange wiring. HA!

 

My T roadster had a few issues…
It got whole new wiring harness. I like the fact that the wires in the new kits are labeled every 12” or so.

 

A friend’s dragster is wired entirely with blue wire.
That was fun to troubleshoot when it wouldn’t crank in the staging lanes.

 

I pretty much re wire everything I buy, best part is I install cloth covered wire, full soldered connections and terminals and its done right. Plus I get a discount when I point out crappy wiring.

If you are not into wiring, then I would understand passing them over for sure. Its just another bargaining chip for me!

 

Way back I worked at a truck body shop. We dealt with some real butchery with big trucks weighing tons and pulling more tons. Engines that wouldn't start until you loaded a can of starting fluid into them, steering 30° play both ways and horrible wiring. We'd paint them up and they looked great going down the road, no one would suspect they had a dead trap heading toward them on the open road.

On truck I worked was a cab over semi tractor. The right front corner was caved in. I pulled the panels off to replace them and found the light wiring in that corner consisted of short pieces of wire connect with wire nuts. Literally a short pieces of different types of wire was pieced together including a length of two conductor lamp cord. I pulled out the bad wire, rewired the lights using proper wire, installed the new panels and painted the corner of the cab, the rest of the truck still looked like crap.

A day or two later my boss came out to the shop and called me into his office. He started to yell at me because the owner of the truck I just fixed called and complained the lights didn't work. I checked all of the light before the truck left and they all worked fine. My boss just reamed my butt for about half an hour telling me since I didn't do the job right I had to repair it on my own time. That afternoon the truck came back in and was pulled into the shop. I jumped into the cab and started turning on and off all of the lights. The corner I worked on worked perfectly, the front left, which I didn't touch, didn't work. I called my boss out and showed him my work was fine, it was the other side that didn't work. I crawled under the truck and show the boss the crappy wiring was cobbled together like the side was before I worked on it. The boss got a smile on his face and told me to fix the left side like I did the right side and it was going to be a time and material charge to the owner. The boss didn't apologize for reaming my butt out or even a thanks for getting the shop more business.

I know own a business where I build and install industrial control systems for larger industrial equipment. I wire my own vintage vehicles without a problem and it's done the correct way.

 

I would like my drag coupe re- wired. Anybody want to do it? I hate wiring!

 

Sorry, my spool of wire ran out before hitting the neighbors house.

 

I could do it with “short pieces of different types of wire pieced together including a length of two conductor lamp cord.”

 

Back in the late 70's when I moved back to Washington from Texas and found out that my buddy was as much into cars as I was we were on the way to a laborday weekend rod run and the tail lights on his 29 roadster weren't working and it was getting a bit too dark to run without them. I checked the bulb and got out my test light and no power, started tracing the wires and the guy who had done a lot of work on it and wired it for him had used all read wire because the story went that he got a great deal on several large spools of red automotive wire. That trouble shooting took a bit longer than it should have but we got it working and went on to the party.
I've got a 77 C 30 flatbed that has been my haul or tow what ever I need to rig for several years. It never leaves the place unless it has a job to do because at around 8K empty it doesn't get enough gas mileage to write home about.
I went over the pass to Marysville a few years ago and bought a boat and checked the turn signal and stop lights and they worked but didn't check the tail lights. Got back up to North Bend were we often stop for dinner when we are in the truck and towing something and when we got ready to go I did a walk around and no tail lights. I've cleaned it up a bit and still have to cut everything out and start over but the trailer connector was wired with a length of SO cord and the lights were wired with the flat yellow three strand extension cord that is popular with contractors. The truck did duty for a roofing outfit that I think also were involved in putting the hoist on it. The hinges are more than a bit suspect. I've got to get a buddy of mine to look at that and figure out a way to make it a bit better.

 

What... no wire nuts?

 

Those cost extra!

 

At work around 1989, I was thrown into the world of harnesses and cables. All I knew about wire, it was a metal coated with plastic and had 2 ends. They fired the previous "expert" and I was on my own, really into the deep end without a paddle. My boss told me it was easier to grow an expert than to try to find another.

So I worked on a of cable designs, simple stuff to start with. I wrote our formal manual on flex cable assembly. I got familiar with workmanship standards, saw a lot of electrical equipment being assembled, the right way. By the time 1993 came around, I was designing coaxial harnesses for an EF111 chassis. I cut my teeth on test set wiring, non-deliverable for the most part.

By the time I retired in 2020, I had designed many cables and harnesses. Since we outsourced all our cable work, the drawings had to be bulletproof. I got into missile launchers and bomb racks in 2005 when we moved to a new facility. Most of my work was new designs, from scratch.

The level of detail bordered on insanity, but it helped me with wiring my Ford. Everything had to look right, leave no opportunity for a cut or chafed wire. We had at work shelves with out-of-date items, wire, shrink sleeving, solder sleeves, you name it. We were encouraged to take it for home use.

 

Some of you old timers might remember this build I did with a young guy who was in the Maryland HAMBers.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/happy-hamber.783629/
I had been working at a chassis shop ( where the Carrillo Roadster was restored ) for a while when I was asked to help on this 53 Chevy. It was my second wiring job from scratch. Since the steering column in the car did not have the standard Chevy wiring clip , I had to do each wire separately. When Jesse, the owner saw how far I had gotten, he wanted to see proof that it worked. Clicked on the parking lights, SUCCESS; clicked on the headlights, SUCCESS; clicked on the right turn signal , SUCCESS, turned on the left turn signal ….BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, the horn blew. Easy fix but scared the hell out of Jesse.

 

Just remembered a '46 Ford I wired up several decades ago. 6 volt. Did the whole car with 14 gauge black wire for the smaller circuits, and 10 gauge red wire for the heavy ones. I imagine that it would have been hard to trace where all the wires went but that was what he wanted.