Technical How many hours would it take to wire a '32 Ford?

One could purchase a kit from any of the usual vendors and get it done over a weekend, but that would be a quick and dirty, plug and play job where nothing is trimmed to suit and everything is left terminated as-is from said vendor and the excess wiring tucked away. You see this a lot and it usually results in the mess that you're probably picturing.

A wiring job where everything is routed cleanly and terminations made from scratch would take 30-40 hours as others have mentioned.

I'm about halfway through a job now that will probably come in around 50-60 hours, but that's with about 10 "on the bench" building the panel, concentric twisting, bundling, and drawing the diagram, etc. Everything will get wrapped in loom once in the car.

 

Where did you get your wiring kit?
Thank you
Terry aka dirt t

 

A lot has to do with how you route the wire, how you fasten it down, how you cover it, etc.. I've done jobs where every foot of the looms (front to rear) is encased in heat shrink tubing. It takes a lot of planning to make sure you have exactly the right number of wires going to every device . . . and it is very easy to forget that you have a gas-tank sending unit in the back . . . or a special 3rd brake light, or you want a sound system in the car, speakers, etc.. It all adds up in the end. With a good starting wiring panel (like something from Ron Francis), I'm thinking 60 hours would be about right.

 

The amount of hours will be determined by how flexible you are

 

Cheap job or good job?cheap job will not be good, a good job will not be cheap.

 

I know you can wire money just about anywhere.......wow technology is amazing...we can now wire a 32 Ford ....what da ya know...

 

Coach controls is very nice stuff.

 

Coach Controls

Agreed!

 

I remember a great debate on wether to solder or crimp wires.... I wonder if that’s going to come up again?

 

As long as one side doesn't try to prove to the other side their way is better , it should be a non-issue .

 

My Ford was likely around 40 hours and another 20 for all the terminations. Having the kit made it was easier. I had something like 50 wires and 10-12 circuits that I used.

I did it a little at a time. I had the dash out which helped. I just ran across the harness "board" that I made up. I used the steering column as a "datum" and worked the break-outs off that. I split out what went past the firewall into 3 or 4 bundles. Out to the back of the car was only 1.

Really, the hardest part is where to run the main bundle and how to anchor it, that and the fuse panel.

 

It Took Me All Week But That Included 9 Trips To Town...Plan Ahead...

 

Op asked Wire a " 32 " , I would say a shop would charge $500- $1200 labor
Its a pretty simple / easy wire ,,
If it was not for Electric windows its all simple .
Including Trains Brake , Electric fan.
If body has Full Interior the hardest part is going to be the Dome light !! Wire on passenger side @ door seal, up B pillar to switch and then across the wood to the dome light.
Pulling dash makes it much easier , 10 mints to pull dash , If it has a tunnel adds little more time.
It makes it easier if you take before you start sit down and draw what needs to go to the front of the car goes & to the rear of the car,
If you're using like a 22 circuit premade universal wire harness that's complete lay it on the floor/table and separate what goes to the front what goes to the rear.
I look at its how motivated you are want to get the job done and you can still do a nice job heat shrink ,wire ties, Some things take others hours , some Years ,

 

There is a lot of time involved in just planning to correctly wire a car from scratch. Almost all the kits use GM color coding for the wires for a reason. Those color codes for primary circuits never changed in in the past 69 years for the most part. The purple wire is still going to go to and do what the purple wire did 60 years ago. The color coding for the wires to the tail lights is the same. That is hell for important when you are on the side of the road and it's getting dark and some damned fool wired the whole frigging car with red wire because he got a great deal on some big spools of red wire.

The only car I have wired from scratch is my T bucket back in the 70's and I have no idea of how much time I had in the wiring as I spent an hour or so an evening on it when I had an hour or so to work on it. That was about as simple a wiring job as you could do on a legal street driven car as you can get. It had no accessories not even a small radio and the only electric gauge was the amp meter. Gauges came in a three gauge set from the parts house , speedo was a swap meet find and the fuel tank had a mechanical gauge off some sort of farm equipment. outside of ignition, charging, starting and lights there wasn't much of anything else. I spent more time figuring out how I was going to do it so it looked right than the actual work.

 

I doubt it.
Depends do NOT make a very nice interior.

 

Arrrg

 

The hardest part of wiring my avatar was committing to cutting the wire to terminate…..cut it too short and that circuit is toast.

 

Blown hemi & transbrake in a '32 ford and you're concerned how long it'll take to wire it?

 

5 days. Ive done some simple ones a day quicker.

 

4 or 5 hours - no running for beer, no T.V., no honey do's

 

I always love it when these threads come up. What does it take to paint a car? What's a 3 bedroom house cost? So many varibles. I've been professionally wiring cars for over 40 years. I've stripped out and redone many 2 day jobs. All of the above posts present good comments. Anyway, a basic job 40 hours. If it takes less, happy customer.

 

Don't forget time spent mounting components, fuse box, relays, ect.

 

........

 

It could be handy on long trips though. Then get the car detailed.

 

The 2 toughest things on wiring my car was the placement of the fuse panel and the dome light. It was on the big side and the car never came with one. I made up a plate to mount it to.

The dome light from the factory had one wire and the socket mounting tab was the ground. The kit used 2 wires. I snaked a new wire up the a-pillar (white wire) and had to connect the jamb switched across the bottom on the dash (black wire).

 

And that's for someone WITH experience .

 

Some people have been wiring their cars for 30yrs..

 

I can wire it in 39 1/2 hours

 

The 1st time ever wiring any car, a week of actual wiring time. Maybe more. Some people shouldn't touch wiring at all. A grasp of wiring concepts is important. Being able to understand and follow well written wiring diagrams is also important, take any one of those 3 things out can make a mess quickly.

The 15th time doing the same type of car with the same type of wiring harness, about 1/2 that time. Maybe less.

How complex the "wiring job" is, has a huge effect on how long it takes to wire a car. A simple "make it run" point ignition can be pretty quick and easy. Every electrical device you add above that increases the time, effort, and complexity.

A pretty, orderly, wire job takes longer then a tangled mess takes.

Removing, installing, or working around an interior is over and above the wiring time.

 

About a dollar and a half.