I have looked at many wiring posts to find some help with wiring my 49 Chevy but need some suggestions from some who have wired these up. I would like to run the wires up the A-pillar and across the roof to the trunk but I don't seem to have a space big enough to get all the wires through. I kinda wanted to stay away from under the carpet so the wires didn't get pinched. How have you done this job? All suggestions are welcome. thanks, Bill
If you want to run them under the carpet, Dynamat the floor leaving a channel to lay the wire harness in. The carpet and pad will leave a smooth look. Choose a place for the channel where there is less foot traffic, such as the base of the trans tunnel on the passenger side. Craig
Why not run a piece of conduit tack welded along side of the driveshaft tunnel and run the wires inside of it? If it's to high flatten it a little with a big hammer to make it oval.
I ran mine up the a-piller and over the top of the door and 1/4 window. Get some of the ribbed plastic tubing and run them in that to prevent any rubbing of the insulation
Also look some GM cars that run a bunch of wires in a flat ribbon through a simple rubber tunnel under the carpet.
From memory, the rubber channel stuff is flat on the bottom and has a slight hump like a door jamb on top, contains a space roughly 1/4" high and 2 or 3 inches wide, and pops open on one side. It goes unde carpet with no groove needed in floor, and I've see it in cars from about 1970 t0 1990.
I think on mine I'd just run them across the floor and use one of those plastic channels the 70s GM cars use. Maybe something smaller, since those channels are pretty tall. But if you just have wires for dome light, taillights and backup lights, that aught to fit through the A-post. You'd need a snake of some sort to pull the whole works through. Where did the stock wires run? That's the answer.
inside the left jamb, under the sill plate is best. Thats probably where they were originally anyway.
Like Phat Rat said, run some flexible conduit up above door, if you pull a spare wire then you can always add wires later if needed
Trailer parts houses will usually have bulk sheathed wires like this. Some have the flat siamese cable for your normal tail lights etc.. A gas tank sending unit wire may need to be added. Personally I don't see the need to go through the roof. The factory guys are a lot smarted than I am and they never saw any value in it. The flat stuff secured with 200MPH tape under the carpet should last a life time.
I have done it many times. Usually I will attach the new wires to one of the old ones, and with a little persuasion, you can successfully acomplish pulling the old wiring out and at the same time lay in the new. It helps to have someone on the other end to help feed the new wiring in carefully so it won't hang up some where. J.
We tried pulliing them last night. We had snaked an old ebrake cable down the pillar and taped a couple of wires to it. They wouyld pull up to the top and then catch on something. As far as I could reach with my fingers I could find a pretty good size hole but something would catch the wires. And that was just with 3 wires. The harness I have has several more so I don't think it will go. I was just interested in how others had done it. I think the original wiring was only 3 or 4 wires...tail lights, dome light, fuel sender, and stop lights and it did go through the a-pillar.
Mile - enlist the help of an electrician buddy, and have him show you how to make a 'head' on your wires so that they'll pull up smoothly. If you were close, I'd show you how. You can also use a parafin based lubricant to help get it through. I like to use heat shrink for a little extra protection for my wire bundle when pulling through a pillar or something similar. Good luck.
I'd be afraid of the sharp edges inside the pillars with no way to secure the wire from moving and wearing on those sharp edges.
In my 46 coupe they ran up the a pillar. Same for my 50 coupe. I use wire from the local industrial electrical supply store here. I can get pretty much as many wires as I would like in what ever gauge I need all wrapped in a shielded shieth. Looks like the stuff used on a trailer, but cheaper and is double protected. If your not going for many lights in the rear and the amp load is going to be small, you can run smaller gauge wire in a shielded prebound cord. Say you needed 6 or 7 wires you could get them in 20 gauge, and shielded that is not much bigger than most extenion cords, 3/8" or so diameter. If you were running a higher amp load, you can get the same style cord with one or two wires in a larger gauge. Making it easy to use a relay or two in the trunk if need be.
I don't think you will have any problems running under the carpet. I did this in my 48 some 25 years ago and never had a bit of trouble, and the car has been extensively used. I lay them fairly close to the step plates, so they are rarely stepped on. When working on the car (if I have to pull back the carpet) I can see that there is no damage to the wires.
i ran mine up the A pillar. took a clothes hanger fished it thru the holes all the way down to the fuse box.fish hooked the end. taped the wires real good about two inches. pulled real careful. worked with no problems. even ran the dome light wires thru there later on.
I used a coat hanger on my buddys '52. We got tail lights, rear speakers, and air bag wires up the a piller. I bundled them all together then heat shrinked them. It was a pain and I was about to give up and then they popped through. Keep trying, Cory
Well I made the decision to go with it on the floor. I found this falt snap together plastic conduit at the Ace. I put the wires in a flixible loom from the fuse panel and then the piece of flat conduit was the exact length needed from the front to just in front of the rear seat. I'm having trouble getting the rear seat back in but I think the wires will run right up under the lip of the seat. All of this will be covered with the carpet. I'm going to get a couple of metal straps to screw into the floor panel so the conduit doesn't shift. I plan of insulating around it and then the carpet should lay right over it. Fron the plastic conduit I ran the wires into the loom again all the way into the trunk. Now I just need to wire everything up.
Reviving an old thread here. Has anyone had any success pulling these wires through the A-pillar? I spent about three hours with a coat hanger trying to do this on my 54 chevy. I was able to get two wires through (one at a time), but as soon as i tried any more, it would just get hung up. My wife felt bad for me and went to the store to buy me one of those wire fishing tools. I still haven't tried it with the tool, but i was thinking about lubing it with some grease and having another go at it.
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