Do you make your own wiring harness and why?!? with poll!

Painless in the 35 & Rebel for the 46.

 

You use plywood?

I always used a product made for fuse panels,,I was lucky to have a friend that worked for a resin company that made it.

There was always some scrap. HRP

 

Wire my own since there are so few circuits needed in a hot rod...

 

It's funny the number of guys, who preach about not being a 1-800 hot rodder, but they'll drop money on a wiring kit or farm out the whole deal. Freaking classic. I wired mine myself after a T Bucketeer, who used to work for GM, convinced me to try it. Well, it worked and I only had one small fire. But it wasn't cost effective. The fuse panel was about $90, but it's nice and meant for a car with a lot of options. The wire was more than I expected, but I learned a bit about different gauges of wire and why it matters.

If I had to do it again, I'd get a 1-800 kit and do it that way. But I think everyone should do it at least once from scratch. The education will aid you in trouble shooting electrical problems on other cars as well as your own.

Another "oldie, but goodie" thread.

 

Yes, if by "wiring harness" you mean "a giant Skittles spagetti-looking clusterfuck with leads that run everywhere".

 

I'm an Electrical Engineer and I have designed and built millions of circuits in my 40 year career, but all the cars I build I buy the 'Highway 15 wiring Kit'. I like to have all the wires labeled for the future, and they make a nice compact kit with everything all planned out and nicely labeled. It's not worth my time and money making my own. It looks great and only adds value when the day comes to sell the car.

But, I'll be the first to make my own tranny mount before I buy one made to fit ......

 

Built my 31' Chevy back in 72-73 when there were very few sources for harnesses. Pulled several fuse blocks from wrecked cars and purchased spools of wire and connectors to build my own. Rod Action and Street rodder ran couple of articles with schematics that I used. Their drawings broke the car into logical units (Start-charge, lighting, accessories, etc) so I just wired one at a time..........With the quality of some of the aftermarket kits today, I would probably use one of them, just to save time.

 

I wire industrial control for a business and have literally thousands of feet of every gauge of wire from 22ga to 3ga and thicker. I'd feel like a wimp if I didn't make my own. Compared to some of the industrial stuff I wire these old car a nothing. The hardest part of wiring an old car is making sure the wires are run in the right places, like through frames and body panels. The wiring diagram I the '48-52 Ford truck manual is a great model for wiring almost any old car, very basic.

 

Im rewiring a 56 ford Victoria right now.I was a tv repairman and now working as an electronics tech for the US Govt,I enjoy doing it.Im using a REbel wire kit and very pleased with the quality.

 

Could you be so kind to explain to the clueless what hi volt gauze is? Why would I need it, who makes it etc? I'd like to add it to my glossary of electrical tearms. Bob

 

If I were doing a restoration, I'd have one made up using period materials, which is what I did with my 52 Willys M38A1.

Anything else, I make up myself. I like using modern watertight connectors and have the tooling to do so. I also like to use aircraft type push button circuit breakers. One advantage is that it's possible to disconnect a circuit by just pulling the button out.

A quick and durable way to run the harness to the rear lights and fuel sender along the frame rail is to use trailer cable. It's 6 or 7 conductor in a tough rubber jacket and is easy to use. I get it by the foot at my local trailer supply.

 

Have built many usiing a mid 80's Chrysler fuse block, 15 bucks at pick ur part two 5/16 bolts holding it in cut the harness off the back and zoomie you are set with a fuse block labeled and all the relays and fuses attached....... get some wire and go to town......

 

There you go, most of the multi-circuit panels are way overkill for a simple ol' hot rod.

 

You mean I dont need a 17 circut wiring kit for a roadster with no accessories

 

I made the harness out of wire the local surplus store had and now wish I would have looked into cloth covered wire like it originally had,if I get bored over a winter I might rip it out and start over. Lights,turn signals and a radio is all that it has and was a easy the first time.

 

with the exception of purchasing the fuse block itself, I did the whole harness start to finish for a 50 Ford. Turned out great, but its not a very complicated vehicle to wire.

Did a 57 210 the same way and it had all kinds of stereo stuff, lighting, and modern accessories. Turned out great. I just like the idea of doing it ALL on some builds.

I have also done the kits like EZwiring and Painless. I really do like them for high-quality, easy installs. Saves me a ton of soldering and labor.

 

...got any pics of this fuse block?.thanks

 

Way back when all that were available were NOS I made many of my own harnesses. For the cost of well known kits and the time saved we've rewired many cars with those kits. Mostly EZ-Wire which some hate. But any is fairly easy if you do one thing at a time then check it.

 

I like the Enos Black Box panels and get labeled wiring. I usually modify the circuits a bit. I like relays and fused links(?). ...and I like to crimp, solder and shrink wrap all connections. Only problem is I am very slow and just do one circuit at a time, thinking a lot longer about it than it takes to do the actual work. Twenty years ago, I did one car in all black wires, biggest mistake ever! Never again. Now I try to get close to GM standard colored wires for most work.

 

i went through the clasic chevy shop in Florida back many years ago, they were building wiring harnesses at the time, they had a sheet of plywood standing up on edge, on one end was the firewall pass through plug, from there all the wire went off in different directions to the lights and what have you, kinda like a spider web or a road map, pretty simple really.

 

I patched my old one enough to work, and I intend to rewire the car entirely from scratch eventually.

I work for a military wire harness manufacturer. Seems silly to let all this experience go to waste. Wiring is quite simple really, especially on a 50's car.

 

I wire from scratch because no one makes a harness to fit odd ball cars with odd ball requirements.
I use all Teflon covered wire, breakers and relays.
I make drawings of the system with notes at each terminal showing where the other end of that wire goes. No need for multi color wires.
Teflon covered wire has a big advantage in that if a harness takes a slug from a pursuing
revenooooor, you don't have a fire because it won't burn.

 

I've built more wiring harnesses than I can honestly remember. Started out on my grandpas boat. Working for my dad in his OMC dealership exposed me to what boat wiring should look like, then spending hours helping grandpa diagnose simple problems reinforced just what it shouldnt look like and why. I found it easier to just rip out the old stuff and start from scratch. Being young cocky and inexperienced (but with a confident knowlege that as a 14 year old that I knew EVERYTHING) I made a lot of dumb mistakes and melted as much wire as I successfully installed. After failing countless times (still dont remember what was so difficult for me) I had gained enough experience with the different systems on his boat, how they worked, and where they were in relation to each other, that I finally took a few existing wire looms from my dad's salvage fleet, (see junk yard) cut them apart and used the wires to make a plug and play (long before that was a thing) harness using all the correct industry std color codes, drew a rudimentary diagram just to remind myself what was what, and installed it in a single length from bow to stern in a single afternoon, and when I powered it up, it was flawless. Or more accurately, worked flawlessly despite the many many less than acceptable practices. As far as I know, that boat never needed another major electrical repair until it was sold 20 years later. (I did hear years later that it burnt to the water line after the next owner had it for a while. Remembering some of my hair brained ideas, I hope it wasn't electrical) but it became a passion for me and I went on to being the guy at NAPA that everybody went to about electrical questions which turned into a solid stream of side jobs and eventually my own harness shop in my shed which failed miserably due to my time/labor consuming obsession with details and my piss poor business sense. I entered a non automotive field for a while and almost forgot that I had the skills until by chance the boss asked me if I knew anything about wiring. I ended up doing top down rewiring jobs on several of his pieces of equipment which reawakened my passion. I'm now in the process af making a business plan to open a mobile auto electric service. Hope it goes better this time!

 

^^^^ "Burnt to the water line" that would apply to any automobile I connected a wire to, glad you have the gift. Bob