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

I was reading about a new members first wiring attempt and recalled a long forgotten experience having to do with wiring.

Funny story, almost 50 years ago I went to look at a 1940 Ford coupe, the only reason I drove the 200 miles is because there were no photo's, just a small advertisement in a buy,sell & swap weekly publication.

The guy painted a pretty picture on the telephone, regrettably his description was when he was wearing rose colored glasses, the paint job appeared to have been applied with a pine top, the carpet was astro turf & the engine smoke , I could go on & on but the real shocker ( excuse the pun) was the wiring, it was all black and he had used wire nuts, yeah the type used in commercial house wiring.

I passed. HRP

 

Still run into that. We had an MGTD in the shop a while back that had been rewired with nothing but purple wire and a bag of wire nuts.

 

Makes it easy to stick the test probe into!!

 

But would someone buy it today in that condition?

 

years back I bought a Hot Rod '38 Chevy Coupe. from one of those no picture ads. took a picture of it with me to work to show a buddy. He said that he had gone to look at it but, passed because of odd ball wiring, etc. the low price that I paid made it worth going through and fixing the glitches.

 

Well there was that time with the 62 CJ5, the spool of red 12 gauge industrial wire, and no fuse box ( okay so it was more than once... kept letting the smoke out).

But I'm much better now.

 

I'll play ...
Internationals made the transition from fabric/rubber covered wire to plastic mid 1950s ... the color code was simple - all wire will be green, marked with chalk.
The very few '60s Japanese cars I was forced to work on used all red with no marking.

 

With everything being equal, yeah I would, it did have a straight body and you can't buy a nice coupe body for 2K anymore. HRP

 

I’m doing a complete re-wire of my 40, I went through most of the engine wiring I corrected last year .

what makes me laugh is the rest of the car was done to a high standard of quality , then the wiring was part original 40 ford , a hacked up harness from a early 70’s mustang , some generic crap , a ton of tape and nonsense, a glass fuse box that was live all the time just makes me shake my head .

it’s all getting fixed now . I should have just used a new wiring kit last year , I didn’t and now here I am .


I also worked on an o/t vw years ago that was all white wiring

 

Not wiring issue, but I went looking at an early Falcon.
A crawl underneath showed the trans, supported with a chain.

 

Wiring never has bothered me. If it’s real bad, I’ll just tear it all out with out concern where things went.

 

Even the scrap dealers would buy it if the price is right!

 

When I built my avatar I wired the whole car with a roll of black wire but no wire nuts. All it had was lights, charging system and ignition so was fairly simple. I sold it in 1997 and I'm sure someone has cussed me since then. I've used a couple of wiring kits since then but my banger powered 30 pickup was also wired with all black in 2000. Did electrical work for 40 years and always tried to make it neat, this is under the dash in my latest project.

 

This car is advertised as having new wiring. HRP

 

Sure.

 

I’m the same , wiring does not bother me , hence why I’m rewriting the car .

what bugs me is the standard of work done on everything else was really good , and the wiring was a complete joke .

 

my 49 Chevy sedan had all red wiring, the car was green, so I rewired it all green.

 

I think maybe “all new wires” fits better!

 

I have a fledgling youtube channel Ive been playing with as a hobby, I did a video a while ago about cleaning up some wiring on a new old car purchase. I tried to show how even if things are working, you should peel back that old black electrical tape and see what kind of shenanigans the previous owners of the car stuck you with over the years. I found some very questionable connections in mine and a bunch of wiring with shielding that was well past compromised.

Wiring can look like a daunting job when you take it as a whole, but if you break it down into sections its not bad. The only part that I had to hate to try and do "custom" is the under dash stuff. That is a tough job. Physically and mentally.

There are lots of affordable kits out there from like Kwik Wire that make it easier than ever to put a whole new kit in a car. Or if you have a popular model you can probably get all new factory type harnesses. My 67 Bird has mostly new wiring from AAW. Just plug whole new sections in.

Fixing Classic Car Wiring With a 1-Wire GM Alternator on my 1962 Pontiac Catalina Safari - YouTube

 

Sometimes you want a red wire, but all ya have is black! Lol...

 

Like I see a RED door and want to paint it BLACK. HRP

 

A what?! Not even sure if that's a Southern thing or...help this Yankee out and translate, please.

 

I’m thinking pine cone, but wadda I know

 

Jeez, Danny! I can see it, it's right there. It's that green one

 

As in cutting the very top out of the pine tree and using it as a paint brush

 

Cut the top off a pine tree and use the needles and the branch as a paint brush, if you can imagine how bad that would look. HRP

 

I've seen some pretty bad cars, but some of the ones posted here over the years have exceeded the scary meter of personal viewing.
Wiring, I did a trade with a guy years back. He would do some body work in exchange for me getting his old truck working. I started gingerly removing some of the extra wires underdash, then decided that the smart way to go was REMOVE any added wire. It was pretty simple to fix a couple issues after and it worked well once all the junk was gone.
Moral of the story is any added circuits or repairs can be counted on to be the problem, not the solution if it looks like the examples shown.

 

I was thinking Pine come but this is better !


Uphere where you get a car with a paint job like you described, we say “ That car was painted with a sweater “ !!

 

Thanks. I didn't realize "low buck" went quite that low.

 

Can't remember the comedians, but I heard it as "mebbe I shoulda cleaned the broom before paintin' the car"