Hot Rods Traditional wire ties

Wire lacing is fairly easy. I made a bobbin out of a chunk of brake line. Wrap the waxed cord around it and then run it through the tube. Makes it fast.

 

They fit a fairly decent wad o wires. A couple were tight so I just stretched them out a bit

 

Invented in 1958 so I guess they could be called "Traditional".

 

And unlike lacing, they allow for easy removal of you need to pull another wire or access the others. Steal away

 

Hello,

Early 1960s was a time when there were several camps in hot rods. One was custom cars. Everything in its place and show quality stuff everywhere. Not your everyday hot rod for daily drives to school or work. Those were the weekend only cars if at all, other than car shows. Now, mostly chromed stuff, including wire covers from flexible cords and curly cues.

But, that was the “other side” of hot rodding. For the normal teenager, money was tough and we could not go out to get the best stuff with tons of chrome for our engines + cars. Some kids that did had modified cruisers that looked like show cars, but were used for everyday road trips to school, beach and into the local mountains. So, wear and tear on chrome was not the most important thing.

Jnaki

For those that are not familiar with what was available, there were tons of black tape. Call it what you want. Not shiny, electricians tape, ankle wrap style of texture, etc. the sticky-ness was good, but not like some of the newer tape from today. It was there and it was up to the hot rod builder to carefully wrap the long exposed wires.

We called it half wrap. Wrap once and the next time around, the neat edge of the next turn was ½ way across the other. It took a lot of tape to keep rolling it around the long wires, if that was the object of black tape. Custom things that a specific eye would pick up upon looking at other motors and displays.

But, at least it was uniform and looked nice. If one wanted chrome tubes, the chrome shops and big box Pep Boys style, accessory shops had those. But, it was a chore to keep them clean for a daily driver. The tape was good and did not leave a sticky mess as it kept wires insulated and apart.

If the stock factory wire looms were not acceptable, then the favorite was black tape. As far as clipping them to the inner fender wells, the stock clips were available and handy. No one wrapped with fancy knot or insulated, bendable wire.

It was a simple black tape of the handy kind, names were different for different folks. As we all know by now, each section of the USA has/had their own “stuff.” This story was from the teenage West coast, So Cal teens that had nice cars, but continued to have an overabundance of ideas, but lacked money to implement them.

Then, the good looking Packard Wires were the thing to replace all factory wiring to make the best connection and using Rajah clips, an almost bullet-proof connection. YRMV