Has anyone replaced all the wiring in their car? Any idea how much work or how expensive this will be? Is there a re-wire kit anywhere? I know I have a few shorts in my wiring. I was pulled over one night because absolutely no lights were working on the rear half of my car. I went out the next day to investigate and repair but they were working again. Thanks.
I've heard of people using universal kits from Painless Performance but I've never used one myself. I think they're around $700.
About the only other choice you have would be to find someone with a good used wiring harness. There are three main wiring kits that come in the car. Under dash, under hood, rear body. All three kits connect together. The only one that is a little hard to change out is the under dash one. A little time consuming but fairly simple. Much much much less time and expense that an aftermarket wiring kit. On the other hand, the aftermarket kits are much much much nicer than the originals. They will allow you to run many accessories and will have a modern fuse box that will be easy to work with once installed. I guess it just depends on how much time and money you wanna spend.
I just ripped the old harness out and built new wiring for the entire car. It is a very time intensive job without a kit of somekind.
I saw some old assembly line pics of how they built wiring harnesses. Really neat stuff that I would never have thought of. The master jig is what amounts to a sheet of plywood with nails all over it to hang the wires over and route them around to different components. When all the wires hang over or end at all the right pegs (nails), then they wrap the individual 'legs' of the harness together in groups. One could build a really nice custom harness this way. Would take some pretty serious forethought to make it perfect. Sorta like the 'measure twice, cut once' theory... I'd hate to overlook a wire and figure it out after I'd wrapped the harness together.
i been thinking about modifying a fox mustang harness ..... i hate having to go to the parts store every 2-3 months just for new fuses and wait 1-2 days for them to get the right ones instock in the worst case. not to mention if you get the right harness you can put more luxury items in "pwr windows/locks, efi is easyer ti install delayed wipers and much more"
My car is down for paint and I've got/had all three harnesses out for mods and inspection. Aside from some obvious weak points (p!ss-poor fuseblock & location, all headlight current thru switch, all keyed 12V power thru ign. switch), the harnesses are pretty well designed and worth keeping. I removed the factory fusebox for updating/relocation, and modded for relays and additional non-factory stuff. I was lucky enough to score a spare dash harness with an extra fusebox for $5.00 off E-Bay last year (IIRC, my bid was for $50) so I had enough spare wire to make my mods and keep all the factory wire colors. For straight replacement, I'd stick with factory stuff if you can find it. Most guys parting out cars never give a thought to the wiring, but it should be one of the first things on the keeper list! Good wiring is as essential as rust-free torqueboxes! Russ
Oh.....I save all the wiring...but I VERY RARELY sell any. Sometimes I wonder why I keep all this stuff. "Someday" somebody might need it.
If you take the harness out and staple it to a board you cut it open and replace each wire in it and have a brand new harness! You could also add a couple of "spare" circuits for those things you may want to add later. As for the fuse box, cut it out and install one that uses the blade type fuses. The fuse blocks run about $30 - $80 and you can just connect your new wires to it.
