![]() When I pulled the dash tins off, revealing a bit of a rat's nest, my coach and friend said, "You can just put that right back and walk away", but I knew I could never unsee that. I bought a Panoz GTS that had been a full-time race car for about 20 years and, along the way, "Race day" repairs had been made to the wiring harness. Will you get into designing a wiring topography that isolates data circuits and their power supplies from the "noisy" side of the car that carries fan motors, ignition systems,e tc ? Also, proper grounding is crucial. proper crimping, gauges, connectors, looming, routing, etc are great and this article is addressing that part of the job. We put the final set of zip-ties around the bundles and strapped the bundles to their supports before installing the dashboard and doing one last test. We finally had a dashboard harness that wasn’t frightening. The subbundles behind the gauges didn’t start as such a mess, but we were still able to clean them up a bit.ġ7. Several times, we found ourselves adding or rerouting wires in the big bundle as we cleaned up subbundles or relocated components.ġ5, 16. Almost all the zip-ties in the picture are still temporary. Several hours later, the dash wiring was starting to look reasonably neat. We also converted their connections from four individual wires and terminals to four terminal multi-connectors sourced from Terminal Supply. Since relays fail from time to time and need to be serviced, we relocated them within easy reach. These relays were previously installed in a place completely unreachable with the dash installed. We were careful to locate the connectors and brackets in a place where they could be reached with the dash in place for future service and repair.ġ2, 13. In this case, we made some brackets to zip-tie them in place. So we strive to attach and support them to some structure. Unsupported multi-pin connectors are a pretty big sin: They’re relatively heavy and sooner or later tend to shake themselves loose, even with quality snap connections. If we couldn’t test the component, we’d use a multimeter or test light to make sure polarity and continuity were appropriate.ġ0, 11. We’d generally attach a fused power source to the subbundle and then determine that the component was working properly. As we assembled each subbundle, we did our best to test our work. This allows us to pull a subbundle from its supporting structure for service without messing up the bundle.ĩ. ![]() ![]() Note that we use zip-ties to bundle wires or attach those bundles to supporting structure, but never both at once. If, for some reason, a wire needs to be removed or added, it can be done without disturbing the rest of the bundle.įinally, we routed the wires along appropriate paths and attached them to the supporting structure. This is part of our method for simplifying future service, as any wire can be easily seen and traced. After determining appropriate lengths and reterminating wires as necessary, we neatly held together the wires in the subbundle with zip-ties, making sure they didn’t cross each other. Where we needed more information, we got out the tape and Sharpie to label things.Ĩ. The American Autowire harness had printed circuit names on the wires, so that made the job easier for us (and less reliant on a wiring diagram). Dealing with 15 to 20 circuits and a lot of colors can be overwhelming. We could then reinstall the fuse box and harness and work on routing and neatening the subbundles.ħ. We used more temporary zip-ties to keep the subbundles organized. At this point, we had the harness roughed out. Fortunately, American Autowire sells replacements, so we reterminated the wires and then neatly inserted them.Ħ. Some of our multi-wire connectors had melted. In this case, we used some temporary zip-ties to keep the bundle neat.ĥ. We de-pinned those connectors and organized the wires, making sure to keep them in the right place and not cross them. Along the way, we found some wires tangled right at their multi-wire connectors. Our neatness rules include not crossing wires keeping appropriate wires bundled together, often in subbundles and keeping lengths exactly appropriate. The easiest way to make wiring serviceable is to untangle the mess and neaten everything. We labeled and photographed everything before pulling it out so we had good references for later. After spending a little time trying to remedy things in situ, we realized we’d save time by removing the fuse box and main dashboard harness from the car. ![]() Overheated and partially melted wires and terminals had simply been left in place. Terminals ranged from quality and properly installed to tape and wire nuts. When we pulled the dashboard out of this Factory Five Coupe, we found a typical wiring mess: wires of all colors and lengths, some up to 6 feet too long, plus relays that couldn’t be serviced without removing the dashboard. ![]()
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