Derrick Reynolds

When I bought my car, I had starting problems, and noticed a number of sketchy splices in my engine harness. I replaced said sketchy splices with somewhat better ones, but knew that this was at best a temporary fix. Later, I had ground problems etc, so the time has come to do this right.

I ordered a new engine harness from Lectric Limited, and when it came, it didn't look ANYTHING like what I had in my car. After a weekend of reading and scratching my head, I believe the harness I have would be perfect if my car was all original. However, it is not for the following three reasons:

1. All TCS equipment has been removed from the car.
2. My original points ignition has been replaced by a Malloy infra-red unit.
3. I have replaced my original starter with a high-torque mini-starter.

So, I have two questions that I can't figure out on my own, because I admit to being weak on electricals. They are:

1. Will anything bad happen if I just leave the TCS connections unconnected? Will anything else in the car not work?

2. I'm confused on the wiring to the coil, mostly due to the Mallory. I see a green wire from the negative terminal, hooking up with a brown wire from a ground on the valve cover, and a red wire from the positive terminal going into the Mallory, and that is consistent with the wiring for a Mallory I see online. I see a black wire going from the positive side of the coil, going to what looks like a condenser at the bottom of the coil, which I think is right, but I am happy to be corrected. I see a yellow wire connected to the positive terminal of the coil and going to the starter motor (one of the connections with sketchy splices that will be replaced.

So far, all is well. But the wiring diagram, and the harness shows a yellow wire, and a wrapped red/white/blue wired going from the engine harness connection at the fuse box, to the positive terminal of the coil. What I have appears to be a blue wire from the engine harness fuse box, through a ballast resistor, and into the positive terminal of the coil. So, I feel like I should be able to connect the yellow/red white and blue wire from my new harness to the positive side of the coil, forget about that old blue wire and its physical ballast resistor (since the yellow/ red white and blue combination is a ballast wire), replace the yellow wire from the coil to the starter motor that has the sketchy splices, and call it a day.

Yet, I'm not sure. Any thoughts from the electron gurus?

flyeri

Assumption: Mallory Unilite Dist.

It sounds like you still have some wiring that was necessary for the points dist. that is not needed with your Mallory. If you will wire it exactly like the Mallory instructions show it will work correctly. You will be losing the yellow wire and the condenser also.

See Figure 1 in the link below.
http://static.summitracing.com/globa...nilitedist.pdf

EDIT: After a second look, the Mallory instructions show "all other wires connected to + side of coil." I do not have the yellow wire on mine and there is no problem with starting. If you have a resistor wire (Fig 2) the yellow wire might be needed.

Alan 71

Hi pk,
For #1, you can leave the TCS connections as they are… only the system is affected. I'd put a piece if tape over the connectors and wrap the leads to the harness so they're not just dangling.
Regards,
Alan

Derrick Reynolds

That is a better diagram than the one I was using, thanks! It looks like what I have now is what is shown in Diagram 3, and that if I change the harness the way I am thinking, I will end up with exactly what is in Diagram 2. So I think I am good to go.

Derrick Reynolds

Great! Thanks!

I was planning on taping the connections so they don't start creating unwanted connections anywhere, and zip-tying them out of the way. I would like to keep them in there, in case I ever want to go back to original.

MarkEdmondson

Consider getting the factory service manual with its wiring diagrams. I found it invaluable while replacing the engine, AC and instrument harnesses on my '70 a few years ago.

I had my dash harness repaired (it suffered from many splices from prior work) and installed a new engine and AC harness. I used a company that not only sold repro harnesses but also properly repaired (by replacing the connectors and entire length of wire, as needed) original harnesses.

If you take your time and label everything during disassembly, it's not a difficult job- IF you have the factory service manual with its wiring diagrams.

Derrick Reynolds

I have the assembly manual, with full wiring diagrams. It was VERY helpful in figuring out what I needed to do. I also ordered the AC harness, it is the next project after this one.

I bought the harnesses from Lectric Limited because folks on here raved about how accurate their harnesses are, correct color wires, correct lengths, correct connectors etc. So far, I agree with them.

Thanks!