After some thought I decided to get a new harness. Given the wiring problems and the thought of trying to splice into a 40 year old harness, it seemed like the way to go. I ordered it from Wilcox today and with luck I will have it for the weekend.

I took a little bit of a closer look at the wiring tonight. I ran a continuity check between the solenoid post the (+) battery cable goes to and the heavy gage red wire on the horn relay - there was no connection between the two. If I'm reading the diagram right, this would be the expected result if the fusible link in question did its thing.

Any thoughts on anything that may have been damaged that I should be looking at? Is there anything I can test without having power past the starter? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

I don't have the wiring info in front of me but yes I think there is a link there. Did you check the fuse that is there in that line? The red heavy gauge wire going across to the horn relay should have a glass fuse in it and then coming out the other end the wire is orange. I think that's the way I remember it! Look by the proportioning valve under the brake master cylinder and you should find a white fuse connector! Surely someone else will chime in on this soon.


Sully

 

The fusible link worked as designed. At the worst, it may have also popped a diode in the alternator, but not real likely. The fusible links in 69, 2 right at the starter. Looking at the diagram, I don't see any others.

I replaced the 2 links in my 69, just because they looked nasty. Still working, no problems, just looked nasty. Crimped new bare connectors on, soldered them in, heat shrink tube over that, then 2 layers of Scotch 33+ electrical tape, 2 layers of red self-vulcanizing heat resistant tape, then a layer of that heat reflective tape over that. Maybe some overkill, but it's one of those things I'll never have to look at again.

 

The engine wiring harness came yesterday, and I started replacing it this morning.
Is there a torque spec for the bolt on the starter motor the ground wire goes to? It was very tight coming off.

 

The wiring harness is in, and I have ignition. I'm not sure what fixed the ignition problem, but the car seems to be running fine.

 

Roy,

That's great news. Sounds like your car just missed you and needed some attention. Glad you're back in business!

How difficult was it to change out the engine harness, on a scale of 1 to 10? How long did it take you. I am considering replacing mine. Mine has a bad resistor wire feeding the coil.

How did the wiring harness fit?

Roger

 

I had about 6 to 8 hours total invested in it --- but that was working at a relaxed pace, frequent stops to take notes and reference pictures, lunch breaks and grandkids visiting. I also had the battery, sparkplug wires and ignition shielding already removed.

It wasnt that hard technically -- more tedious than anything else. There were a lot of things that you could touch or you could see, but not both at the same time. Also, my vacuum hoses are all old and brittle, so working around them without breaking them added time.

The single hardest thing I ran into was the very first thing I tackled and that was removing the existing starter/solenoid wiring. To get at that, there is a shield that must be removed. It's held on by one bold (that also has a ground wire connection) and on the back (at least on mine) there is a threaded cylinder/barrel with a screw driver slot on the end. I'm not sure why that was used instead of a nut, but I couldn't get a screwdriver into the slot to get the fastener off. I wound up using a brass hinge (spare from my woodworking shop) that was just thick enough to fit the slot and allow me to put some torque on it. I figured the brass would give before the bolt --- the brass gave some but got it off. I probably had an hour on that one fastener.

If you replace the harness, you'll need to decide whether to pull the harness through from the passenger side to the drivers side, or vice versa. I started on the passenger side, which allowed me to drop the starter wires straight down to it, and work across the firewall. Most of the connections are in the area around the wiper motor. The problem with this method is that once you get to the drivers side, you need to work the junction box down the firewall to its mounting point. At one point, I wasnt too sure if I was going to have to pull it all out and start from the other end. I did get the junction box down through interference, but it was very tight.

If you were to start on the drivers side, you could avoid having to squeeze the junction box through that interference, but you would have to pass all the electrical connectors through that path and -- in my case -- that would have resulted in a lot of engine grease/dirt on the harness and connectors.


I dont know that I can give you a rating on this. I've only tackled a couple of things on this car since I've had it. All of them have seemed harder than needed for one reason or another.

As far as 'fit' - it matched up well with what came out. Lengths were good, colors matched the wiring diagram, connectors matched up. I'd like to think the car is close to original, but based on the battery wiring in it .... Anyway, the harness that came out was routed as shown in the Assembly Manual, and this one fit in without a problem.
Also - there was some black material on the connectors in the junction box. I wasnt sure if this was supposed to be cleaned off or not -- nothing noted in the shipped paperwork, but I was hoping it was dielectric in nature as it would have been a PITA to clean. A FAQ on Lectric site said not to clean it.