So I am making some repairs to my 69 coupe (with auto transmission, power windows and A/C). At some point in this car's past, most fusible links melted and there has been some general carnage of the wiring system. I am now working to repair those issues.

Without going into all the carnage, however, here is my question:
In the next two pictures you will see (slightly out of focus - sorry) a black plug that connects into the steering column. The top wire is an orange wire that connects to a fuse in the fuse panel. The wire on the left is a red wire that provides power from the battery.
My small screwdriver is pointing to an empty slot (and there is yet another empty slot beneath it as well).
Do any 69 Corvettes have any wire connected here, and if so, what does it power and what color is it?

Steering column ignition plug

Below is another view of the same plug.

Steering column ignition plug


Below is a partial picture of the wiring diagram. The slot I am pointing to on the wiring diagram is the same as the one above.

Wiring Diagram

So again, do any 69 Corvettes have any wire connected here, and if so, what does it power and what color is it?
(If there was something connected there, I'd assume it would be optional equipment since the wiring diagram does not show it)

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

 

I don't think so but can only definitively speak of my 69 and another 2 I am familiar with, and none of those had any additional wires in that plug.

Bill

 

Here is a picture of the ignition switch connectors from my '69. 4 spd with air but no elec windows. Those two empty slots are the same as mine.
I am glad to see someone using the wiring diagram that I drew and put out on the forum.

 

HawkRod, Since you apparently have your dash torn apart can I get you to check what color wire is in the connector with the green circle? I am pretty sure that it is RED.
Somehow, I must have missed that when I had my dash apart and it is such a miserable job getting it all back together I have no intention of pulling it apart again if I don't have to.
Do the rest of the wires match what is in your connector? Does the PURPLE wire have a WHITE Stripe? I will edit my wiring diagram.

 

Thank you Bill, this reinforces my belief of the goofy stuff that was done to my wiring harness - more on that below...


Your wiring diagram is amazing and MUCH appreciated! I have the black and white diagram but it is much more of a pain in the butt to follow. When I found your diagram I immediately downloaded it and printed it on 4 sheets of paper that I glued together. THANK YOU for taking the effort to make the diagram!!!

With regards to your picture: This matches what Bill said above. Again, some pretty severe and strange butchery has happened to my car's wiring. So far I have found four melted fusible links, and some very questionable wiring changes. One case where wiring was changed is the wipers had the interlock as well as the wiper override switch under the dash rendered useless. I believe (but have not 100% verified yet), that someone disconnected the one red wire from the wiper override switch plug (simply by popping out the metal connector from the plastic housing) and then connected it (clicked it onto) to the ignition switch in the place that I asked about. Why someone did this I have no idea.
With a bit more verification, I plan to put that wire back where it belongs, and everything I saw and checked with the wiring seemed to tell me there should be no wire plugged where I asked. I feel fairly confident I can now move this wire back, but will do some additional checking to verify before I do.


It will be my pleasure to check the wires. I was away yesterday and today, but I will check the wires tomorrow and post back what I find.
I can tell you with certainty that the purple wire in my dash (that was cut and went to this connector) DID have a white stripe/ trace on it. So in other words, for the neutral safety switch (be it automatic or for the clutch), wire that goes to the switch will have the trace on it. Wire afterwards that goes to the starter will not.

Again, thanks for your efforts with the wiring diagram!

P.S. If you'd like to follow the resurrection of my Corvette, see this thread:
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...awakening.html

 

@robertea
Sorry it took me a couple of days to get the wiring checked. The Corvette was stuck on my lift with a car below it so I wasn't able to get to the wiring checks until today.

I have pasted a partial picture of your wiring diagram below. Below that are actual pictures of my wires. Some notes based on my observations:

1. Your wiring diagram shows the wire that feeds the neutral safety switch as being PPL (purple). The wires that feed the neutral safety switch and the clutch safety switch are purple with a white trace. The wires that connect downstream of the switches are purple without a trace.
2. I didn't mark this on the diagram below, but look at the purple dashed wires that feed the neutral safety switch. The top wire should be 12 PPL/W (I didn't show that it is 12 gauge, I simply labeled it as PPL/W). Note that the wire below is marked 20 PPL. This should be 12 PPL (not 20).
3. The center wire (that you circled in green in your request to me) is indeed a red wire. It looks like a 12 gauge wire like the rest.
4. The remainder of colors shown on your wiring diagram related to these plugs are correct as you have drawn them.

Note changes in red - also described above.



My 69 Corvette white ignition switch plug. Wire colors are purple with white trace, pink, brown, and the center wire is red. Note that this picture shows a purple wire that I spliced in. This purple wire does not have a white trace but is supposed to. Just a few inches up the wiring loom (now hidden by tape) it connects directly to a purple wire with a white trace.



My 69 Corvette black ignition switch plug. Wire colors are red and orange.

I hope this is helpful - feel free to ask for any additional questions while I have a instrument cluster out!

 

I followed your link and what I can see is that you seem to have a fairly solid Vette. After 54 years a lot can happen to the originality of a car. You have a lot of cleanup to do, but that can usually be done over time.
When I bought mine a long time ago it had been sitting under an apple tree for 2 1/2 years and had four inches of water in the interior plus the nose was damaged on the right side. I have done most of the work myself except for body work and paint.
Painted 40 years ago and it still looks good enough to win trophies. Here is a picture of my dash apart and then back together. The other picture is what I did to try and get the harness to fit back under the dash.
I put a ty-wrap on the harness to try and put a bend in it to go over the steering column. I think it helped.
Putting the Driver's side dash together is a royal pian in the butt. I think I tried about 20 times before I got everything located where the panel would go together without forcing anything. Parts are expensive if you break any of them.
I am in the process of editing the wiring diagram and when finished I will post it on the Forum again. It is a continuing work in progress and people find something else that GM didn't get correct. I have made a number of changes to the original B/W drawings.
It will take a couple of days to edit the file as I have to do it in sections and then paste it all together. The file is so large that I can't find a program to edit the entire file in at one time. Some programs will open it and then indicate that they reduced to file dimensions for my benefit.

 

First, thanks for your efforts to have a good wiring diagram and for sharing it with folks on the forum. I certainly am benefitting from your work!

I also appreciate the picture of your harness before you put everything back together. I will try to emulate that to make the job a bit easier when I put the instrument cluster back in. The biggest question I am mulling over now is how much to clean up the instrument panel. One part of me wants to just throw it back in there, while the other part feels like I should clean it up as much as I can since I have it out. I'll probably default to the latter, but it's just more work to do. Sigh. Well, it will keep me busy and out of trouble!

 

Since you have the drivers side dash panel out I would go through the extra work to clean it up. I disassembled mine and cleaned the lenses and made sure there was no dust on the gauges and then reassembled them.
One thing you might want to do is replace all of the bulbs since they probably have been there since new. I bought some from the local auto parts store and discovered that they were made in China. The pins that hold them in place were not formed very well and they could fall out of the sockets very easily and then be inside of the gauge. That is a big problem as it will rattle around inside. I went to the local Chevy dealer and asked if they still carried the bulbs and he said they did not have them, but would order them for me. Took two days and I had a box of ten bulbs and the bases were perfect and they fit correctly. They were also cheaper than buying the Chinese bulbs. Put them in the dash and then decided to replace the ones in the center console also since it was apart. Had to buy another box of bulbs. The GM number is 9417863.
If you use a ty-wrap like in my picture, when you are putting the dash back together you need to cut the ty-wrap just before you put the panel back in. Before you get the panel completely in you should test the dash lights to make sure that none of the sockets have fallen out of the holes. Also check the sockets to make sure that the metal retainer is not separating from the plastic holder. I had to replace a n8umber of the sockets. I made the wires a little longer than the original to give me a little extra room to get my hands behind the panel before I buttoned it up.
I think I have made all the changes that I know about to the wiring diagram, now comes the fun part of putting the pieces together and have them line up correctly. I should be putting it on the forum in a couple of days.

 

Thanks for the additional notes and suggestions. When I redid the gauges in the center, I replaced all the bulbs with LED. Not particularly cheap, but so far they look pretty good and are nice and bright (but not too bright). I will probably replace these bulbs with LEDs as well. I'm sure putting this panel back in will be a lot of fun, but pulling it out was absolutely worth it. Once I get the wiring to where I believe all is fixed, then I'll start the reassembly.

 

I have compiled the wiring file and put it out on the Forum under "C3 General". The title is "Updated 1969 Wiring Diagram" and the file name is "1969 Corvette Wiring 2Dec2023.pdf"
Thanks for your help. If you find anything else let me know.

I can't believe it took GM so long to lengthen and fix how they routed the harness on the 68 - 70 Vettes. The guys on the assembly line must have hated getting the dash in until the figured out the best way to get it in quickly. Now on the latest vehicles they install the pretested entire dash as one piece and it takes them about 30 seconds.

 

Great job and thanks for the effort guys!