Exactly right. I would make everything stock again and then I would know what I had.
The car runs so it must be jumpered somewhere but it doesn’t look to be right there to me does it to you? You’re saying the two red wires going into the female side need to be connected to the thick wire going into the male side?
What would be really nice an ideal is if there was a reproduction stock wiring harness that I could buy that had instructions with it that I could install as I took this one out so I would really know what the heck is going on here and do it as I go so I don’t forget anything and can figure it all out. Or if there was some kind of exchange program where I could buy a restored harness and tach, then send my garbage in once I have it removed and if usable receive a refund of any core charge.
If you were to actually start to take your dash apart to get the wiring harness out you would understand that trying to put a replacement harness in as you take the old one out is a terrible idea. You would be swimming in a sea of wires and trying to keep everything straight would be a real PITA. It really is not that hard a job to do. The plugs are mostly all unique to the location they go to. Just match up the size, shape and color of the connectors. And as suggested before by others take a bunch of photos as you take things apart. Then you can reference them as you put a harness back in place.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
I wouldn’t have them both there at the same time. I should have phrased it differently. What would work ideally for me would be to have a new wiring harness on hand already before I remove mine for peace of mind more than anything else. That way I can look at them both side by side and see everything and also see all the things that need to come apart. Once it’s out I can immediately start putting in the new one with no lapse of time between taking it out and putting a new one in. Also don’t risk losing a harness in the mail and being SOL without any wiring at all. Basically I would like to buy and have on hand the replacements before removing and sending mine off. Buy the new pieces pay the core up front then return mine and if it’s usable have the core refunded. Like buying a battery putting it in then taking the core back to the store for a refund. Sorry if that doesn’t make sense, but that would make me way more comfortable with everything.
Hard to imagine that yours couldn’t be fixed by someone with a copy of the shop manual, soldering iron, solder, wire, and heat shrink tubing. But replacements are readily available. All that you need is a credit card.
I can’t speak for others that do rebuilds, but the quality of cores can vary widely so the idea of swapping out cores is full of risk for the re-builder, and the customer. You may send in a far better harness than what is sent out to you. When they rebuild your core you know what your are getting. Just take lots of good pictures as you remove the old one. You will be far better equipped than trying to remember how it was. Get a cheap tablet that you can take into the car with you to display the pics on reassembly. This is a technique you will use on many things.
Unfortunately they are not.
Given that the Cougar under dash harness is not reproduced, the quickest way to resolve your wiring problems is to get that harness out of the car and to a rebuilder/refurbishment business. If your harness can be repaired should be turned around in a few weeks- if it is beyond repair then you have to find another used harness to have it checked out. Working with 50 year old wiring it makes sense to have a qualified person go through a harness before it is installed. If you have to source another harness, it will likely add more downtime and expense to getting this wiring in a condition where you can use the car.
My quickest although not safest option would be to fix or replace my tach since the car runs and everything else works with the current hack job of a harness and this is an early build harness so I may be stuck with what I have anyway. It ain’t pretty but it works. I’ve redone clocks before with quartz conversions. If I can find a source replacement internals I think I may be able to fix the tach myself.
The scary thing is that it shouldn’t be running and it looks like there is some evidence of overheating.
Looked over Rktmns wiring diagrams and troubleshooting instructions. I removed the tach from the cluster and tested it with a 9V battery and the needle moves when connected to a battery. I’m thinking this may be a connectivity issue and that my tach is actually good it’s just not getting the voltage or signal it needs to work.
Ok, that makes much more sense to me.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
Given the state of your wiring, I would be surprised if it WASN’T a connectivity issue. And then to further complicate the picture, it is not a factory tach and does not connect up like the factory tach. Bill makes a good point that the car shouldn’t be running without a factory tach plugged in or a jumper between the pink resistance wire and the two red w/stripe wires at the two-terminal tach connector in your picture. The fact that it is running means that the coil “bat” terminal must be getting power from somewhere else that is probably bypassing the tach.
It is a factory tach converted to a three wire that hooks up like the ones Rktmn does even though it’s not one he did and the wires are not the same color he uses it’s the same concept. The wires must be jumped some where I’ll have to look this weekend and try to figure out where. What are the other possibilities where the coil bat terminal could get it’s power from if a jumper isn’t a part of the equation?
Ok, sorry I missed the part about tach being a three wire conversion. Lots of possibilities for where they might have wired switched battery power to coil. Since you have a new engine harness available, you could try untaping your messy modified one to see if you can figure out what they did under the hood. No way to see all the mods made to dash harness without pulling dash though.
I agree that you probably need to send in both main headlight (engine bay) harness and underdash. I happen to have at least 2 refurbishable 69 XR7 underdash harnesses if yours is beyond repair (replace yours if you send yours in). You’d end up with a factory correct underdash harness with a 2 year warranty for $175; compare that price to what WCCC offers for that model and they are out of stock. I can also made modifications for your three-wire aftermarket tach, providing signal, power and ground leads. As for the headlight harness, I have to dig through 2 bins to see if I have a Cougar XR7 version (I believe I do) as I don’t inventory anything except underdash harnesses.
I’m all about going back factory correct, however, and I’m not sure why I feel the way I do, but for my own peace of mind I would want to have a new refurbished plug and play harness in hand before I take mine out and send it somewhere. Possibly because the one I have works despite it’s botched appearance. Everything works but the tach.
That’s up to you, but the amount of time between you pull it and re-install mine will be only 2 weeks, mostly due to shipping. A few customers do as you want, but with mid-year running changes, there’s no guarantee that what I send you will be an exact duplicate of what you should have.
To put your mind at ease for a bit, I am in the process of moving across town (complicated move with the business) and won’t be available for harness work until at least mid-May. You can stew upon your path forward until then. G
I had some time today. I thought most of the issues seemed to be centered around the ignition switch and associated wiring so that’s where I started.
My letter, color and number references are based on what is listed in the OEM wiring diagrams and shop manuals.
A-Large Black Green Wire (297) - on mine this wire is merged into a red and black wire Accessory hot when key is in ACC and Run
B-Large Yellow Wire (21) cut but connected back to the same color and size wire. Constant hot wire.
PO - Purple wire (977A) cut but connected back to the same color and size wire. Prove out. Hot when key in start position.
Next terminal not used has no reference letter or number but had a red/white stripe wire attached to the back side and it’s capped off with a red crush on wire connector
C-Red Green (16) wire has been cut and connected and merged into a black wire as well as a green wire. The black wire runs off and is connected to a white/red stripe wire that then plugs into a large pink wire that looks to go into one of the outer most terminals on a 3 prong connector. Coil power to coil in run position.
On the back side the wire is red with a white stripe. This same 3 prong has two other wires. One white with red stripe and the other red with blue or green stripe. These two wires are cut and don’t connect to anything.
The large pink wire directly connects to a red with white stripe wire that is routed to the orange twist on electrical connector that brings the red wire from the Pertronix as well as the light blue with black stripe wire that routes to the bat side of the coil.
I believe this is the 3 prong connector on the wiring diagram with wires (39) - red/white, (31)- white/red and (16) red/green or blue as all the wires appear red likely due to age.
S-Red/Blue (32) cut but connected back to the same color and size wire. Power to starter and coil in start position.
The tach connector with a large pinkish brown wire (16A) and 2 red possibly striped (16) wires is completely unused.
Original tach converted to 3 wire has a red, white and dark blue wire. The white wire is a ground that was grounded to the metal lower dash, the red wire is a power wire that was routed to the fuse box large accessory terminal and the dark blue wire went into the engine compartment and ultimately connected to the Dist side of the coil.
Dark blue signal wire from tach converted to 3 wire goes to Dist side of coil directly from tach
Wired blue signal wire from tach directly to dist post on coil under hood, wired red wire to battery and white wire to ground. Tach worked.