After some research, I was wondering how viable it is to replace all the under hood wiring in my '70 Cougar. There don’t seem to be many ways to get full wiring harnesses, or just pigtails from what I saw, but I was wondering if there was a shop somewhere that sold all the plugs and pigtails needed to redo the wiring under the hood. I did see one set for a '70 Mustang, however, I was unsure of how good it was and the place it was coming from since I’ve never seen any of their product or had anyone I know order from them.
(https://midwaymusclecar.com/products/1970-ford-mustang-wiring-kit-70-custom-update-wiring-harness-series-mach1-boss)
I planned on just separating all of the wires coming out of the firewall, cutting and putting new wire on all of them, and then getting new pigtails and reconnecting everything, since all of the old wiring (to my knowledge) works, however it’s just old, cracked or exposed, and with the engine out it seemed like a good time to redo all the engine bay wiring.
And, if what I plan is more viable than any set for sale anywhere, should I just get connectors and crimp all the new wires to the old? Or should I solder and use the shrink wrap over all of that? Fairly new to wiring and electrical, thanks.
Crimping connectors leads to corrosion and bad connections. Best practice is to solder all connections, then use shrink tubing to insulate those solder joints. It’s not hard to do with a little practice.
I’ve never soldered car wiring before, but I’ll give it a shot sometime. I’ll also look into those non-insulated connectors and some shrink tubing because I’d feel much better with that as opposed to the basic insulated ones at a shop. And I checked out the midlife website, and sadly he was recently hit by Hurricane Michael so he is out of business till late this year. I’ll check out both soldering and the connectors and see which works best for me, perhaps even solder and crimp to make sure it doesn’t flex and break eventually.
As for wiring, what gauge should I get? are all wires the same gauge? and I found a shop that does many different colors and stripes so hopefully I can get wires that match the original electrical diagrams.
Would second the recommendation of Midlife Harness Restoration. Earlier this year he restored a under dash harness for me and was accommodating/easy to work with. He set the harness up for some gauge changes I was making. Also provides install instructions for testing prior to starting.
Note: Due to the effects of Hurricane Michael, my house and garage contents
will be moved into storage beginning May 27, 2019 Any items received prior to
May 23 will be returned. I will be unable to accept
any work until repairs to the house and garage are completed, estimated
to be sometime in November or December. I will still be available to answer
questions and assist you as best as I can until then. I appreciate your patience.
What We Do: We offer refurbishment services for vintage Mustang underdash and related harnesses at attractive prices with a two year, no questions asked, guarantee for the non-concours hobbyist. We can also convert 1967-1973 non-tach harnesses to a tach configuration.
How We Do It: Every harness is examined for broken insulation, wires, connectors, and pins, and repaired using only OEM components and professional tooling. Every harness is cleaned and re-taped where appropriate. Every wire is checked for continuity and any wire run showing higher than expected resistance is repaired. Repairs are typically made using uninsulated butt-splices and covered with heat-shrink, in accordance with best practices in the electrical repair industry.
What Comes With Service: Every harness comes with a new set of fuses, a complete printout of each wire’s connector type, wire color, wire number, function, and where that wire goes within the harness, an instruction sheet for short-free installation, and a two year, no questions asked, guaranty. Shipping within the US is included in the pricing.
Well, yes and no. Corrosion can occur with solder as well due to the flux residue. Best practices is to clean the solder joint with alcohol before shrink tubing.
Each method will give quality results for many years or decades. There’s quite a bit of controversy over which method is best: solder or crimping. I use the method required on Naval aircraft (crimping and shrink tubing); it is also quick and relatively inexpensive which is a good thing when one does well over 3000 individual repairs per year. For folks just working on their cars, either method should work fine if one knows what they are doing and know what to look for in a quality joint. A poor crimp is just as bad as a cold solder joint.
I did look at the ones on WCCC as I need to order a few other things from them, but I didn’t see any under hood harnesses, only under dash and other ones, however I may have missed it. And I did see the painless one, and I considered it but It has so much wiring for things that aren’t damaged in my cougar, and things I don’t have to replace, that I thought I could find another alternative for cheaper. I will look at WCCC again and the Painless kit, if I do rewire things I suppose doing it all now is better than doing the interior later down the line, however currently I just need it to run without exposed/cracked wires by the engine. I’m going to try to crimp them and get the shrink tubing for now, hopefully I can match all the colors and stripes.
Does anyone know if the Painless kit follows the same color coding on the electrical diagrams from WCCC?
And if I’m looking at it right I believe the 2 parts I need are 14401 Wire Assembly and the 14290 Wire Assembly. If those are included in the Painless kit I’ll probably just crimp for now, and down the line I’ll do the Painless kit to replace it all.
From what I’ve read on the 'Net, the aftermarket wiring kits follow the GM wiring colors and expect GM plugs. Most people cut the Ford plugs off and splice them into the aftermarket wiring.
I see, I looked up the Painless set on another website and it said it followed ford factory colors but it doesn’t specify which plugs, I’ll have to look into it once I get the full kit, for now I’ll just be going with a functional setup over a perfect one, I’m sure once I have an excuse to open up the dash and interior that I’ll look into a full kit. Thanks for the all the help.