FHC resto nr. 90; Wiring - body harness

I finally found some time to spent a full afternoon in the shed yesterday. The main objective was to remove the body harness from the body shell of my first car. When looking for a spare driver’s seat belt a few months ago, I noticed that the body harness was still fitted to that body shell. But more importantly, at first glance it looked in pretty good condition. And despite the fact it isn’t quite correct for an early FHC (no wires for the roof mounted interior light), I decided to remove it. Even when I won’t be able to adapt and use it on the ’76 FHC, it will give important comparison data. That’s because this should be the original body harness for this car!

With all necessary tools loaded in the Defender I headed towards the shed. And the first job for the day was jacking up the car’s rear and putting some axle stands for safety.

This of course was necessary to reach and disconnect the wiring from the fuel tank (and I had some more work planned). Disconnecting the wiring from the tank sender unit immediately yielded a problem. The earth connector turned out to be corroded in place, and as a result it broke from the wire. Luckily that was the only real problem I encountered on the wiring.

With the fuel tank’s wiring pulled back inside the car I moved over to the boot area. Here I was in for a pleasant surprise. I was under the assumption that the rear light units already had been removed from this car. They hadn’t! It turned out that all the wiring in the boot area were still connected. Luckily these connectors all came off without problems. My first thought was to leave the rear light units in place. But as there’s no rear bumper to protect them, it seemed safer to remove them and store them away safely in a cupboard. And I had to remove the left hand unit anyway in order to remove the LH boot trim board. Which in its turn was necessary to enable me to access the wiring for the bot light. I did take my time for the removal as the lenses are easily damaged. But I succeeded in removing them undamaged.

And better still, they are in rather good condition. Only a few scratches on one of the lenses. Always good to have an extra spare pair in stock, as they are starting to get scarce!

With the rear lights and the trim boards out of the way I switched my attention to the interior part of the wiring harness. First job was to remove the harness from under the A-post trim and the sill carpet, followed by the seat area. Luckily both seats had already been loosened somewhere in the past, because they had to come out to reach the seat belt wiring. And their removal did improve access to the handbrake wire.

It was back to the boot after that, starting from the end of the harness. The boot light wires and switch. The light armature had already been removed in the past, so it was only a matter of carefully pulling the harness from the boot lid. Same with the licence-plate-lights wiring on the opposite side of the boot. Though that was a bit more tricky due to the extra wires and connectors. But I managed to pull that part of the harness out too without damage. A small light and an assortment of small tools did help. The final connection to be disconnected was the earth point near the right hand boot lid hinge.

After everything was disconnected it was time to remove the harness from the car. Of course with so many single wire connectors the chance of one getting caught somewhere and ripping it of is ever present. So I took my time here, and 10 minutes later the harness was out of the car and on the shed’s floor.

And what I had already guessed, while removing the harness, was confirmed. This is one very original and completely unmolested body harness. It even has the label with its part number (RKC 3630) still attached to it after all these years.

So now I can start in earnest with the preparation for the various wiring harness’ for the ’76 FHC.