Despite the oncoming project I really didn’t want, I continued work on the ’76 car. As mentioned earlier, I will be converting this car to the later wiring set up, using the wiring from a 1981 car.
So I made a start on cleaning and refurbishing the main harness (PKC 1946), starting with the part of the harness from the point where it enters the engine bay (through the firewall) and from there towards the front of the car. This part provides power to the wiper mechanism, the various front lights and horns.
First job was removing the harness’s wrapping tape from the various ends to the fire wall grommet. This revealed no hidden horrors.
As you can see the overall condition of the wires was pretty good, though a little dirty in places. But no kinks or signs of chafing! The above underlines the pretty good quality of the original wiring of these cars. As long as you bear in mind they all are well over 40 years old by now and treat them as such!
With the “lower” part of the wiring checked it was time to switch my attention to the various connectors. And as expected 40+ years out in the open hadn’t been to kind to them. The most common problem being corrosion on some of the contact pins inside the connector blocks. But as these were all meant to be changed for modern weatherproof connectors (AMP Superseal), the next job was noting down the order in which the cables should be connected to the various connector blocks. I always use two methods for that, a good old pen + notepad and my digital camera;
Connector block for the wind screen wiper motor
With the inventory of all the various connectors finished, it was time for the next stage. Removing all connectors from the harness and replacing them with new items. Followed by the final stage, wrapping the harness with new non adhesive PVC tape.
Next part of this little project will be cleaning and refurbishing the heart of this harness, the fuse box, the various relays and it’s connectors and their brackets.
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