Friends, I am back with another electrical nightmare question for my 1973 Dodge Dart. The engine is a 1977 Super-6 3.7L 225 out of a Monaco. Please bear with me and please lend help because I am in the worse crisis of my life. In fact it is almost unbelievable.

My mom has terminal cancer and my 1973 Dodge Dart is currently my only vehicle as my daily driver and my mom lives four hours south of me. I desperately need to get down there to help her do everything from mowing the lawn to going to the grocery store for her to taking her to frequent doctor's appointments.

Luckily my sister was able to come up from Florida and help out for the last month. But she has to return back to Florida soon as she is a small business owner. And my car has been over at a mechanic friend of mine's house for 5 weeks now.

My story gets worse. I am myself a cancer survivor for 8 years and during a routine cancer screening MRI last week, the doctors found a dark spot on my brain which may be an active tumor. I am in a lot of trouble and unemployed on top of it all.

My Dodge Dart is not only my daily driver, it cheers me up. I love that car. And it has been a reliable machine for me in daily commuting for over six years.

But recently I experienced lots of electrical issues. Finally I decided to get the car rewired completely. I dropped the car off at a mechanic and he talked me into installing a Painless Wiring Kit. Which I was nervous about.

Well, now 6 weeks later, the mechanic threw in the towel and told me he could not figure out the Painless Kit. Meanwhile, he stripped every single wire out of my car. And I am out of money and have no vehicle to get to my very crucial doctor's appointments easily. Much less get four hours south to visit and help my sick mother.

The good news is that a mechanic friend of mine volunteered to finish out the wiring job. He has never done a Mopar Painless Kit before but immediately understood the engine section of wiring. However, he is now stuck at the dash and ignition sector within the steering column.

I am trying to find anything online in way of instructions and help to get to my friend who is kindly helping me out. He is confused over the ignition wiring which runs down from the key section to the bulkhead which connects under the dash just below the steering column.

There's a couple of larger high amp wires such as a red one and black one along with several more smaller wires. However, on the Painless Kit, even though it is Mopar color coded, there's extra wires that make no sense to my friend. As I recall there is an extra couple large high amp wires of both red and black coloring which are supposed to connect to the bulkhead under the dash. Not to mention overall, there's several more extra wires in the Painless Kit for the rear taillight section which make no sense.

My cry for help here is for any instructions or diagrams that will help my friend figure out this under dash section specifically. It's too late to return the Painless Kit to Summit Racing as it has already been partially wired. So I am stuck with what I got and just want to get the thing done. Being without a car for 6 weeks while being sick and with a sick mother simultaneously has been a true nightmare. Any help or guidance is HIGHLY APPRECIATED.

I have been coming on this site for years now and have learned lot of tips and received lots of help in the past. I am hopeful you kind fellows can help me through this issue.

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MOPAR or NO CAR !!!

Sorry to hear of your troubles. If a mechanic can't rewire a Dart in six weeks, then he isn't qualified to be called a mechanic.

Here is a link for the installation manual for the Painless Wiring Mopar kit:

CLICK ME

Where are you located? Maybe someone is close by and can help.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Thanks buddy! I am in Atlanta Georgia. I wish I could find a knowledgee vintage Mopar mechanic. If you know anyone, please let me know! So far we have all the front lights and engine wired. Stuck at the steering column and dash. The backend of the car seems pretty straight forward. But that column is totally dismantled. The mechanic who ripped out all the wiring lift it in a mess.

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MOPAR or NO CAR !!!

I have had no luck finding a diagram that is fully explainable. The one so kindly attached above earlier in the post does not go into detail about the ignition section of the steering column. There's lots of switches and connections in that cluster above and below all the various gears and also where of course the blinker and hazard light switches are located.

Essentially I have a brand new OEM ignition switch with the cluster of wires that runs down the steering coli,n neck and at the end has a female bulkhead connector. The is where things have become a stalemate. Because the Painless Wiring although it is color coded to Mopar standard, there;s more wires doing from the Painless kit that can plug into that OEM bulkhead connector.

Plus, really, I need to find a place where I can simply buy the male connector that plugs into that female connector which connects to the ignition cluster atop the steering column. Any idea at a lll where I could find this OEM style make connector?

The junkyards around here have nothing. And I looked for all S;ant-6 powered vehicles fro,m Volares to B-150 vans. Summit, RockAuto, Jeggs nor JC-Whitney sale these types of connectors. I am so frustrated and at this point in my life with so much stress from both my personal and family crisis, I am in a lot of trouble not getting my Dart back on the road.

Again, if someone could find me instructions for which color wire connect to which color wires from the A-Body Painless Kit into the OEM ignition wiring cluster and bulkhead, it would be a lifesaver.

Also, the previous mechanic who tore everything apart has left the steering clump assembly in a wreck. So I am desperately seeing a step-by-step diagram or instructions for proper putting back together all the various layers of gears along with the plastic turn singe plate, the metal key-ignition cylinder that mounts to the left side of the column. All of these numerous little pieces and parts are of course located at the top of the steering column once the steering wheel is removed.

To say I am desperate, panicked, frustrated and worried is a severe understatement. Due to being laid off from work which resulted in a foreclosure loss of my home of 12 years and then a bankruptcy followed by a divorce and then my cancer coming back and then my mother falling extremely ill to cancer herself, I just simply need a little help reassembling the mess that the prior mechanic left after fully dismantling the steering column and dash.

I got raw deals across the board and what I am going through right now has caused some people to commit suicide. The pressure is immense every second of the day. I dumped the remainder of my savings into parts for this car and labor charges to two different mechanics now.

I know it may seem silly and trivial to a lot of folks. But this Dodge Dart of mine up until these electoral nightmares has been my always reliable tank that previously I would have fearlessly drove from the East Coast to the West Coast of America in without ant worry. And well, it is all I have left after losing my home and selling off most of my possessions. Lastly, the Dodge Dart cheers me up. When I take her out on the highway for a ride, my mind clears of all my numerous problems and I escape mentally into the low rumble of engine noise.

I LOVE this car and it's my last possession of reasonable value. And of course it is my only way to all of my regular doctor's appointments and 4-hour drives south to help care for my mother. I live outside the city where public transit is not a realistic option for me. So I have to taxi cabs to the closest bus station and then make 6 bus transfers and then hike 2 miles by foot while being weak and sick and merely trying to make it on time to my doctor.

So I thought I'd try again for some more help. Diagrams and instructions just help get that steering column properly reassembled again with everything in place and then the several wires that run down from that top cluster of the steering column down to it's female connector and then how and what to connect from there to the Painless kit.

Thanks ...

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MOPAR or NO CAR !!!

Do you have a factory manual? That should have all the info you need.
Here are some factory wiring diagrams.
http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/1973/73DartA.jpg
http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/1973/73DartB.jpg

I didn't watch this videa, but it might help with the steering columm.
http://www.mymopar.com/index.php?pid=214

Don't know if it is possible for you to get the car to me. I am in Florida. If you can, I could probably get it squared away.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Charlie ... thanks for that video! Helpful. To answer questions about manuals. I paid a ton of money off eBay for an actual Dodge Dealership Service Manual. It came in a big plastic binder with a couple hundred pages of information. Long story short, the manual was stolen from me by another mechanic. I had a previous spell of bad luck where I paid a shop to do a front end rebuild, shock replacement and brakes all around. The mechanic did the front end rebuild thankfully because I paid $1100.

But then a weekend passed and the following Tuesday I went to pick up my car and the mechanic had got into a fight with the owner of the shop and quit and took m manual, shocks and brake parts with him. Not sure why either because he drove an AMC. Since I have not been able to find another dealership manual. I ordered a factory service manual off eBay on CD but it is lacking information and not thorough at all. The car is still not done. Entering week 7 this Monday. The new guy helping me is talented. Just not familiar with Mopar electronics.

He wired the engine and headlights just fine. He is stumped at the steering column and the ignition wires and bulked which connect under the dash by the fusebox. Again, because we are connecting an OEM ignition wiring group and bulkhead into a Painless System. And the Painless System has around six extra wires that the OEM wiring group does not such as being doubled up on two large black high amp wires and also two high amp red wires coming from the Painless System.

I will say one thing, that Painless System is garbage and I got suckered into it. I had my doubts about such a system beforehand but the original mechanic said it was easy and top notch. Then he bailed out of the job. And going forward in the future I will tell anyone who asks to stay FAR AWAY from a Painless Wiring kit for Mopar products at least. Expensive junk. Very disappointing. Factory instruction not clear at all about the dash and steering column wiring sections.

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MOPAR or NO CAR !!!