I've been wanting to clean up the wiring mess under the hood for a while now, and was thinking about using some of the wiring loom stuff like you see on American Chopper where the loom shrinks & grows sort of like "Chinese Handcuffs" for want of a better explanation

I found this web site: https://www.wirecare.com/wc_splashpage.asp And they have the wrap I'm looking for... they also have fire resistant, and stuff big enough to actually cover hoses & such.... I'm ordering enough to do all the wiring under the hood....

Thought this would be interesting to share!

Mike

I used convuleted tubing on my Duster. It helped tame my very big wiring problem.

My car has a very bad case of POW (Previous Owners Wiring). Treatment consists of LOTS of fuses, swearing, and help from dear old Dad (electrican).

Hey mister, why is your car on fire?

Aww, its nothing, just my wiring harness just melted into one big wire.

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82 D150-225/727
02 Dakota-3.9/5 speed
87 GMC C7000-8.2 Detroit Diesel/5+2

I have done CONSIDERABLE research on loom choices as part of my specialty is designing and fabricating wiring harnesses for used equipment. I have used uncured rubber tape from 3M to wrap harnesses, followed up by nylon spiral loom wrap for durability. Engine compartment heat or gentle torch heat can vulcanise the tape, solidifying the wrap. But to match the original, Year One sells non adhesive vinyl loom tape, which is a match for original. When you make the harness up, use a small strip of black fiber tape (hockey grip tape looks close) to shape joints then wrap the whole harness with the nonadhesive tape. It will keep everything together while still allowing the wires to move relative to each other, which is good for preventing the strands from fatiguing and breaking. Nothing like making your harness look like it was never touched, or making your own sub-harness intelligible from the original.

Split loom wrap and fibre loom are also good choices, nothing really wrong with them, though wires tend to spill out of the split loom and it also tends to crack, but then again all loom choices do not age well aesthetically.

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

That's good info! I'm not too worried about keeping everything stock or "original" since this is a bone stock, and I mean BONE stock base model. If the car was highly optioned or a higher trim level, and if I was going to keep it all stock, I'd go that route.

What I want to achieve is a CLEAN install, hiding as much of the wiring harness as possible, and making extremely strong connections that will last a long time & give me no problems.

My #1 pet peeve with all Slants is the obtrusive routing and placement of the heater hoses. I know it's nit-pickey, but I'm planning to do something radical with the heater hose routing to get them out of the way!

Thanks for the tips on the wrapping though, I'm planning to do some work to my son's '70 Swinger thats really close to stock...

Mike

Just FYI: I use the non-sticky vinyl tape to wrap the harness to reproduce the factory look, and some non-sticky self-vulcanizing tape at the ends. Both come from Eastwood, and makes for a sanitary looking installation.

That said, the vinyl tape cannot take a lot of heat.

3M sells high heat rubber tape for high heat and voltage applications, it is red in color. It can be special ordered from Fastenal, I dont know if they are in the States but they do have an office in Vancouver. Heat will be more of a consideration if you route your harness on the drivers side, or you have unwrapped headers or something. If looks are your only consideration, you can route the main run outside of the engine compartment, along the top of the fenderwell, but I would recommend shielding it from slung sand and dirt from the wheel. You can use laundry cable to mock up your main run and plan your branches to get an approximate shape, then remove it all and run your wires on a pegboard, the advantage of this being if you have to run the harness through a bulkhead, any fitment problems will show up beforehand. Nothing worse than fabricating your harness in place to find out it isnt removable because the openings are too narrow to pull branches through. Its tempting just to put harness plugs in a tight spot but each connection is a potential spot for corrosion and voltage drop. I find this kind of work a lot of fun and I think you will too.

About the heater core, I dont imagine it gets all that cold over there, you can always reduce the hose down to 1/2" and run it alongside the valve cover nice and tight. You dont want to bring it too high or too low. The heat output will be reduced quite a bit but it usually hovers around the freezing mark over there, not too much colder, correct?

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.