Rewiring, more, step 1, de-wiring Options

[lapuwali]

I've managed to disentangle and separate the mess at the fusebox and under the dash. Found plenty of PO hackage, and more burnt wiring. I also discovered a few things about the factory harness.

The headlight switch SHOULD have four connections: power in, parking lights, lo-beams, dash lights. You could get away with three, and merge the lo-beams and gauge lights in the harness later. So, why are there FIFTEEN terminals on the headlight switch, with several connections with doubled up wires on them? There's like 20-30 wires there. OK, for ultimate reliability, I suppose you could run a wire to each light individually, plus the gauge lights and power, but that's still only 10 wires...

I think some of the final assembly (maybe a dozen crimped connections) was done after the harness was on the car. Some of the assembly must have been pretty challenging. I can see this in a low-volume setting, and it's certainly how I'll make the replacement, but to make around 100 cars per day in this way is pretty amazing.

[Mueller]

you are going to take pictures and document your progress so that we can copy you in the future??? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smile.gif)

on a sorta related note, I installed a new Engman fuse box assembly today, installation was easy...only issue I had was that I had a problem installing the screws to attach the plate to the factory mounts....it had to do with all the wiring getting in the way...so I machined 2 pieces of 1/2" thick Delrin to act as spacers and mounted the fuse block assembly just a little bit lower....it still is flush enough that I don't come close to hitting it with my feet.