getting to the point where i will be starting on Electrical, and I am scared to death of the German wiring - not much good at electronics anyway, and looking at 45 years of degradation.
My buddy has used EZ Wire Kits
http://www.ezwiring.com/store/
in several of his projects, essentially pull out all the wires, put in the EZ wire system. 18 fuses, 21 circuits, all the wires are color coded and labelled every 5 inches, you just take the appropriate wire to the correct location, and attach it. That sounds a whole lot more appealing that trying to figure out german wire diagrams, and chase down what is almost assuredly multiple shorts and ground issues.

Not interested in Historical accuracy - restoring a junk yard find to fun driver, canyon carver! so reliability counts alot!

IMHO, anything that says easy, usually ain't. What's got you scared about the OEM wiring? There are plenty of schematics w/ no guess work. Just a quick look at that harness I'd say the cigarette lighter etc would be a snap but when you begin to disect the blinker system, retract headlights, etc. your going to wish you had stayed OEM. You might need to add a few new spade ends or cut out a bad section of the OEM harness but at least all the guess work is already done and it's just a matter of taking the wire from point A to point B. I've messed with a couple of 914's now. Stock and conversions and IMHO you'd be better off dressing up that 40 yo harness that was made for your car. Another thing; if you run up against a problem with the OEM system there are several here that can assist you. If you go custom your on your own.

Totally, totally agree! Been there, done that; no fun whatsoever. Create your own problems.

I too agree with Kent. Unless you have a total mess wiring harness, the stock wiring is all there and can be resurrected with a bit of patience.

If you decide to go the EZ route, let us know how your endeavor goes....

Bowlsby is our local wiring guru and makes nice harnesses specifically for 914s if you need them. I like supporting our 914world crew first when they are as good as anyone else out there.

EZ wiring is setup for American cars. The turn signals and brake lights function differently than European cars. You could make it work but it will take some work to make the turn and brake light separate.

+1. jeff Bowlsby’s harnesses are excellent. We just started up our nut and bolt restoration (sitting since 1986) and the only electrical short was caused by an improperly installed dash light... the harness looks good as well!

I'm using something similar for my '78 Volvo 242. Mine came from Rebel Wire, same type of deal it uses all new wires with GM compatible components.

Will not be attempting this modification with my 914...too much work and for my application not needed.

Don't make the mistake I did, I gave away the original harness before I started wiring up my car so I had no pattern or guide.

Click to view attachment

I have cleaned, inspected and restored my original harness. The wires are actually fairly good quality and most if not all of the issues I found were at the connectors. I rewrapped the entire bundle with German cloth tape. I wanted to restore the original portion first, then I will be adding some wires for the radio alongside the OE.

OK guys - its time for the big reveal! Like many Brits I marvel at the American's ability to share on these forums. The generosity of time and sprit displayed so often is heart warming. We Brits are far too reserved for much of that.....

Anyway this question resonated strongly with my own experience and therefore I thought it time to come clean. In another thread I will start to reveal pictures and details of my rebuild. Its another 914-6 GT replica but with some twists. Anyway more of that elsewhere, here I wanted to add my two pennyworth on electrics. I am deleting headlamp motors, fuel injection, heater and radio. I want to add master cut off, heated windscreen (the heater replacement), USB charge points and other niceties. So my thoughts were to discard the rather unpleasant bundle of harness retrieved from my 1975 2.0 and replace with all new.

I too have battled with the various forms of wiring diagram which are available, and decided given the changes to original spec that starting from scratch would be the best solution. Now I fully recognise that what I have drawn up is not as efficient as the factory harness. There will be some extra cabling here and there, but at least I will understand it all. I have also added complication in the form of additional relays to protect some of the old switches mainly (e.g. column stalk).

With the help of a friend with great electrical expertise we have come up with a scheme which I hope will work well. The plan is to use limited colours (for power, control and earth only) with unique identification coming from coding imprinted on the heat shrink at very connection. The heat shrink solution is well known in industry.

I attach the latest revision of my plan, and would welcome any comments from that vast knowledge base that sits out there. Throw as many stones as you like - I am a thick-skinned Brit and want to do the best job possible. As I develop coding and my wiring schedule I will share more.

Hope this is of interest.

Click to view attachment

This is the system I'd run if I had the funds:

http://infinitybox.com/can-bus-system-prod...arket-products/

The 10 circuit is $1000, 20 circuit is $1500

^Nice, I like the matrix at the end.

Wysri9 But

I used Hot Rods Wires for our Healey. Old cloth wrapped wiring is not my idea of safe or repairable. I likely could have purchased a cloth wrapped reproduction but the car is no longer stock. I have to throw away the directions and just run it my way as the GM design did not suit my needs. It took a while but it all works. Even added wires for the electric fuel pump and hidden stereo.


Then once the car was wired I needed to figure out the fuel injection. Here is the diagram for the fuel injection. I had to dissect out the parts of the stock Suzuki Swift GTI harness that were not related to the fuel injection. Does it work? Not that far yet.

For the 914, I would never do it.

You might want to talk to member "fasthonda". I think he did painless 8 circuit kit on his Honda2000 conversion car.

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...c=97897&hl=

Its an insane proposition to try this once you think it through.

The 914 has 75-85 circuits in the chassis harness depending on the model year and around 185 individual wires. That means that that a given circuit will have several wires linked together by wire terminals, in the same circuit. You need to figure out and make all those additional wires. Consider what gauge of wire is needed for each circuit, to say nothing of its special color/striping if that is important to you. It will be when you trouble shoot it. What about the special relays and relay bases you need?

Think of the dash lighting circuit. It may start out as one wire to the fuseblock, but daisy chains to several dash gauges. A 20 circuit generic harness does not even get you close.

Further, think about how the harness will connect to all the standard equipment like the turn signal and wiper switches, and lighting sockets. They do not all use 1/4 in female terminals and good luck finding all those rare terminals.

Check out the rats nest at the headlight switch. You want to replicate that?

Advise that either you find a good original OEM harness of the same model year as your car, or have a new one built. You will be $K ahead if your time or resale value of the car is worth anything to you.

that is why I restored my OE harness. Most of the issues were at the wire ends. Plus I wanted to retain the ability to use the OE wire schematic for future troubleshooting.
Plus when I get further along, I can order replacement or optional wiring harnesses from Bowlsby or good used versions and be confident in OE compatibility.

Looks like you have skills. I grafted a 2000 Passat harness into my 914. Anything can be done if you have skills...