We're bringin' back the Flat Tops!

[motorman7]

9 hours ago, hiyabrad said:

You cut the rubber boot half way and slid it over the wire harness?

Good guess.  Believe me, I was very tempted to do that and then wrap the boot with tape, but that never turns out well.  Eventually the tape gives way and the split shows. 

So, to get the boot on, I was able to slide the blue connector and the white connector through the boot by turning them sideways and sliding/pushing them through. I also applied a little heat with a hair dryer to make the rubber a bit more pliable during this operation.  At this point, the number of wires now passing through the boot will not let the other large connectors fit through the hole.  So, next I put all the smaller connector wires through the boot which left just the large black connector and large green connector remaining.  At this point, starting with the black connector,  I removed each wired terminal from the connector housing and passed the wire through the boot, then re-inserted each wire terminal back into the connector housing.  I did this for all the wires starting with the black connector then finishing up with the green.  the last few wires of the green connector were pretty snug passing through the boot, but eventually I got them all through.  Such a pain, but much better than cutting the boot.

 

8 hours ago, Zup said:

So glad to see proper black ignition wires.

No red, green, yellow, or blue for this one!

I know, It looks so much better with the black.   There is also some small writing in gold on the wires but I will rotate the wires so they are on the underside and not highly visible.   Thanks!

Edited April 17, 2019 by motorman7

[hiyabrad]

1 hour ago, motorman7 said:

Good guess.  Believe me, I was very tempted to do that and then wrap the boot with tape, but that never turns out well.  Eventually the tape gives way and the split shows. 

So, to get the boot on, I was able to slide the blue connector and the white connector through the boot by turning them sideways and sliding/pushing them through. I also applied a little heat with a hair dryer to make the rubber a bit more pliable during this operation.  At this point, the number of wires now passing through the boot will not let the other large connectors fit through the hole.  So, next I put all the smaller connector wires through the boot which left just the large black connector and large green connector remaining.  At this point, starting with the black connector,  I removed each wired terminal from the connector housing and passed the wire through the boot, then re-inserted each wire terminal back into the connector housing.  I did this for all the wires starting with the black connector then finishing up with the green.  the last few wires of the green connector were pretty snug passing through the boot, but eventually I got them all through.  Such a pain, but much better than cutting the boot.

 

Excellent work!  I knew my answer was too easy and not good enough. But what was the clue in the pic?

[motorman7]

9 minutes ago, hiyabrad said:

Excellent work!  I knew my answer was too easy and not good enough. But what was the clue in the pic?

The small red pack of Starrett precision screwdrivers.  I use a very small screwdriver to release the terminal from the connector block.  There are probably 'official' tools for doing that, but the small blade screwdriver does the trick, lifting the locking feature of the terminal.

[munters]

3 hours ago, motorman7 said:

The small red pack of Starrett precision screwdrivers.  I use a very small screwdriver to release the terminal from the connector block.  There are probably 'official' tools for doing that, but the small blade screwdriver does the trick, lifting the locking feature of the terminal.

 Vintage connectors sell this tools for the 6mm and 3mm connectors.

[hiyabrad]

15 hours ago, motorman7 said:

Got the electrical harness cleaned up and replaced most of the connectors.  Got the new elec harness firewall boot on.  You will never guess how I got the boot on (there is a hint in the picture).  All those large connectors have to fit through that 1 inch diameter hole.  You can't slide it over from the opposite side because there is a very large connector near the voltage regulator.  Will post details on that tomorrow. Car is a bit dusty in the pics.

 

 

 

Could you give us more detail on how you cleaned up the electrical harness? Did you rewrap, rewire, etc., etc. Also, can you tell us where you bought the parts (connectors, tape, wire, etc.?). Thank you.

[motorman7]

27 minutes ago, hiyabrad said:

Could you give us more detail on how you cleaned up the electrical harness? Did you rewrap, rewire, etc., etc. Also, can you tell us where you bought the parts (connectors, tape, wire, etc.?). Thank you.

I cleaned the electrical harness first with Windex to remove most of the dirt and then with a rag that had paint thinner on it to remove oils.  After that, I re-wrapped the harness over the original wrap as the wrap was in fairly good condition.  (I have also done harnesses where I have removed the original wrap because it was in bad shape or had a short and I had to re-route wires).  I used Hi-temp black electrical tape over the original wrap.  I started at the small end and finished at the large end.

I replaced all of the engine area connectors with new connectors from vintageconnections.com .  For the singe blade and bullet connectors, I clipped off the old terminal as close to the back of the terminal as possible and replaced with new crimped on terminals and covers.  For the 2, 4 and 6 pin connectors I did pretty much the same.  So essentially, all the terminations are about an 1/8" shorter than the original with the old terminals clipped off, but that really is not noticeable when the harness is in place.  The process on the larger connectors involves unlocking  the terminal from the connector and sliding it out of the connector body.  I then clip off the old terminal, then strip a small part of the wire end and crimp on a new terminal.  I then slide that terminal into the new connector making sure I keep the same location.  It's easier that way.

 I don't think the headlight connectors are available at vintage connections so these were not changed, but these were in pretty good shape anyway since they are inside a cover.

Also, the fuseable link was pretty bad so I just re-created it with a new larger diam stranded wire.

1 hour ago, munters said:

 Vintage connectors sell this tools for the 6mm and 3mm connectors.

Will have to get one of those someday.  Just always used the Starretts. Thanks

[Carl Beck]

1 hour ago, motorman7 said:

......snipped..cjb......."Also, the fuseable link was pretty bad so I just re-created it with a new larger diam stranded wire."

????????   did you thus eliminate the useable link? ie.  re-created it  vs replaced it  ??

 

[Zed Head]

That is an odd statement.  It, in essence, removes the fusible link, since a fusible link is a smaller diameter wire.

[motorman7]

16 minutes ago, Carl Beck said:

????????   did you thus eliminate the useable link? ie.  re-created it  vs replaced it  ??

 

Hi Carl, good to see you here!  I re-created the detachable portion. New connector, terminal and wire.    Installed new connector housing and cleaned the blade connection on the main harness side.  It's actually visible in the top harness picture except for the eyelet part is clipped off on the right side of the pic.  

[motorman7]

3 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

That is an odd statement.  It, in essence, removes the fusible link, since a fusible link is a smaller diameter wire.

Ahhhh....perhaps this is a part that needs to be bought then to get the correct wire gauge.  The old wire did not look very good....outer jacket was burned through in the middle and wire exposed.

Edited April 17, 2019 by motorman7

[Zed Head]

4 minutes ago, motorman7 said:

Ahhhh....perhaps this is a part that needs to be bought then to get the correct wire gauge.  The old wire did not look very good....outer jacket was burned through in the middle and wire exposed.

It was working...

[motorman7]

4 minutes ago, Zed Head said:

It was working...

Yes, perhaps a little too hard.  Thanks for the feedback.  Will have to order that part then and shelve my pretty re-creation.