Wiring cleanup

[Tori]

I absolutely hate the rats nest of wiring coming out of the valve cover harness to all the different switches sensors and whatnot. Would it be asinine to lengthen and re route the wires to be somewhat unseen?
Has anyone else done and engine bay cleanup to tidy things up?
Any other suggestions for making things look cleaner?

 

[datquick6]

Im in the process of doing the same thing but havnet figured out what yet. As of now i replaced all the split loom and tape from the harness. I added split loom to the one wire sensors also. Looks alot better but you still see the huge clutter there. I think what some people have done is rerouted them under the intake. The eliminate the L shaped wire piece and route most wires under the intake and the rest on the driver side of the engine.

 

[VtheGNMan]

I'm interested in some different ideas too. I will be installing the harness soon on my build.
One specific question: If you have removed the PMaster and gone to vac brakes, can you eliminate the wiring and plugs that just end up laying there?

 

[Chuck Leeper]

Not cheap..At work, [Hot Muscle Wiring], we use the braided nylon mesh wrap, instead of the plastic tubing.
We also use shrink tube w/ adhesive in it.
To really clean it up, requires r&r the connectors, add the shrink tubes, do the nylon mesh, then reassemble.
While apart, it's a good opportunity to clean the pins, replace the connectors that have the retainer tabs broken off.
When I cleaned up the 87 T, this is what I did.
As for the PM wires... I wrapped the plugs w/ tape, bundled them, put them to bed under the hydraboost.
The wrap is split, in the larger sizes. The small, single wire is a slip over.

An idea of what we use....
http://www.cabletiesandmore.com/FRExpandableSleeving.php?gclid=CP_8hfrwg8sCFdgcgQodzOACkw

 

[VtheGNMan]

Not cheap..At work, [Hot Muscle Wiring], we use the braided nylon mesh wrap, instead of the plastic tubing.
We also use shrink tube w/ adhesive in it.
To really clean it up, requires r&r the connectors, add the shrink tubes, do the nylon mesh, then reassemble.
While apart, it's a good opportunity to clean the pins, replace the connectors that have the retainer tabs broken off.
When I cleaned up the 87 T, this is what I did.
As for the PM wires... I wrapped the plugs w/ tape, bundled them, put them to bed under the hydraboost.
The wrap is split, in the larger sizes. The small, single wire is a slip over.

An idea of what we use....
http://www.cabletiesandmore.com/FRExpandableSleeving.php?gclid=CP_8hfrwg8sCFdgcgQodzOACkw

Great idea Chuck. Do you have any pictures of how it looks when you got all done by any chance? Did you route under the intake like was mentioned above?

 

[VtheGNMan]

This got me thinking that even the hard plastic wiring harness cover could look a lot better.
Dipped it in Carbon Fiber.
I'll just post 1 pic here but I have more items shown in my specific thread.
http://www.turbobuick.com/threads/anyone-hydrodip-or-water-ink-transfer.434303/

 

[Tori]

2+ months later and i'm making headway. I liked the idea of the nylon braid sleeve, and have broke down the harness coming along the drivers valve cover, and separated all the individual wires for each sensor. I lengthened each wire, wrapped it in the braid and routed them all behind the drivers head, down the block and forward along the oil pan. Coming up in front of the timing cover and to each sensor. It was a shit-ton of work, very time consuming, and probably not worth the effort, but once i started i couldn't stop or go back. Of course now the power steering pump is puking fluid, so that has me held up on putting the front of the motor back together. Hopefully it'll still run after all this. So far this has eliminated about 2/3 of the wires inside that plastic wire housing alongside the valve cover, and the other bundle of wires i'll work at doing the same to only routing them out of sight possibly down the inner fender. I'll eventually try to work on some of the other lines and hoses. Hopefully it will make a noticeable difference.

 

[kjizzle]

That looks clean!

Sent from my LG-H811 using Tapatalk

 

[PSID6]

I absolutely hated the same thing you guys are talking about. I took my harness, split all the wires individually and brought them back to where it will come in from the backside of the intake. The wires are to long now because they are taking a shorter route so I will be trimming them and sizing them up one by one. I will have to cut and re-pin them with new connectors. It's a real PITA but I believe in the end it will be worth it!

 

[Tori]

View attachment 278729 I absolutely hated the same thing you guys are talking about. I took my harness, split all the wires individually and brought them back to where it will come in from the backside of the intake. The wires are to long now because they are taking a shorter route so I will be trimming them and sizing them up one by one. I will have to cut and re-pin them with new connectors. It's a real PITA but I believe in the end it will be worth it!

Are you running them under the intake ? I thought of doing that but think about if you ever have to pull the intake, or motor. You'll have to unpin all the connectors again. Plus, i didn't see where there would be room for them to exit at the front of the motor. Looking forward to see how yours turns out. Should be nice.

 

[PSID6]

Are you running them under the intake ? I thought of doing that but think about if you ever have to pull the intake, or motor. You'll have to unpin all the connectors again. Plus, i didn't see where there would be room for them to exit at the front of the motor. Looking forward to see how yours turns out. Should be nice.

Yes, I will be. I figured if I had to remove the intake there are 4 or 5 sensors I would have to disconnect anyway, the only one that worries me is the IAC connector it is pretty fat I might have to run that one out the middle between the runners have to wait and see

 

[VtheGNMan]

Any progress on the wiring? Anxious to see finished pics!

 

[Gene Van Horn]

There is one gentleman on the board here who took his entire wire harness out and re did,i think the car is called brutas or something? The job was phenomenal, perhaps he will read and post a pic for you guys.

 

[PSID6]

Any progress on the wiring? Anxious to see finished pics![/QUOTE
Not sure if you are asking about my progress but if so, have not had much time over the past year. I am getting close to getting the engine back in the car (doing a complete rebuild) so I can get the wiring finished up. I will post pics when I'm done.

 

[NY Twin Turbo]

I too have had to revamp my entire harness. If I knew then what I know now, I would have wired the whole car from from scratch. But that's not what I did. I lengthened and shortened and added to death my existing harness to customize it to my twin turbo application. It's an ongoing process as modifications are always being made for the next gizmo.

I should have ordered an XFI harness and had them pin every single port on all 3 harness connectors with 20 feet of whip. Then I could have terminated each wire to a weather-pack connector as needed. All the ones I didn't use I could have labeled and bundled neatly under the dash until any future optional was added. Then I should have done the same thing for the gauges using a common wire for lighting and power. It goes on and on........

In the end, all of what I have done looks good and works fine. And the work was done properly using soldered shrink-wrapped connections and fused circuit protection . But thank God for wire loom! However, it physically makes my stomach hurt every time I have to dig in and do some electrical work.

There is no job I hate more than electrical work on my Buick.

 

[VtheGNMan]

Sounds good. I'll be working on my harness in the next few days and it sounded like we had the same thoughts as to how to approach it.

 

[John Larkin]

I removed the plastic channel and black taped the harness. Gets it down to a 1" thickness that runs along the bottom of the valve cover. It looks better and access is better. Still it would be awesome to have a wireless appearing engine.

 

[ttypewhite]

I did this last year with my buddy Jack at Racetronix. Pulled the complete engine harness out, stripped it down and made my own schematic. The plan was to hide as much of the wiring as humanly possible. I didn't want any wires at the back of my intake, any wires at the side of the fenders were going to be run inside the fenders and hidden as much as possible. It is a huge job that can't be rushed. We used a multi pin weather proof connector so I could make my harness have a quick disconnect on the firewall behind the intake.





New harness with color coded diagram



Before with the old harness



New custom Racetronix harness

 

[VtheGNMan]

I am amazed every time I see your engine bay Mike. So nice and clutter free.

 

[earlbrown]

I always hated that stupid channel on the DS valve cover, oval conduit, and the engine grounds on the back of the head. Turns out those grounds can reach the battery pretty easily. i ran mine to the crossmember at my frame ground. The convoluted tubing on the A/C lines can replace the DS channel too.

While I was there I did some PM and cleanup on the starter wires too.

I didn't have another GN to look at while I was doing these mods, so there were just quick and dirty. After getting the engine in, it would have been nice to extend a few wires around the brake booster and get the wiring up against the injectors or ran under the coil/plenum.

For the 20 minutes I spend, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm kicking myself in the ass for not doing the starter wires decades ago. The links were pretty frayed at the ring terminals (one failed ina drifve thru years ago) Since those connections run the entire car it's VERY important that they are solid. It's also sooooooo nice having one ring per terminal now.