What wiring harness. Help

Dennis,

If all your problems involve lighting, bear in mind that the emergency flasher switch is involved in all the lighting circuits. And it is well known to go bad and truly screw things up. A birds nest of wiring is attached to it so if you want to remove it and check it out, be very sure you get all the wire colors written down correctly. Likewise, the grounding issue on our cars can cause a bunch of weird, intermitent problems. I would surely attack all the ground connections and the flasher before going to a new wiring harness endeavor.

Larry

Dennis,

I agree with Larry, so long as your current harness has not been completely jacked around by previous owners, the problems should be repairable.

I have two words for you, William Taylor. He lives in Torrance, his contact info is in the POCA membership directory.

your friend on the DTBB, George

Dennis,
You don't need to change your wiring harness to make the headlights work properly .... perform this test first and let us know if the headlight motor lifts the headlights.
With the engine running, increase the engine speed to about 1200 RPM's and then try turning on the headlight switch. Increasing the RPM's increases the battery voltage and causes the relay to work.
If that works then we go to step 2.

Step one, if you do not have a wiring diagram get one. Even with the diagrams, and between the years some things are still different so the documentation is never 100% trustworth. I noticed that a few of my wire colors differed from the wiring diagram but the general circuts were documented. Having a guide is better then no guide. With few exceptions, most circuts are not complex (one of the nice things about a 30 year old car).

Being a system of quesitonable original design, some things defy normal sense but when wired properly they do work. Get a good voltage/ohm meter and start tracing the circuts. Best to use a A/C battery charger so you do not wear down the battery.

It is a time consuming process to trace each circut but the options are limited. Figure this to be a good winter project. Best to try and save the original harness. Easier for future troubleshooting or for other owners to deal with stock systems then a homebuilt replacement. One thing that will impact future resell value.

As mentioned earlier, check the grounds also the fuse box is known for not having good tension on the fuses creating interesting conditions.

Dennis,
I have had the same problems you have. I found the wires in the connectors (red / yellow) to the lights and to the turn signals have made poor connections. I cut a couple of the wires and ran new ones. Also, I added a couple grounds.
Where in Calif. do you live?