79 Cutlass Wiring Harness Questions

[zipties]

hoping some olds enthusiasts can help me work through the wiring on my 79 cutlass. It's a 350, no ECU, HEI ignition, manual choke, auto trans. If you need any more info lmk, that should be the important stuff.

the car was a victim of hillbilly wiring and there was a fire, so I got a whole new harness/fuse block and ripped out all the old hacked up, burnt wire.

the new harness I got isn't burnt but still looks questionable so I wanna make sure everything is in order...

there are 7 total wires coming from the block.

1 is the orange dist BAT plug. Already got rid of the splice and fixed it.
2 is the orange wire to starter solenoid.
3 is the red wire to starter from fuse block.
4 is another red wire from block, it's spliced into 4 wires:
One goes to starter
One is the high fan connection
The last two are alternator connections

5, 6 and 7 all go on the alternator loom to other connections/sensors.

Is that 1-to-4 factory? It was duct taped so I'm guessing no, but it seems like all 4 were necessary in the harness so idk. The old harness looks identical including the taped 1-to-4 piece.

The only wiring to the starter are these two.

The rest of the harness is unmolested and in good shape, I've cleaned all grounds, and got new + and - battery cables. the column wiring is in good shape too. new distributor, plugs and plug wires too.

If anything looks wrong please let me know. i wanna get this harness in the car soon and wanna be sure its 100%

TIA!

 

[ELCAM]

There are no heavy gauge orange wires to the engine harness.

HEI +12V is Pink.
7 is choke heater.

Four wire splice is factory sounds like you have it figured out, Green is electric choke if it is larger gauge, Small gauge is oil pressure sender. The brown wire in that picture is likely the alternator field wire.

 

[zipties]

There are no heavy gauge orange wires to the engine harness.

HEI +12V is Pink.
7 is choke heater.

Four wire splice is factory sounds like you have it figured out, Green is electric choke if it is larger gauge, Small gauge is oil pressure sender. The brown wire in that picture is likely the alternator field wire.

is it possible the wire got discolored over time on these? the wire is the same from block to plug on both the old and new harnesses with no cuts or splices (except for the goofy splice on 1, not sure what that was about.)

the 'not sure' wire is 1, the BAT connection to the distributor.

as long as its pinned correctly and is the correct gauge (which it is) it should be okay yeah? I had asked some friends who all said the same thing about the wire being pink and not orange.

I'm going to clean up the taped-up wires to the starter, do they both need a fusible link or just the one?

that wiring diagram is super helpful, big thanks. the ones on maliburacing weren't making much sense to me, wish i had found that diagram a lot sooner.

 

[ELCAM]

is it possible the wire got discolored over time on these? the wire is the same from block to plug on both the old and new harnesses with no cuts or splices (except for the goofy splice on 1, not sure what that was about.)

the 'not sure' wire is 1, the BAT connection to the distributor.

as long as its pinned correctly and is the correct gauge (which it is) it should be okay yeah? I had asked some friends who all said the same thing about the wire being pink and not orange.

I'm going to clean up the taped-up wires to the starter, do they both need a fusible link or just the one?

that wiring diagram is super helpful, big thanks. the ones on maliburacing weren't making much sense to me, wish i had found that diagram a lot sooner.

Yes 40 years of baking under the hood will change the colors, never seen ones quite this bad before.

I thought it was the HEI wire, the connector and gauge are correct but the color is wrong

It should be fine just verify that the wires are what you think they are.

Both came from the factory with fuseable links.

 

[mikester]

The starter should have a total of three wires. One purple and two red with fusible links. The two red are both going into a large ring terminal. You should also have a pink going to the distributor. You might be able to see the colors less faded at the bulkhead connection at the firewall. The heat and time faded my original harness pretty bad. I wound up running new wires from the bulkhead out. BTW, in case you didnt know the fusible links are the wires coming out of the plastic barrels. The barrels are factory butt connections. VERY easy to replace.





The factory splice was a shock for me too. It had black tape wrapped around it. I thought it was crazy until I found this in a dash harness on a Monte at the junkyard. Thats 100% factory that was buried in the harness coming from the fuse block under the dash. It was covered with the same tape.

 

[zipties]

The starter should have a total of three wires. One purple and two red with fusible links. The two red are both going into a large ring terminal. You should also have a pink going to the distributor. You might be able to see the colors less faded at the bulkhead connection at the firewall. The heat and time faded my original harness pretty bad. I wound up running new wires from the bulkhead out. BTW, in case you didnt know the fusible links are the wires coming out of the plastic barrels. The barrels are factory butt connections. VERY easy to replace.





The factory splice was a shock for me too. It had black tape wrapped around it. I thought it was crazy until I found this in a dash harness on a Monte at the junkyard. Thats 100% factory that was buried in the harness coming from the fuse block under the dash. It was covered with the same tape.

do you know what size/gauge fusible links i need? i'm going to replace the old one on the wire and add the missing one.

should i also add one in to the HVAC plug wire? have heard many horror stories about that wire/plug drawing power and frying out over time. this car probably had the A/C on full blast year round here. connectors/wires look fine but id like to be safe and not have to fumble with this harness again in the future

that connection is nuts. makes me not worry about the one in my wiring as much...

Side Note: it looks like the fire started from the starter area on the car.

it's hard to tell as those wires are pretty charred and melted together, but it looks like the wiring was hacked up and i don't see any fusible links on any of the wires.

thats why i want to be sure this wiring is A1.

i'll take some more pictures of my progress in the morning. everything is prepped to add the fusible links - if i can't just get them from the parts store, a good PN or link would be big appreciated

 

[ELCAM]

Schematic says the fuseable links are 14ga.

American Autowire 500427
Belden 784696
Standard ET-32
Dorman 60361
Bussman FL-14
Handypak HP2730 (10 foot roll of wire)

 

[mikester]

Some people use 10AWG wire for the starter curcuit. Im pretty sure the original was 12AWG which is what I used. Thought it would be a waste using the larger gauge since it would only be that size to the bulkhead connection. The wire that is on the other half of the connection would be 12. This is what mine looked like the first time I made it. I wound up redoing it and matched both wires with the same gauge. A fusible link needs to be 2 sizes down from the wire youre protecting. A 12AWG wire neeeds a 16AWG link. Thats the black wire. I used a butt connector that had shrink ends and put marine grade shrink tubing with the adhesive over that for more protection.
I did the same thing on both of my cars and so far it works. LOL

FYI, I would buy the one from American Autowire. They sell quality stuff. I bought a few things from them when I was rewiring everything under the hood.

 

[zipties]

no progress today cause i had to do some work on other cars. but i did get the fusible links.

the factory link was from 12 to 16ga so i went with another 16ga link. unfortunately they didnt have any 2-to-1's so I'll just have to splice it myself.

part number for the 16ga fusible links i got: Belden 784695

 

[CopperNick]

That is about the biggest electrical octopus that I ever did see. Seems to be showing two leads with black stripes as well as a bunch of just reds, or what they would have been on day one. Not sure how I would go about tracing that. One wire would definitely have been attached to the #10 stud on the alternator and the others going wherever, but the two strippers, always thought that thin black line indicated a ground. Gotta wonder................................



Nick