Reuse connectors??

[john87442]

So I would like to replace the wires in the harness during this build of my 87 442. I have it totally dismantled with all wire harnesses out of the vehicle, during this process I have found a couple mice nests and that has me questioning whether they may have chewed on some of the harness. The question that comes up is should I also replace all the connectors, I haven’t been able to find a good place to buy these and because they have seen heat cycles and years of use should they be replaced. I have seen the harnesses that can be purchased however they are not direct replacement so not necessarily the best option. Looking to get recommendations or opinions from the experience of the group before I start purchasing wire and get into a new adventure. Thanks in advance!

 

[pagrunt]

So I would like to replace the wires in the harness during this build of my 87 442. I have it totally dismantled with all wire harnesses out of the vehicle, during this process I have found a couple mice nests and that has me questioning whether they may have chewed on some of the harness. The question that comes up is should I also replace all the connectors, I haven’t been able to find a good place to buy these and because they have seen heat cycles and years of use should they be replaced. I have seen the harnesses that can be purchased however they are not direct replacement so not necessarily the best option. Looking to get recommendations or opinions from the experience of the group before I start purchasing wire and get into a new adventure. Thanks in advance!

I've been reusing as much of the old connector housings I have & what I can salvage from the yards. The terminal conectors are always new unless I have no choice & have a few of the same type to attempt to salvage with out tearing myself up. There are venders that do have the GM/Packard/Delphi/Aptiv/(current name used now or next) Type 56 connector housings our cars use. Now most of the application specific Weather Pack housings will have to be reused as many are not currently made. For suppliers there are AuVeCo, Waytek, State Wire & Terminal, Texas Industrial Electric for a few.

 

[john87442]

Thanks for that information, part of the problem I had was I wasn’t sure what to identify the type of different connectors I needed, some round some three or more wire. If the actual connectors are ok to pull the pins and old wire and recycle then that would save a ton of money. I realize the connectors that see heat should probably just try to be sourced and replaced like the light connectors.

 

[69hurstolds]

Yeah, if you can snag them from junkyard gems, that can suffice for the exact connector used. They do sell a bunch of the common connectors at some of the electrical hardware places, but when you have that one "weird" one, you may have to re-use yours, or find another car with that type of conenctor.

I think it really depends on the current condition of the harness. It's tedious, but once you have the harness out and on the garage floor, do a resistance, or "infinity" test on the harness to check wire integrity. Sometimes you'll run into aluminum wiring and while it would suffice electrically, I would replace it with a copper wire if possible. The biggest issue is all the different colors. I don't know who sells all the pretty colored wiring with the stripes and junk. It would be tough to trouble shoot for the next owner without a speical wiring diagram. I always am amused when I see cool cars at a car show and with all the mods, comes with a harness chocked full of a single color of wiring feeding everything. WTF? Actually, racersrods.com sells all black wiring with the application pre-printed on the wiring itself. Strange.

Mouser.com sells a lot of weatherpack stuff, but obviously, not all things are still being manufactured. They also have some hard to find junk. Search for Weather Pack, and Aptiv (formerly Delphi) 56 Series connectors. Quite a bit to choose from.

Waytekwire.com sells all sorts of primary color wiring. Problem I've seen is that it's nearly impossible to find striped wiring. So rebuilding a "factory" color coded harness may be both expensive and very time consuming.

One option is to rade the junkyards again for those LONG harnesses to try and get good wiring with lots of color choices. Something to think about.

 

[john87442]

I like the idea of the wire with the writing on it except I can’t read that small anymore, I actually thought that if I’m going to go through the trouble of sourcing all the connectors and wire then hell I’ll just make a few harnesses and have them sell and recoup funds, crazy thought considering how much time it would take.

 

[pagrunt]

Problem I've seen is that it's nearly impossible to find striped wiring.

Not really cheap but I have found some sources for the OE striped wires. M&H is where I sourced the correct red/double white stripe wire GM used on the Chevette's flash to pass wire from the headlight switch to dimmer.

http://www.wiringharness.com/pdfs/2023_Wire_Components.pdf

Your #1 Source for Automotive Wire

Browse our complete selection of automotive wire and fusible link wire. We offer every wire size and color combination found with GM LS-Series engine wire harnesses.

lswiring.com

 

[john87442]

I will definitely check that out

 

[john87442]

Just a quick look and yeah it looks like they have any color combination available… thanks

 

[57 Handyman]

John, good luck with this very tediouschore, but well worth the time. Here are a few tips I used:

1. Like several others have suggested, you head out to your closest pick/pull yard and find as many harnesses as you can lay your hands on. Over the course of restoring my 87 El Camino, I've pulled and retained the harnesses from several parts-only 5th Gen G-bodies that I've bought.
2. Instead of rewiring the harnesses, I've looked for the "best" set and simply unwrapped, cleaned/washed, and re-wrapped the harness.
3. I used a D-VOM and performed an end-to-end continuity check for each wire to ensure the wires as well as the connectors were in good, operating condition.
4. If the connector was in poor condition, I replaced it with connectors I raided from a "sacrificial" harness. Thus, the utility of getting your hands on several harnesses.
5. One trick I used, is if I needed to extend a particular circuit for my application, I'd cut the wire and connector with a 3-6" wire tail; then splice in whatever length of similar gauge wire was handy (color and stripping didn't matter). In so doing, both ends of the circuit would have the look of stock wiring to facilitate troubleshooting, identification, and circuit tracing.

Good luck!

 

[john87442]

Great tips! Unfortunately up hear in north east Ohio there aren’t any auto yards to pull anything from, I wish when I was younger I would have had the thought to start collecting some of these items, of course if that were the case I would have ordered so much from the dealer and hid it away as a secret private stash…. Kinda like 69hurstolds did. Lol