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Wed Aug 13, 2008 8:42 pm

Working on the wiring harnesses, Mark has sent me the wiring from both '46s he has. Thought I would post some pics. One set is remarkably complete, the other a bit hacked. As I told him, this is like assembling a dinosaur skeleton from TWO sets of bones. Where one harness might have a clipped wire, or colors hard to read, the other one has enough detail.

The wire lengths are basically all the same as the ones I have made for the '49 and up sedans for several years now. But some wire colors are different, a lot of PVC looming is used, and some wire routing in the looms is different. Mark's harnesses have provided all of the needed details.

The other fun part is decyphering the colors. The different color pigments respond to aging differently. Black and red fade away to a yellowish-brown, whereas blues actually got darker and are harder to read.

Lastly, in the center section of the main harness, there is no looming, rather a broad, spiral wrapped sisal type thread, wound up tight at its ends.

I'm going to make 3-5 sets of these and should be able to duplicate all of the details. Having access to intact original harnesses is key. The originals will go back to Mark when I am done and he will store them away. I have documented all of the details so I can reproduce them without the originals in the future.

Wed Aug 13, 2008 9:07 pm

I keep telling people that not all early cars had cloth covering over the loom, So seeing it believing cos my old 49 had the same thing (PVC loom)all OG. I hate when a person restores a car like this to a high caliber only to see the wrong loom in it. [-X

Very nice work John.And to the owner of the 47, My hat off to you ser Building a car like this is no joke.

Sat Aug 16, 2008 10:10 pm

I actually ended up meeting the daughter of the original owner of this car tonight at a car show..insane..

Tue Nov 25, 2008 10:41 pm

Finally finished up the '46 -'48 harness sets. Having not one, but TWO sets of complete (well, almost complete) '46 harnesses from Mark's cars has been a real blessing. Sort of like reconstructing a T-Rex and having TWO sets of bones.

Here is a section of the main, original and repro. It has sleeved with PVC at each end, but in the "body" section, was spiral wrapped with a sisal/hemp type twine.

One of the real challenges here was deciphering the colors. Blacks and reds fade (even where covered) to a light brown color. Of course you can't assume that all light browns were once black or red, you need over evidence. Greens and blues hold their colors very well, in fact darken a bit. Whites yellow.

Note too that the original wires were cloth covered only. The wires I use are PVC with a cloth loom spun over them, and a light lacquer coating. Cloth by itself is a very poor, and unsafe insulator.

Here you can see the dash end of the main harness, original and my repro (ends not stripped and dipped yet). The "build board" they are laying on is my pattern board that I make harnesses on. Over he years it has been marked on to accommodate notes for Hebs, Cabrios and now, '46-'48 harnesses.

I found some surprising differences in the earlier split harnesses, beyond just the materials. The end of the upper front harness is different than the later splits because the indicator lights were reversed right to left. The horn wire to the steering column was not bound into the upper front, but rather run separately. And the lower front was not a "Y" harness, but rather two individual harnesses, with both cloth and PVC loom on it. And there are other differences.

But now question to the forum, to any of the fortunate who might have, or have seen, or have access to an early split...

What was the brake light switch harness made from? Cloth wire with cloth loom like the later splits? Dual conductor aluminum wrapped wire? (I have seen some original fragments of later splits with this) Cloth wire with PVC wrap like most of the other simple 2 wire harnesses in the '46-'48s??

Appreciate any help here, that is the last "mystery" to solve.....!