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Sat Mar 20, 2004 10:57 am

Looking at replacing the whole bus wiring loom to make the wires behind the speedo / engine bay / lights more serviceable as they're brittle / frayed and misssing connectors. How long will it take and are there any challenges etc? I could cut and splice new connectors this may take longer than say a day. Thought I'd ask as I did a wiring loom on the Bug and that was a nightmare having to pull it through the heater channel area.

Thx
Al

Sat Mar 20, 2004 2:42 pm

Plan on about 20 hours and most of it is trouble shooting. Installing the loom will not be that dificult unless you have a deluxe with belly pans. Getting everythinbg just right is what takes the time. If you found a bug frustrating you will likely find a bus equally so.

Sat Mar 20, 2004 10:54 pm

I'm in the process of doing mine also. Pulling out the main harness is the trick... it's brittle and doesn't like to make those corners. Use soap.
Pulling in the new one was cake.
making all the connections and dealing with the other four or so remaining harness's....
i'm in limbo... it's somewhat overwhelming and i find myself just looking at it.... doing nothing. :?

Sun Mar 21, 2004 9:49 am

in a split bus, i can remove and old harness and install a new push-on terminal harness in about 4 hours. it's not that hard, and there should be no troubleshooting with a new harness, as long as your old swtiches and relays worked before. if you don't already have one, get a color coded wiring diagram from vintagebus.com and you should have no troubles hooking stuff back up.
if i have to cut the ends off and solder the wires for screw terminal stuff, that just adds as much time as it takes.

i guess the only correct answer for your question is: as long as it takes. :)

Sun Mar 21, 2004 8:34 pm

Damn... four hours?
Does that include the main harness, instrument harness, generator harness, front harness, wiper harness, misc. wires or sub assemblies?
I need a serious kick in the ass if it can be done in that time.
guess I need to quit stalling. :shock:

Sun Mar 21, 2004 9:31 pm

yup. about four hours to remove everything, install and hook up everything. most often it's less time too. this is not the case with screw terminal harnesses though, since Bob doesn't make a harness specifically for screw terminal stuff, you have to remove all the crimped on ends and solder anything that goes in a screw terminal post.
the VW Suggested Repair Times does specify 3 hours 55 minutes to do the job "Replace complete electric wiring", so i'm right on track.
there really is not all that much to hook up, and after you've done a few, and have repaired others, you get to know where wires go by their colors so it goes faster. and i have installed a bunch, so it's easy now. the first one i did though did take about a day or so.

Mon Mar 22, 2004 10:36 am

:D That's great news and very encouraging....
Thanks!
Now... what the hell is that avatar? :lol:

Mon Mar 22, 2004 11:31 am

Cool. I'm glad someone brought this up. I was thinking of doing thr same thing when I discovered how ratty my wiring was during a speedo job.

Mike

Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:45 am

anybody know how much the wiring loom from Wiring Works runs?

Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:47 am

opensunroof wrote: anybody know how much the wiring loom from Wiring Works runs?

Cheaper than anyone else- :wink:

$198- if I recall

Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:48 am

they are usually under $200 for a bus. and if you see Bob at a show, he often has "show special" prices.

and before you ask:

Wiring Works - Bob Nodvik
2805 Kerckhooff Ave.
San Pedro, CA 90731
(310) 519-8147

Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:56 am

thanks team.

Thu Apr 01, 2004 9:42 am

hazetguy wrote: they are usually under $200 for a bus. and if you see Bob at a show, he often has "show special" prices.

and before you ask:

Wiring Works - Bob Nodvik
2805 Kerckhooff Ave.
San Pedro, CA 90731
(310) 519-8147

Hazet- Your avatar gives me a really queezy feeling in the pit of my stomach- WTF is that?

Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:35 pm

Not only Hazetguy's avatar is bizarre, his earlier location was something like "ant man hill" or something like that, which I forgot to ask him in person when I had the chance.

I tried to replace the wiring harness today and made a rookie mistake that I won't ever repeat. With careful taping I made sure the guide rope is secure to the old harness. Now the guide rope was pulled half way through towards the rear, and I suddenly lost the guide rope.

So having a complete failure, I checked where it went wrong - it turned out that I should have taped the guide rope to the ACTUAL WIRES inside the harness sleeve, instead of only taping it to the sleeve on the outside. Of course the sleeve broke off somewhere inside the frame that's hidden by belly pans, and I pulled out all the old wires instead.

You can't feel more like an April Fool than me. And that sucks.

I tried to use one of those hand-cranking drain declogging wires to pass through - No goal. Cut a length of heavyduty power wire instead - Nay.

So now my question is, without the old harness, what trick do you use to get a guide rope through a bus that has belly pans?

I hope this self-inflicted April Fool thing only lasts a day or two.

Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:48 pm

four hours I would like to see that... I spent at least three hours prepping the new loom to go in. There are several trouble shooting sessions to get it exactly the way it is supposed to work. Four hours is way to optomistic. But I guess if your single and your friends are out of town and there are no interuptions... for us famiy types it is a long and drawn out process.

As mentioned earlier the worst possilbe scenario is a deluxe bus with belly pans and the loom is gone. It will take you a lot longer than four hours there.

Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:30 pm

I'm still workin on mine... countless hours of confusion and interuptions. I do have the main loom in... now I'm lookin' @ all those other harnesses and extra wires, from bob. It aint easy baby!
Hell... I'd pay hazetguy, put him up in my '65 camper, fill him up with beer and feed him if he'd come over and do it for me... in 3 hours.
BTW/ the avatar is the cover of captain beefheart's trout mask replica... I asked. :D

Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:39 pm

I know this might be a dumb question but where is the loom run? My original loom is long gone and has been replaced by multiple "custom" sections. It's a 61 panel.

Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:03 am

PARTSSCOOT wrote: I know this might be a dumb question but where is the loom run? My original loom is long gone and has been replaced by multiple "custom" sections. It's a 61 panel.
I'm only familiar with the later ones but I think they're all the same. The loom goes in the right frame rail up and over the front and rear wheels. It's completely boxed in over the wheels and open between them.

Roamingwesty wrote: I tried to use one of those hand-cranking drain declogging wires to pass through - No goal. Cut a length of heavyduty power wire instead - Nay.

So now my question is, without the old harness, what trick do you use to get a guide rope through a bus that has belly pans? You might try an electrician's fish tape - it's more rigid than a plumber's snake. I used to used a drain snake - now that I have the real thing it's great. $8 at harborfreight.... http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=38156 Good luck, that's going to be a beech without a guide rope.

Fri Apr 02, 2004 1:17 am

That avitar is Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band's Trout Mask Replica Album Cover. Great Band, saw them a couple months ago -minus the Captain (who has am mystery illness posslibly MS.) Catch the show if you can!

Fri Apr 02, 2004 9:13 am

Quote: four hours I would like to see that... I spent at least three hours prepping the new loom to go in. There are several trouble shooting sessions to get it exactly the way it is supposed to work. Four hours is way to optomistic. But I guess if your single and your friends are out of town and there are no interuptions... for us famiy types it is a long and drawn out process.

well, i'm not single, but i really like to work alone. fewer distractions.
but i have done it in right around 4 hours a few times now. i don't know what you mean by "prepping the loom" to go in.
here are a few tricks i use:
-leave the harness in the sun to warm it up so it is more flexible.
-i do not use any kind of lubricant for it, other than maybe a few sprays of wd-40 if it's necessary. (get your minds out of the gutter)
-when pulling the main harness out, i cut it below the floor, and in the back where it comes out of the frame over the axle (except the wires that go to the starter--reason to follow). this way you don't have to pull all the weird ends through everything. besides, there is a reason you are replacing it, so why worry about cutting it?
-with both ends of the main harness cut off to eliminate straggly ends, i often tape one of those universal accelerator cables to the remnants of the harness in the rear of the bus, and then gently pull it through towards the front of the bus. i generally use the end with the loop on it so i can put a few wires through it to secure it to the cable- the wires that go to the starter. i wrap with electrical tape sometimes to cover up any loose ends to avoid snags.
-when the cable is through the frame, then i take the wires that run to the rear, lay them along the cable (there's plenty extra to lay this all out), as flat/straight as possible, and then use electrical tape to cover the terminal ends to avoid snags when pulling through, and to secure the wires to the cable. so in the end, there will be about 3 feet of cable with wires taped to it. i run a few wires through the loop again to make sure it will not slip out. there should be no major bulky areas that would be hard to pull through the frame. the key is slenderness. then it's just a matter of pulling the main harness from front to rear and removing the tape. tape is cheap, so i use alot of it.
i've found it's easier to get access to the wires in the rear without an engine installed in the vehicle. the hardest parts seem to be: fishing the wires for the rear lights through the rear sheetmetal near the battery, fishing all the wires from the main harness through the hole in the floor (Bob's wire sheathing is a bit too large, but it does fit), and running the brakelight and horn wires.

Lorse, where are you?