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Sat May 08, 2004 10:13 pm

well as i was getting all my mechanicals finished up this weekendi noticed the guy who tore this car apart just deicded he wanted to clip wires off whereever he wanted. There is wire ends everywhere. The main motor wiring is good but all the light wiring is clipped the break light switches are clipped. I have done a search and found that some use the $200 beetle harness and others convert to the $50 buggy harness. What should I do i think it would be a pain in the butt to lenthen all these wires and converting to modern day fuses would be nice. I really do not want to spend $200 on a harness at this time. should i go with the buggy harness? I dont care about the diagnostic stuff on my 74 standard so cutting some of that out would be fine to me. I guess if i really wanted I could go down and buy a fuse block and different wires and do this all my self too. What do you think?

Sat May 08, 2004 11:23 pm

If its strictly offroad I would get the 50 buck one and go that route or even if its street legal its not that difficult to get the lights going. Mine was the same way and I did all the wiring custom cuz it had to be street legal.

Sat May 08, 2004 11:39 pm

Wiring is a little scary at first? Once you get into it, You can fix your old harness in no time? IMO

Sun May 09, 2004 1:02 pm

well i figured of course i could go through and reattach all the wires using a wiring diagram. My point is that later if i do have a problem it will be a pain in the butt to trouble shoot and fix an electrical problem. if i got to a new harness it wil have some sort of color code to it to where i could know what each wire was doing. i suppose i could go out and buy a bunch of wires but even then it might get messy. it does have to be street legal for my street baja. This is going to be like a summer daily driver type car and i want it reliable and not starting a fire.

Sun May 09, 2004 7:27 pm

VWKid,
I've got the $50 'bag-o-wires' wiring harness schematic colored and scanned. If you want, shoot me an e-mail with your addy and I'll send it back, so you can take a gander and see if it will fit the bill.

$50 harness or $200 harness, it's quality and longevity is going to be directly proportional to the time you take to install it, and the quality of connections you make.

I have wired 3 glass buggies using the $50 bag-o-wires kit, with zero electrical failures so far. It is the bare bones of street legal wiring and may require some modification if you plan on running multiple gauges, switches, etc, but so would any harness you get. If you do go this route, I would suggest pitching the supplied connectors and buying some good ones, and soldering every connection. Lay the harness out as a complete unit beside the car and get everything tied up nice and neat before pulling it through the car. Pull an extra 3 or 4 wires from front to rear for spares. If you really wanted to throw a couple extra bucks into the $50 harness, replace the supplied fuse box with an aftermarket one, so you can use better blade type fuses.

Sun May 09, 2004 8:51 pm

Im with UncleBob here. I used the cheap harness and it worked great. I do not care for the cheap fuse brick it comes with, the main fuse for my harness always came lose on the bumps. Any auto parts store should have a better box. For the price it is hard to beat.

Mon May 10, 2004 9:31 am

looks good the only thing i think i would need is to run wire for the interior lights and a stereo. Other than that i could get rid of a lot of the useless wires up front.

I dont know if i will have such a problem with the fuse coming out since she will see mostly road time.

Mon May 10, 2004 6:06 pm

Talked with wire works today and they have a good kit that is only like $36 with shipping.

Mon May 10, 2004 6:34 pm

Who is this Wire works? Never heard of them befor. The easiest thing for a dome light would just be a toggle switch on the dash. As for a radio, you will need a 12v constant from the headlight switch, and a 12v switched from the ignition switch.
Good luck
Andy

Mon May 10, 2004 8:15 pm

they have a website at :
http://www.wirewerksperformance.com/

yeah thats no big deal to wire those smaller things just the main harness is all I really need.

Mon May 17, 2004 4:19 pm

I can supply or custom make anything you need to your specifications. I am a home based business and do this part time for customers. My website is a little crude right now but is being upgraded. Anyway, I have fuse panels (prewired), relays, fuse blocks, switches etc etc. If you need anything just email me. I will give ya a price, advice on wiring is always free so feel free to email me.
wirewerksperformance@earthlink.net
wirewerksperformance.com

Mon May 17, 2004 7:02 pm

Wirewerks,
Glad you made it to the forums. Welcome! I'm sure your presence will be much appreciated by all.

Your buggy harness sure looks like a great alternative to the $50 bag-o-wires kit. What's the cost? Are your connectors soldered? If not, what crimping tool do you use? I was reading the list of everything included, and noticed the main loom has '10 feet of 6 each 14ga loom', is that enough? Even with the generic bag-o-wires, there's 8 all together running from dash-panel back, not including the 10ga to V-reg and starter, and that's NOT including any gauge wires.

Something else that I would like to see that you may be able to work into a 'kit' is a specialized fiberglass buggy wiring harness, that would include extra 14GA black wiring for grounds, and a couple of seperate 'bus blocks' for behind the dash panel. One 12+ and one ground block, that you can use as you wish to power extra gauges, lights, radio, etc. I've used the bus blocks on my last 2 buggy wiring projects, it saved a lot of wire and made adding gauges or components later a snap. Anyway, I'd sure buy a kit if it included all this to save me from having to run around to find what I need. The extra bus blocks and additional wiring could be added to your generic rail kit pretty cheaply, I'd think.

Anyway, that's a good looking harness. I think I'll give it a try on my next project.

Tue May 18, 2004 9:40 am

Alot of people use the 6 circuit harness for a basic 'non street legal' sandrail, I also do 8 10 and 12 circuit harnesses and can make them in any length and specification you want including different gauge wiring depending on what you want to run on each circuit. Since every situation is different and eveyone has their own way and setup let me what your looking to do and I can get you a price. The connectors are crimp connectors with crimp tool and then are heatshrinked. No they will not come off. I can also solder and heatshrink if thats what you want. Like I said, I do this as a hobby, Its not my full time job but I love wiring vehicles and will help anyone out as much as possible. Right now everything on the website is pretty basic kits and I can do pretty much anythin you want. I wont do a complete drop in ready to go kit for a 69 ford (as an example) nice every situation is different and not everyone wants the same thing unless your in Southern Ca and can drop off the vehicle. Also, since this isnt my full time job Im not a next day turnaround person. I will take my time and get it done as time permits within a few weeks. I dont want or have a desire to get where I have to rush jobs, That takes the fun out of the hobby, I buy in bulk . I started doing this years ago for friends, my self and friends of friends. I was to tired of getting cheap products with no tech support so I started doing this myself. Anyway, I am here to help Just email if you need somethig or have any questions. wirewerksperformance@earthlink.net