through fire wall electrical junctions

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71swing

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I had a mishap last night with my car and had a fire in the bay that torched most of the electrical in the driver side of the bay. The electrical junction where the harnesses hook to go through the firewall took the biggest hit. Is anyone aware of where I could possibly get these. I'm not necessarily looking for all new harnesses but maybe that's what's all available.
 
Time for a new engine harness......and anything on the other side that's burned.
 
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Ouch! I can't help you with a new harness, but this picture should be put in EVERY thread about doing the MAD ammeter bypass procedure. Good luck getting your ride back on the road.
 
The whole problem with a fire or other electrical issue "that bad" is that it melts wires together inside the harness which causes harness internal shorts and cross connects. There are only a few ways to deal with it, depending.

1-- Replace all underhood and under- dash wiring. "Back then" this was easy-- you went to the dealer and ordered new ones, or a few years later, you could find them in yards before everybody got crusher fever.

1--Completely and I mean completely untape the harness --ALL of it -- and lay it out with nails, etc, on a board, and examine every single conductor for damage and replace them

3--Go with an aftermarket harness such as Painless and others and just get busy and rewire the thing, only THIS time put in enough fuse and breaker protection -- something the factory never did

4--As someone above mentioned, I would not consider a "full current" ammeter in these cars anymore, except under certain conditions, that being the equivalent of using "fleet wiring" and paying special attention to the ammeter itself. Ma always knew these were a problem, otherwise "fleet wiring" would never have existed. Read this excellent MAD article on the whys and hows

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml
 
If you go with a new wiring what I did was removed the old connectors from the bulk head and drilled 3/16 hole all the way through. Then pushed the wires through the plastic bulk head to the engine bay. The bulk head looks stock but there is no connectors it's just straight wire pushed through. This eliminates the weak link at the connectors in the bulk head. I assume this is where the fire started.

I used EZ Wiring kit.
 
Let me make it clear it was not a electrical fire. This was fueled by gas. The poor wiring just took the bulk of it. I was up late wiring up a new tach. I thought it would be a great idea to use the tach test setting on my Crane hi-6 box. What I failed to recognize was my Fast EZ efi uses the same tach signal for rpm readings. So as the Crane box was ramping my tach up during the test. the fuel injectors were adding fuel to the motor. When I was done and happy the tach was working correctly I tried to start it up. But the cylinder were full of gas and it would not crank. So after determining what the could be the cause. I removed the plugs to bleed of the cylinder pressure. I also took steps to disconnect the ignition system because I was going to crank it over to open some valves and new it would push the fuel out the holes. Well even with the ignition system disabled when the fuel came out something ignited the fuel. instantly the engine bay was a giant fire ball. Of course the extinguisher I have in the car was closest and did not work when I tried it. So I had no choice at this point but to grab the garden hose to put out the flames which had made it onto the garage wall at this point. Luckily after the flame were out the bulk of the damage was done to the wiring. I do have a spot on the top of the hood next to the driver side scoop which bubbled up from the heat because the washer fluid reservoir was on fire.

On the inside the only thing melted was anything close enough to the heat of the firewall. so it doesn't really go beyond the plugs on the wall. It really only melted a few feet of all the wires. I simply planned to rewire that section of harness. I just thought it would make it easier if I could get the original plugs for the firewall then rewire one wire at a time. As is sits everything still appears to have power still besides the Fast EFI computer, but its power source is in with the melted mess. But it obviously needs replaced because that is a short waiting to happen. So I hoping it just needs rewired or is a fuse blown at this point.

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Doesn't matter that it started as a fuel fire. At this point it's electrical, and as I said, internal meltage as in HIDDEN because while it was burning, example, the main battery/ alternator wires could have melted to say, the oil sender wire and turned into a high current short. That then heats up wiring and melts OTHERS together.

This is just picked "out of the blue" but the point is, you cannot SEE what happened
 
Yeah, bdusted440 is right. Year One has the harnesses and the junctions so its plug and play. Still factory so there is still that issue. But if you're an electrician, Painless or some other way may be better. Its for you to decide. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.
 
Louie70Dart said:
But if you're an electrician, Painless or some other way may be better. Its for you to decide. Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.
Click to expand...

Even if you're not, I'd do a new kit. At least then you don't have to worry about future mishaps from the sketchy 70s wiring.

I'm no electrician and I was able to do my car. It's just time consuming.
 
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