Hi all,

I am thinking about replacing some of the wires on my engine wire harness. Has any one done this before? Can anyone recommend a brand of wire or a vendor? Are all wires the same guage? solid? stranded?

Are there companies that can refurbish the wire harness and restore it back to original?

thanks for your help.

Are we talking about the infamous engine harness? If so, once you start moving the harness around you may wind up causing more problems. Don't get me wrong. In my shop we do repairs on individual wires and connectors every day, but we would never try to re-furbish a faulty harness.

Do a search on google.com for aircraft supplies/wiring or http://www.steinair.com/wire.htm . The wiring used in planes/aircraft is rated for high temps.

__________________
Russell McMahon
Tulsa, OK
2001 CLK 320
1992 400se
1993 400e
2000 320ML

Teflon jacketed wire is often available on eBay, in short surplus lengths. This is extremely expensive wire, often silverplated or with high silver content. I don't think that there is anything better - it's often used in hi-rel/military applications. Beware, don't melt the insulation with a soldering iron, the fumes are poisonous, particularly to birds.

On the gauges, European wire is usually sized in cross-section mm's, US is some old English standard. My 107CD has a handy cross-reference.

__________________
86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm

Teflon wire is very hard to strip. I would stay away from it except if absolutely necessary. I did rewire a floor lamp with it once. I never wanted to do it again the rest of my life and I won't either!! But even that was a chore.

Mike

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

go to this site:: http://jmproducts.com/

They sell high quality wire in whatever lengths,color, size you want, real reasonable, first quality (made in USA!)

You really do not want/need to use teflon insulated stuff in your car. MBZ used cheaply made 'biodegradeable' wiring that did not have enough anti-oxidant in it and it failed in service in hot areas in the engine compartment and hot climates.

I agree, but I admit that I didn't have the right tools to do it with. A cheap hand-stripper is a pain in the butt to use.

__________________
86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm

This page in my site lists some possible suppliers...

http://v12uberalles.com/throttle_actuator_rewire.htm

__________________
1995 S600, 1 of 618 (sold)

"Speed is just a question of money...how fast you wanna go?"

LONG LIVE THE W140!
Visit my Web Page at www.v12uberalles.com

Do you know the difference between their SXL and GXL wire?

Mike

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

Any wire you find is going to be 10 times better than the wire in the car. The quality of the new wire is not the issue - the issue is that the entire harness is degraded. You have to rebuild the whole thing to have anything. I have tried a partial rebuild in the high heat areas - but it lasted for only about a month and then failed again. I concluded it was a hopeless proprosition - and bought a new harness. Of course the harness price at the time was less than half what it is now. I think the current price is about three times what it was 5 years ago - which is what's really obscene about the wiring harness issue. Obviously with enough of an investement in time you could do the whole harness. In my experience doing less than the whole thing was a waste of time.

i've restored a number of rar chewed barn finds and found that repairing a harness is a waste of time and will only lead to further problems. it is best to duplicate the harness if not able to afford new replacements. this isn't cheap either because to do it properly you'll need a lot of different wire colors, but in the end you'll save considerable money. do not use crimp connectors. a harness with 50 crimps has 50 problems. solder everything. you will find that the connectors on the original harness can be unsoldered and reused so basically you are replacing the wire. if you have to vary from factory colors, do so but draw a new wiring diagram as you do it.