108 4.5 wiring harness

The wiring harness in my 108 4.5 has become brittle. I was wanting to know if there was any easy way to replace it myself by purchasing the correct wire and recycling the connectors. Has anyone attempted this? I would just wrap the old wires but was looking for a more permanent solution.

[psfred]

MB tends to solder all the connectors, so you can unsolder them if you need to.

You can no longer buy the ECU connector, you will HAVE to recycle that one. All the others are still available.

Other than the work involved, you should have no trouble. I think you can also buy the harness, minus the ECU connector, which will save considerable time.

Peter

anyone happen to have a wiring diagram for the 4.5? The wires from the positive lead on the battery down have the wire insulation deteriated. I believe I read in another post that this can be replaced with high temp, 10 guage stranded red wire? would kynar work for this? I managed to replace all the hoses this past weekend. Another matter is a green wire coming off the distributor that looks like it went to the ribbed alum spark box. It looks like the PO spliced this into another wire to extend it, was this just a ground or another wire?

[psfred]

The green wire is the points wire -- signals the transistor box to switch the coil to make spark. NOT a ground.

However, if someone has converted the ignition to breakerless (Crane makes an optical system), who knows where it goes -- probably to the aftermarket ignition rather than the transistor box.

If you have trouble with the factory system, it's probably best to go breakerless rather than to try to keep the factory one going -- parts are becoming non-existant.

Peter

[cth350]

There are at least three versions of that green wire. They have in common, a coaxial scheme where the center carries the points open/close signal forward. Early wires have a copper braid as a shield that terminates in an eye. Later wires terminate in a plug that resembles an RCA jack.

From the factory, the early wire runs to a small block and from there, the shield is grounded and the center core wire ties to a line to the transistorized box.

It is a common to bypass the transistorized box (which can be fixed with an over the counter transistor if needed) and hook the green wire straight to the coil. Of course, it is equally easy to connect it to the wrong terminal on the distributor, which makes for a very inefficient ignition system.

-CTH