The interior of your car will only be as perfect as what is underneath it, right? When planning out an interior, think in advance about everything! Wiring is a BIG issue on cars that come through our shop. Never enough slack, giant bundles of wires running in the worst possible places, etc etc. I recommend taking a little extra time and being super careful with your wiring. Make it super neat and tidy. In the end, it will be easier to trace, and easier to cover up. Your carpet will lay perfectly flat will no ugly bulges! And be careful where you run the wires. I don't know how many times I've seen wires run diagonally across a floor pan under a seat. Keep wiring away from seat mounts, brackets, and slide tracks. When the seat is tightened down after the final assembly, you will crush the wires and risk an electrical short.
My wife, Jenna, was working on the wiring in a car today. I will attach some pictures of her work. She had to do ALOT of organizing and rerouting of the wiring in this car, but we want it super organized and neat in the end. That way our carpet is perfectly flat on top of the floor.
Side by side, easy to trace your wiring, and easy to cover! We spray a little adhesive on the floor, and when it gets tacky, stick the wiring to the adhesive, it holds it very nicely.
Nice and neat, and FAR away from any seat brackets...
We always run extra wiring. By extra, I mean wire that isn't connected to anything on either end. I don't know how many times a customer has thanked me for running a couple extra wires under his carpet. Super easy to add anything AFTER the interior is done, you don't have to pull the carpet up to run more wire. In this picture, Jenna ran 6 extra wires to the rear quarter panel area of this coupe. You can see the wiring for the taillights running up and to the right. The bundle in my left hand is the extra wiring Jenna ran in the car.
Here is where the extra wiring runs underneath the dash near the fuse block. We will leave it tucked in the console, but if the customer needs to add anything in the future, he will have extra wiring pre-installed in the car!
nice work - the extra wires should be mandatory on a rewire job - such a cheap and simple idea that will keep the few hairs I have left stuck in my head!
You are so right... laying the wire flat is important, and making sure it is not in a place where it can be mechanically damaged too. I tend to run the wires outside the vehicle for that reason. I don't want to get a call that someone stepped on a wire with their heel at just the right angle and caused a short and perhaps even a fire. The other reason I run as much wire outside the people-space is to reduce the risk of in-car fire and worse yet, smoke inhalation. That stuff is toxic when smoking.
Reduce the amount of in-cab wiring by using relays under the hood and keep the largest loads outside. This way the switches become simple signal devices, not carriers of full loads.
Yep
A couple of extra wires never hurt anything.
Planning the wiring with all accessories in mind is essential.
Both of my Elkys (59-66) are wired for electric fuel pumps thru a relay and an inertia switch (the 59 actually uses an electric pump)
Both cars also have an extra power wire going to the rear.
Both cars are wired for trailer brakes and trailer hookups (just in case)
Stereo, power windows, locks were all wired in with their own harnesses
before the dash went in.
I don't know of any wiring kits that provide wiring for for accessories other than the radio and courtesy lights, so think about this before starting the wiring.
Harness tape makes the harness look much better than 'zip ties', so a roll or two of that should be considered.
i had an electric fuel pump in my car at one time.. when I took it out, I just left the wire there.. I wasn't going to pull the interior apart just to pull one wire out.. about a year later, I finally got around to getting my rear window defog blower working and installed.. funny enough.. that extra wire was still there waiting for me saved myself TWO removals of the interior!
i have the interior out now doing massive body work. .when it goes back in, I plan to add a couple more wires for good measure
I buy my wire online from a place called waytek.. they deal in bulk so be ready to buy a lot.. 250ft minimum usually.. they sell in 250, 500, 1,000 and 5,000 ft rolls (Who wouldn't want one mile of wire in their garage? LOL)
they do sell a few types of wire in smaller 100ft rolls.. but they sell GOOD wire.. they have several different kinds of insulation depending on what you are looking for, and the wire itself is high quality I love it.
The wire's not going to be unprotected, there will be padding and carpet over the wires, and the wires are in places where a person will not step on them. BTW, this thread is 10 months old. It was resurrected by someone, so don't expect Shawn to be answering your questions...........
I still prefer a electrical raceway along the door sill or transmission tunnel made out of 24 ga. steel configured in a rectangle 1/4 X 1 1/2 inches and tacked to the floor. If you tack only one side of the cover, you can still lift it up to add additional wires to the raceway. The 24 ga. sheet metal is still flexible and yet provides a protective covering for the wires. It also lays almost flat and out-of-sight under the insulation and carpet.
In older 30 and 40"s cars there is usually sufficient room in the A pillar and upper door/roof area to hide a good size bundle of wire to take back into the trunk area.
Ribbon wire in 8's or 12's comes in handy for running back to the rear areas also.
The downfall is gauge and wire color. GM 4 wire trailer wiring comes in 4 and 6 wire ribbons in GM tail/brake light color in 12 gauge.
I'm moving this to General Rodding Tech. You all make good points and have good suggestions, and this has gotten beyond the scope of the Interior forum.
Wire Gauge is determined by the current draw of the load. Most wires for signaling such as Temperature and Oil pressure Senders are 16 Gauge. Lighting circuits can be also 16 Gauge, but I prefer to use 14 Gauge.
12 Gauge is used for Headlight Relay Feeds and Heater Fans and a 10 Gauge feeds the Fuseblock from the Battery or master shut-off circuit.
I use the largest cable I can find to go from the battery to the starter (#4 at the least) and I make sure I run a ground strap from the battery to the chassis, chassis to the motor and chassis to the body (using multiple ground straps if separate body parts exist such as a truck box and cab).
If I am wiring a pre-50's hot rod I prefer to use the older style cotton-braided wire which I get from The Brillman Company (http://brillman.com/store) and in many of those cases I build my own fuseblock using parts from http://www.wiringproducts.com or other local suppliers in my area.
If I am wiring a 50's or 60's vehicle, I still like to make it more custom and tend to use general harnesses from various manufacturers such as EZ Wiring (http://www.ezwiring.com) and American Autowire (http://shop.americanautowire.com).
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