DIY - Wire Tuck
One of the things many car owners dream of is a cleaner, more simple engine bay. It seems like an impossible task; what does one do with all that stuff? There are a few solutions that are simpler than you may imagine. I begin working on this task in the form of a wire tuck and hope to give some guidance as others go through this process. At the same time other things will be tucked or cleaned up, but the main objective at the moment is wiring.
Purpose: To be honest, there is no purpose to this beyond cosmetics. Some make the argument that you are better able to service your wiring when it is where you want it, but I'm not sold on this. I do, however, know that I am much more familiar with my car's wiring and wiring itself. It was well worth the effort.
Time: Yikes! It depends on how much you do, and how thoroughly you do it. It took me a few days while being patient and thorough (not entirely full days either).
Tools:
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Automatic Wire Strippers
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Soldering Pen
- Lighter (to shrink the shrinkwrap)
Supplies:
- 200 foot of stranded wire, various sizes. Just take a look at some of the wires and you'll get an idea what you need
- Solder, I've had a pound spool I've used over and over again
- Shrink wrap, various sizes but mainly 12-20 ga.
- Electrical tape
Before shot, it's hideous:
Diagrams of the two round shock mount plugs, make sure to label the identically colored wires!
This is what headlight wiring looks like, one of the main tasks will be to relocate these wires to the fender brace so they will be out of the way:
Now we'll begin with taking the body panels off so we can relocate the wiring.
Take your corner light out:
T-bar comes out to help remove the bumper, it has 4 10mm bolts up top, on on the bottom, and the hood pop cable is clipped to it:
Those little screws were rusted in badly so I had to take them out with the vice grips:
Also on the bumper there are two 10mm bolts on the bottom and two screws on each side in the wheel well. Also, there are two screws under the corner light. Once that's all off slide the bumper off:
Conversely you can take the front bumper off by removing the core support with the cover all in one shot. This may prove easier than removing those aluminum things that hold the cover on. There are 4 bolts behind the bumper lights (2 on each side) and 2 screws on the sides directly in front of the front tires that hold it on. After everything just pops off.
The headlight wiring will be tucked down through the support brace for the fender. To get the fender off there are 3 10mm bolts on the top, two in the front corner, two under the door/drim area at the bottom and one on the top behind the door. Get at these with a wrench from the side with the door open so you don't damage your paint. You'll also need to detach the wheel well plastic from the body of the car, just undo the plastic screws or slide the plastic around them:
Unplug everything. You'll need to take off the horn to get the plug off, but it's only one 12mm bolt:
Yank the headlight harness out the side there so you've got it all acessible:
Oh no, look at those plugs. Two go to the windsheild washer nozzles. I took out the reservoir and the lines, but if you wanted to you could leave the reservior (or move/modify it) and tuck the lines in the fender brace. At this point you basically just cut the plugs off, label all the wires (as you cut them off), and pull the wiring inside the cabin so you can put it out the side:
Side of the car where the tucked headlight wiring will come out and go into the fender brace:
Cut open the harness so you can start cutting plugs and labeling the ground wires. The annoying thing here is that some wires go into the cabin and some go to the multiground. I just cut the cabin wires and tucked one at a time while labeling the wiring on the multiground:
Pull this little plug out. Through the hole the wiring will come out of the cabin of the car. When you cut a wire you pull it through from under the dash and shove it out the side here:
The hole it comes out of in the middle and where it goes in the very top-right:
Opened harness from the engine bay, all these wires will be gone besides the two to the master cylinder:
The harness from the inside:
Cut the first plug, pull the wire through, shove it out, and realize you've started:
First wire is wrapped around and through the fender brace:
Comes out through this little hole here:
There's a multiground for each side, make sure to label the wires just because. Iono if it matters but labeling is very important just in case!
Everything cut off the multiground and labeled up:
The multiground tucked into the corner bumper/fender area:
Look at all the wires coming together:
Crappy shot of all the individual plug wires taped together:
All the wires on the passenger side that go through the fender. The black wires are all for the wiper motor:
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You can see where the wiper wiring goes into the fender now:
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Cut open the wiring for the injectors and run it up from the bottom under the IM runners:
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Turned the brake booster vacuum hose around to take advantage of its natural bends and cut some off on the unbent side. Don't forget to flip the one-way valve if you do it like I did:
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Better look at the driverside wiring all done up:
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Almost every wire going in through the old VSS cable hole, damn it was getting cramped after a while, this was really a pain, but worth it I think:
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The two MC wires going through that driver side firewall opening:
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Passenger side multiground and relay down where the intake resonator used to be:
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Fusebox: Really no pictures needed, everything screws off/unplugs besides the power wire to the battery, which you need to lengthen X amount depending on where your battery is and how you're routing the wire. This was the easiest part, by far.
Look at it being finished:
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NOTE: Many pictures you can click for largeness.
Thanks for any comments/questions
Hit me up at
SVOboy@dartmouth.edu
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