Topic: Problems..

[SavingTheBird76]

If you add items to the original wiring harness,you can splice into another wire as long as the thickness of wire is the same,and you don't pull too much power from the fuse block.
Looks like someone spliced some wires directly from the battery,with no fuse to protect the circuit.
Also looks like all the grounds run together.
I'm guessing the stereo installer added all those wires.
It's hard to tell with all the tape,which usually hides the errors.
Separating the grounds and circuits from each other and fusing them would make your life easier.
With everything running off the battery,probably all the circuits are overloaded.

[Kevin]

The electrical taped wiring was done by the shop by the way.. Also there is a fuse that's right near the battery.

[Kevin]

So i should just get the 400 harness so that I can use it for later? It wont matter will it? I think everything's in the same place as the 350 R/400 so does it matter that much?

[brian c]

Holy cow Kevin! Who ever did that to your car should be shot...well maybe not shot but definitely beaten...if they think they're pros. I knew it would be bad from your description last night but holy (expletive)! What moron adds 14-18g wire as a primary ground??? That's just asking for trouble.

Good news is that this can be fixed for little cost (well its all relative right?). Definitely something you/we straighten out though.

How much of this did you want to work through on my lunch? I only have an hour and it looks like you have a couple days worth of work tracing wiring to see what it runs to. I wouldn't worry about the extra wiring running to the ground terminal on the battery (to the water neck) - that's a very easy fix to upgrade to something much more substantial.

Text me what your game plan is...may take me a little to respond as I am working but I'll get back to you as I promised.

- Brian

[Kevin]

I don't know honestly what we're going to do, but we'll do what we can right.

[Kevin]

I ordered both harnesses for my car, engine and forward lamp. They are going to modify the forward lamp to accommodate the aftermarket headlight needs that I have, so that's good. Going to take 10 weeks to make it all though so I've got some time to wait on it all, but man will it be worth it!

[Nexus]

Who did you decide to order from?

[Kevin]

M and H

[Nexus]

Right on...It will give piece of mind once it's changed out and the bugs are worked out

[Kevin]

Yep Cant wait!!

[Jolley_Man666]

All of this stuff sounds like it's the joys pains of owning an older car.  I kind of know how you feel because I've gone through this with a Camaro, and it's not fun but eventually you will look back on this and laugh about all of the trouble that the car put you through but you still loved it anyway... it's funny how we love our cars regardless if they're a rust bucket or in your case a real beauty

[jphillips3333]

The other thing this will do is make you a stronger person ... and help with fixing cars, or for that matter, many other things later on in life.  That will save you thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands, my friend.  Plug away and don't be scared ...

[Kevin]

Yeah I've got Brian c all you guys and my uncles going to help me with my dad so I figure we can do it

[brian c]

Just gotta get it back to basics and then we can add on the other electrical stuff like the aftermarket radio and the high intensity headlights. We'll just do one thing at a time and I'm sure we'll have it up and running (with no electrical fires) in no time.

Did you get a chance to jack the car up and look at the + battery cable yet to see if it was chafing on anything?? And how did you make out with Autozone testing the battery and alt??

Ohh and I'll get you those photos probably tomorrow. GF wants to see the car and she'll be at the house tomorrow so she can be put to work uncovering it Gotta break her in sometime! 

[Kevin]

Battery is fine, but alternator is bad.Don't have a jack actually, but do have jackstands... Makes sense right? Anyway, I'm going to order new cables too while I'm at it. I mean, I might as well at this point. They make them to factory spec too, the screw in type, so I'm going to be getting those as well. They said 8 to 10 weeks, but hopefully it will be shorter time than that...