new loom - whos used a universal loom/kit?

[NISMOgemini]

i bought the aussie looms kit.. got all the lighting wired up easy as.. just got the dash and all the starter alt wires.. pretty basic to wire up

[10sec rx7]

chuck,

pete has a aussie loom at home, ill get him to show you,

i used the painless and it was simple to do

[JZK25]

I had a painless kit in my VK when I got it. The auto leccy that installed it(a mate) didn't think much of it and recommended I just use std VK harness in good condition and add to it where necessary.
He said it was designed more for very old cars that have very simple wiring in which case the kit would be an upgrade but on a modern car it was no better. It would probably be ok for a bare bones race car setup but at the same time it would be that hard to just start from scratch with a race car either.
Anyone want the painless fuse box and remains of the harness? Pm me an offer if so.

[260BC]

Seem to recall a discussion on a US forum where someone used a Painless kit to wire up a Datsun 240Z which was basically a race car. Seemed to be OK, all the wires are tagged?

How much is the Aussie Looms kit Gene?

[NISMOgemini]

$550 delivered ( COD )

[260BC]

That Aussie Looms kit looks the goods, like the way the wires are identified along their length, excellent.

[HoonBoy]

The Painless kit is marked all the way along the wire as well.

[NISMOgemini]

from the pics and description.. aussie is the same item as painless..

[Fraud]

it really depends what point you're at..

if there isnt a harness on the car and its completely bare and you pretyt much have to run new wires anyway, and don't need full integration, then yeah thye probably make sense on some level..

if you want them to splice in with original wiring, or if you think you'll lay it all on top of existing wiring, then you're dreaming...

this is an exact excerpt from teh june 2005 NSW Fiat club magazine...

Q. Which part of the restoration did you find most challenging? Did you encounter any particular problems?

Without a doubt the most challenging part was rewiring the car. After attempting to drag the original harness to the right side of the dash, I was left with a mess of multicoloured spaghetti, that firstly didn't correspond to the factory wiring diagram, and secondly didn't work when i put power to it.

I bought a universal wiring harness from a company called Painless Wiring. This looked promising. Fusebox? check, color coded wires? check, installation manual? check, integrating it to the Spider's guages, steering column controls, and engine sensors? What the... I ended up totally stripping the new harness and run/test each circuit individually. In the end I added seven relays, three more fuses, a Dick Smith home PCB delay timer for intermittend wipers, and a dozen lengths of wire for instrumentation. Painless? I think not....

it then goes on to say...

What advice would you give to anyone else considering commencing a restoration project?

Before starting. Determine the level of restoration and halve it. Determine your budget and double it.

bares no importance... just thought a few people could relate..

from the stage i'm at right now with my car, i have 2 options since i don't want to use one of these kits after reading that...

1: take it to an auto electrician, pick it up $2000 later..

2: fix the bits that i know are wrong, that i know need fixing, and that i know how to fix, and dont fuck with the bits that don't have any problems cause they'll come next if i do...

I'm still not certain which path i'll follow... it'd be nice to have a diagram that corresponded to the car perfectly, but it wont happen since fiat could harldy get the diagrams right themselves, and since there was only 2 relays in the whole car from the factory (horn, and thermo fan... thats it - which gives a good indication as to how people drive in italy.. agressively, and not at night...), i'll want to add a few more... and then theres an ecu... and so on..

[ALLMTR]

Yeah unfortunately I'm at the "starting from scratch" version Luckily the car is a mid 70's model so has FA other items to run

Dale, I'll have to check out that loom

[Fraud]

well if you're starting with absolutely nothing, and it doesnt matter if the wiring ends up resembling the original wiring or not, bugger it, take the easy way!

[NISMOgemini]

its not about easy.. its about clean... safe...

i went from probably 20 wires down to abotu 8 runing to the front of my car..

depends what u want it to look like in the end..

also later on somethign liek the .......... random selection, thermo fan dyes.. the fan works fine but wont run.. how easy is it to trace a wire that say THERMO FAN on the side every 6"... compaired to a blue green wire that runs from one end of the car to the other then changes to a red yellow wire and runs though the dash, changes to brown white, does a few laps of the engien bay then to the fuse box...

every thign on the universal loom goes from the fuse to the switch to the item (including a relay if needed).. makes life easyer in the long run

[260BC]

What Gene said ^

One example of how old wiring can cause huge problems. Avatar car was suffering from an occasional missfire on the track when accelerating hard out of some corners. Suspected it was fuel so over time did a whole lot of work to the fuel system. Still there. Eventually the battery went flat due to a short. Found that the short involved a poor factory connection and aged insulation.

Fixed that up and that fixed the fuel problem too. Conclusion? Believe that the poor connection was causing a voltage drop to the EFI pump resulting in insufficient fuel supply which only surfaced when fuel demand was heavy.