The wiring harness arrived and it includes 4 major pieces, bulbs for the dash, glass fuses and a laminated wiring diagram. This is a complete set purchased from Lectric Limited, Inc. which has been supplying quality reproduction wiring harnesses to members of the National Corvette Restorers Society for years. It's correct down to the smallest detail. Lets get started...
Once again I am reminded of the wisdom behind Ty's insistence that I not throw anything away, including the old wiring harness. The old harness is in the foreground and I used it as a templet to pre-bend the new harness before installation. You can't imagine how valuable that was.
After I had the dash wiring harness in position it was time to identify each of the wires. This is a tedious exercise that still isn't complete. In this picture you can see I am using the GM Assembly Manual, Corvette dash cluster and the laminated wiring diagram to help with the identification.
It's amazing how many wires go to the dash cluster. I am labeling each with green masking tape. Notice how the harness floats in the air. It gets positioned up and underneath the dash pad.
The dash wiring harness includes the fuse box which is authentic right down to the glass fuses.
The next harness runs along the firewall and over the passenger inner fender. It serves the coil, alternator, voltage regulator and the horns. I've circled some of the clips used to hold the harness in place. The white clips along the firewall were used on early 63 Corvettes only. The color changed to black later in the year and continued for several years. Special clips were used on the inner wheel well too. The car never had zip-ties.
This harness runs along the drivers side wheel well and powers the headlights and headlight motors. To make these connections the front bumpers and grill must be removed. I'll wait until I get the correct horns before I do that though.
The last harness powers the rear blinkers, stop lights, gas gauge and license plate light. This is a picture of the backside of the left side brake light, looking up. The connectors, including the dust boots, are correct for our car.
The only thing I actually wired up so far is the license plate light. The wiring harness installation, including all the connections, will take a lot of time and research. I have to determine the correct harness routing (above, under, through, behind), research the proper clip types and clip location. After that the testing begins. I'll verify everything is wired correctly before I actually start the car.
Switching gears, the brackets for the drivers seat needed to be replaced due to rust. The passenger side was fine and only needed to be refurbished.
The results are great. Click on the photo and check them out.
Here's a current picture of the car. We're having 25 people over for Superbowl and the garage will be used for overflow. I'll post some pictures later and let you know what everybody said about the car.
As always, thanks for watching.
