Posted By: roe
How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 03:33 PM
First, how much would you expect to pay to have it done?
I have a 71 Satellite that I want to have completely rewired, and have some of the upgrades done to help with the the common problems with the charging systems on these cars. I have already run a heavy guage wire from alternator to battery, and installed a relay for my elctric fans and a voltmeter, and would like to keep those. I would also like to have the headlights, A/C,etc.. put on a relay. Does anyone know of reputable shops in the Orlando/Gainesville FL area or in the Killeen/Austin and maybe even Dallas or SanAntonio TX areas?
Posted By: RapidRobert
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 04:05 PM
that'd sure be a labor intensive deal. I'd see if you could find a local Mopar head that you trust & are comfortable with & work a deal with him to take care of it
Posted By: IMGTX
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 05:03 PM
If I was going to re-wire a car I would have to look at it and discuss it with you.
Some important things to look at are.
1. Do you want all new wiring or fix, repair, and upgrade existing wiring. Replacing wiring can go two ways. All new harnesses or build them from scratch. Building them from scratch is not what I suggest for a car with readily available harnesses. Too many connectors, sockets, wrapping etc needs to be included plus the myriad of colored wiring to make it professional. I would only suggest building a harness in specialty applications. Racecar, streetrod, kitcar, or cars with no available harnesses like a 60's rambler.
2. If you want a fix, repair, and upgrade to existing wiring what does the current wiring look like? The whole harness needs to be inspected and the dash/engine harnesses unwrapped to inspect it right. Rat's nest repairs, cut chaffed wires, etc need to be removed and repaired correctly. Solder only no crimps, bulkhead terminals replaced but how are the bulkhead connectors?
3. What kind of upgrades? Halogen lights on relay's? 100,000 giga-what ear bleed stereo? Alarm system? Electronic engine like a stock modern Hemi? Battery cutout? electronic ignition? LED lights (Dash, marker & Taillights)? Foot dimmer switch, Door switches, etc are they good/bad? Do you want to replace (Save trouble later) or just check (Save money now)?
I have had good outcomes with old Mopars by rebuilding the harnesses and adding upgrades to the main power circuits.
a. Fusible links at the Alternator & Starter relay connections,
b. straight wire or bulkhead bypass for the two main power wires from dash to engine compartment,
c. bumping the main power wires to 10 gage,
d. soldering the power wires to the ignition switch instead of using the under dash connector.
e. Replacing the terminals in the bulkhead connector, headlight, wiper, & heater switches.
Good fuse blocks are the sticking point on our old cars. Often a harness is needed to repair bad fuse blocks. They are integrated into the harness. it's more than the plastic block that often gets charred. You need to replace the terminals in the block which is a problem. They are sorta integral to the harness.
Also consider replacing the fan motor for the heat/AC. They often are old and pull so much current they overload the switches & fuses.
If you are replacing switches what kind of quality? Cheap china switches or expensive NOS/OEM switches?
Depending on how you want it done it could be hundreds or thousands.
If you have time and another daily driver it's not a bad time to learn wiring.
Posted By: TJP
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 05:31 PM
4-6K depending on choices. IE: stock or updated, how many aftermarket accessories etc.
I would strongly encourage you to stay away from painless kits.
It is a very labor intensive job to do
CORRECTLY The harnesses that we do will last as long as the originals did if not longer
Posted By: moper
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 07:56 PM
i charge by the hour for it... Some good advantages to upgrading to a power center like the Ram trucks had (anything with a Magnum V-8). Then you have a lot of relays, power and ground buss, etc to work with and it's relatively easy to make look clean. It takes a long time to do a nice job and you need to know a bit about electrical systems to do it well. I think the last one I did was to upgrade and get the car set for high amperage alternator, fans, AC, ignition, HID headlights, etc. and it was close to 40 hours.
Posted By: Mr.Yuck
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 08:08 PM
Can't you buy every harness you need? I know they make them for 68-70 b-bodys. I pretty much did this car. It came w/ all new harnesses (uninstalled) they only one that was in the car was the one from the fire wall back to the rear. Eveything wlse I hung myself. The bigest PITA was the steering column harness. The dash harness led me to get reading glasses and I had to adjust the engine harness to BB from SB, but other than that it just took time. Of course it helped that I had no interior or heat/ac box to mess with.
Posted By: RSNOMO
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 08:35 PM
Get a service manual and have at it...
Get replacement harnesses;decades-old wiring needs to go...
If yer electrically-challenged, get some help...
We're talking 40 year-old OEM auto wiring, not a computer data-center...
4k???
LMMJAO...
Posted By: Stanton
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 08:43 PM
I think a lot depends on what your ultimate goal is ... a stock-type upgrade or a full custom job.
If you plan to use the original bulkhead connector then it can be tackled yourself in sections i.e. firewall forward, etc.. If that's the case, get all your relays, etc. mounted where you want them then start with each individual circuit back to the bulkhead. Do up some drawings so you can work out the runs to be tidy and follow the same path. Test each circuit as you do it to ensure there are no shorts, etc.. Its time-consuming but not rocket science.
Take a look at some of the stuff these guys offer:
http://www.madelectrical.com/
Posted By: RSNOMO
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/06/13 09:58 PM
I think he's stated what he's after...
And it ain't 4k worth of work...
Posted By: carhunter
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/07/13 01:41 AM
I had my 70 rr done about 3 yrs. ago,a local mopar club member that does this on the side charged me 550.00 for rewiring mine front to back.He came to my house and it took 2 days.I bought the dash harness from year one and the engine bay and truck from evans. I think all the wiring ran about 750.00.total was about 1300.00.I thought that was a good deal.The wiring harness I bought were all color coded exactly like the original,no cutting of any.year one has 30% off sale right now.do not buy painless it's cheaper but there's a reason.
Posted By: roe
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/07/13 07:05 AM
Whoa man. Some of you guys make this seem like its a walk in the park. If I didnt say it before, let me say that electrical stuff scares that crap outta me. I've been able to pick up small stuff like adding in the relay for the electric fans and doing the alternator to battery wire, and install voltmeter. I also pulled apart my bulkhead connector and cleaned everything and coated in di-electric grease. But I've tried looking at the circuit diagrams when I read other posts on the subject, and that crap confuses me. Im really hesitant about doing it myself and maybe screwing something up. Run the risk of burning down my car.
What I would be looking for is pretty much a full stock replacement with maybe a little larger wires than stock. (are the kits stock or larger than stock wire size?). Then I'd want a few upgrades like relays for: electric fans, A/C,. I have an alarm system and stereo system on it as well.
Is it really as easy as ordering a couple of different harnesses and slowly going through everything? I would feel a lot more comfortable about doing it myself if I had someone who knows electrical to help me through it.
Posted By: roe
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/07/13 07:14 AM
Also, I dont have a manual but will look in the teck sections for the one someone said they printed off. For a 71 B body with A/C, how many harnessess am I looking at needing? What are they?
Thanks
roe
Posted By: bboogieart
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/07/13 07:02 PM
Roe,
I was hesitant to do wiring myself. Thing is, I do as much of my own work as possible. I had bad luck with mechanics when I started driving. So I figured if they can do it, so can I, and went to the library. It's easier now as you couldn't take the books out of the library. I soon learned I could save a
LOT of money by doing things myself. I have learned a bit from trial and error. Just do one thing at a time and pay attention to what you are doing. Take notes if it helps. The work you have done so far tells me you can do it.
Posted By: IcorkSOAK
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/07/13 11:04 PM
Speal chuck Rosey .. It is spaeled yurr !
Posted By: pink68
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/07/13 11:29 PM
Do it yourself. I just rewired the entire front end of a 70 Cuda with M&H harnesses from year one. The harnesses for the entire front end (bulkhead forward) were $350 after 30%off discounts which YO seems to be running non-stop right now. This also inlcuded the "inside dash" AC harness which I haven't done yet. I am thinking about buying the inside dash harness and rear taillight harness just to finish the job. The dash part is more difficult but the engine side was very very simple.
Jim
Posted By: Wagonmaster
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/08/13 03:42 AM
I was spooked of wiring until I did my first wiring job. Just like a flowchart. Do one circuit, then another. Before too long, you're done. Just break it down into many small jobs, not one giant job. The giant job is intimidating.
If I can do this, anyone can.
Posted By: roadrunner69s
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/08/13 03:53 AM
Wiring scared me too. For years I would never do anything but an engine bay wiring harness. But then my ignition wire fried through the firewall and under the dash. It was either have someone do this for me for who knows how much money or figure it out. I figured to do it right, get rid of the entire 30 yr old harness. Why leave other weak links behind?
I had a wiring diagram already. Bought a Dash Harness from a repro shop that was exactly like the orig for $650. New engine harness was around $100. I spent 3-4 hours per night over the next week slowly pulling out the harness and taping/labeling both ends. Then I laid out the new harness and taped it up for installation. It took a week and about 20 hours. But I figured it out and became quite good at reading the wiring schematic in the end. It's only DC power after all with 2 wires per component. The only issue I had was with the main connector plug into the firewall. I got my mechanic to come over and help me out for 30 minutes on that. I didn't do anything inside the steering column though...just up to the horn relay and blinkers. The cause of my "fry" job was some poor soldering some bozo did on the ignition wire as it entered the main plug. They could have properly replaced the wire instead of trying to solder weak strands together. The solder cracked and formed a high resistance connection....then came smoke and fire.
In the end I was sort of surprised how technically simple the task was. It was just very time consuming and required attention to detail. I was a lot younger, more flexible, and with better vision when I did that job. Would be a lot more time consuming today. Doing the mods you suggested raises it to another level.
Posted By: markz528
Re: How much $$$ to rewire a car? - 11/09/13 11:55 PM
Whatever you do, make sure you have quality wire installed. Under no circumstances do you want PVC insulation in your car. Puts off deadly poisonous gases when burns.
You want a true automotive wire with at minimum XLPE insulation. You can get better aircraft wire, but I don't believe it is necessary.
This is what I recommend. Its affordable and a reasonable choice......
http://www.waytekwire.com/item/WX16-9/16GA-SXL-WHITE-AUTOMOTIVE/