I am in the process of rebuilding my old V8 Fugitive which came back to me recently afer "resting" with a friend for a few years.

The current job has been to fit a new wiring loom while retaining the rather unusual starter/ignition circuits from the original.

I cut the original loom out with wire cutters, hoping I wasn't taking out parts of the ignition circuit. It reminded me of those films where they are defusing a bomb - do I cut the red wire or is it the blue one?

Anyway I have fitted a new loom from Premier Wiring Products in Edinburgh designed for rear engined cars and have posted some pictures here if anyone is interested:

http://sites.google.com/site/uvafugitivepr...home/electrical

I have only phoned their helpline once so far and they were quite helpful when I did.

I am sure it isn't supposed to take a week of work to fit a loom but there we are, slowly but surely is the best way. I have soldered everything I can to minimise the number of dreaded dodgy corroded spade connectors.

John

I've got one of their looms waiting to go into my Fug.

A week is definitely not unreasonable if you work carefully and and do a lot of checking as you go.

The debate on solder v crimp terminals is interesting.

It is easier to get a good crimp than a good solder but they are not as secure and open to corrosion.

Solder embrittlement can be a problem too.

All aircraft looms use crimp connections so they must be reliable.

At the moment I crimp low current connectors and solder battery and starter leads.

if you match the crimp terminal to the wire size and use a ratchet crimper tool, then you cant go too far wrong. when i was an auto electrician we only ever crimped the terminals...battery leads can be crimped as well, but the tool costs a small fortune...not worth the hassle. the best thing to do before crimping is to fill the terminal with good old vasaline...you can also buy terminals that can be heated up to shrink around the wire.
at the end of the day you have two choices...cheap or expensive. you could strip an old car of its plugs and sockets, then unsolder the terminals. a bit cheaper than buying new, but a hell of a lot of work for not much return.
you can buy bags of 50 terminals from motoquip for about £3..

my mate does car lectrics and on mine we made a custom loom for all the lights and everything. we even cut down the old efi loom to make it fit better. eveything was soldered that had to be joined, and heat shinked. all other plugs were new. 2 pin up to 8 pin.

Any one I know? :P