Wiring Kit...?

[TRSmith99]

Hello all!

My wife is the proud owner of a 1977 Fiat 124. Over the last few years, we've done some cosmetic improvements (paint, interior, upholstery), and a few mechanical fixes (ball joints, shocks/struts, all new brakes).

We use the car as a "weekend driver". We are not aiming for "show quality", but more of a resto-mod that we can enjoy.

So, with that backdrop....
As the winter approaches, we're considering re-wiring the whole car (I have a 1970 Bronco - and the first project I tackled was to replace the entire electrical harnerss with Painless kit). As such, I've done some research/searches around electrical - there is a detailed website on how to "adjust" a Painless kit for the fiat - but its a bit dated. I was curious to know....
1. how many people have "re-wired" your fiat...?
2. did you use a kit? If so, which one....? what worked well....? what didn't....?
3. What would you do differently if you had to do it over again...?

Thanks for sharing....


TR

[westy64]

This should help you.
Good luck !

http://www.fiatspider.com/f08/viewtopic ... ss#p166213

baltobernie is the one who has done this.
you can search in his posts

[btoran]

i'm no wiring guru but all the posts from this site say the painless kit is anything but. most posts suggest inspecting and cleaning grounds. what issues are you having that's making you consider a complete re-wiring?

[BEEK]

unless the car has had a total electrical meltdown, it is best to just repair the particular wiring issue. 77 spiders have good standardized harness and wiring diagrams are readily available.

[blurple124]

I rewired my entire car this past summer. I made the harness myself and changed the layout a little bit. I also installed a modern fusebox, LED lights everywhere, a switch panel, and programmable windshield wipers.

I probably went a bit overboard on the planning side of things, but because of that, the re-wire only took me about two weeks.

If I had the money, I would have bought higher quality wires, but that is about it. I did the whole thing for about $150.

I am in the process of writing about this project, but have not finished yet. I will move that story to my resto thread on this site when it is done, but if you want you can read the latest posts on my blog here: http://antoniastale.blog.com.



If you are feeling ambitious, I can give you some of the info that I used to do mine. I have yet to finish the wiring diagrams, though.

[TRSmith99]

i'm no wiring guru but all the posts from this site say the painless kit is anything but. most posts suggest inspecting and cleaning grounds. what issues are you having that's making you consider a complete re-wiring?

I think people either love or hate the painless kits. I had the same reaction when I decided to re-wire my Bronco.

I rewired my Bronco 4 years ago with a Painless kit. It was fairly straight forward and allowed me to "remove" many of the "customizations" done by the PO. Since then, I've been able to add to the system easily and if/when an issue comes up, its SOOOO much easier to troublshoot.

My wife's Fiat does not suffer from any major wiring/electrical issues other than just general concern about the age and a few non-working items. Trying to sort through the modifications done by the PO and the Bosch fuses is far from "state of the art".


TR-

[TRSmith99]

This should help you.
Good luck !

http://www.fiatspider.com/f08/viewtopic ... ss#p166213

baltobernie is the one who has done this.
you can search in his posts

This is great! If Painless is making a Fiat-specific version... Thanks!


TR-