I just got this car and was doing the Timing belt and hoses etc... and noticed my harness looked a bit bubbly so I decided to open her up. There was a large black wire burnt to a nice crisp and starting to take others around it for its ride to eternal flames and damnation. As everyone has found most of the wiring diagrams are a joke. So I traced it to the starter through the firewall across the bottom of the dash to the passenger side, and out to the alternator. The somewhat good 1976 wiring diagram I found here did show the 3 black wires coming off the Alternator, one to the fuse, one to the switch and one to the starter. The other black wires were fine with no damage seen to there covers.
However tonight I decided to remove the starter end and see what size wire and eyelets I would need. After stripping back all the tape I found a burnt up 4 wire connector that already had, some electrical engineer, the black wire cut out of it and merely twisted together (and people blame Fiat for the wiring). That was the one that was toasted.
I found the following from the connector to the starter:
One brown wire and One Red wire connected to an eyelet to the starter
One red wire coming out if connector - cut off and not connected?
Black wire taken out of harness, twisted and taped and eyelet to starter
On the other side of the connector I found that both the red wires were now simply connected together via spade terminals with a factory plastic cover? What is this about?
On the last note the Exciter wire seems to have been replaced via a wire that was run through the throttle hole in the fire wall to the switch. Pics below and any help about those 2 RED wires and what the real exciter wire color is would be helpful.
My plan is to run a heavy gauge wire from the Alternator across the firewall and to the starter in its own loom. Thanks Brian
