Electrical Question for Emily

[Toby Erkson <Toby_Erkson@ccm2.hf.intel.com>]

Yes,my manual does.  I've used it quite a bit for trouble shooting and it 
hasn't let me down once.  It also has the 6-volt and European diagrams.  
The lines are very close together so whip out your magnifying glass and 
needle-nose pointer.  If you don't follow the wiring diagram exactly then 
be sure to document any deviations, like photocopy the diagram and draw in 
lines to show your work or just hand draw your own diagram (with more space 
between the lines!)

Something else you can do, providing you still have all your wires in the 
car:  As you remove ONE wire replace it at the same time with an equal or 
larger size wire AND color.  Go on to the next wire, remove ONLY it, then 
replace it with a new wire.  Slow?  Yes.  Maybe even a little tedious.  But 
if you're not too sure of yourself this is a great way to do it since you 
have to *try* to mess up and you can follow the original path and 
connections.  Talk about getting intimate with your car, whoa! ;)

It is my understanding that American and German coloring schemes are a 
little different (we use brown for ground, they use black).  I've installed 
some stereos in American cars and the wiring is very colorful (as is my 
language about the engineers during the installation :).  So you may want 
to decide how you're going to color code your wiring.

Another good idea is to label the wire at each termination.  This will help 
later on in case you have to do any trouble-shooting or wire 
removal/splicing.  You can buy wire labels at electronic stores.  Some are 
blank and you can write your own tag with a *permanent* marker (don't use 
ink or pencil -- it'll fade/smear) and some have numbers or letters you can 
use (this is wire A, this is wire 3, ...).

Wrapping wire bundles.  Please don't use electrical tape!  It will lose its 
stickiness over time, crack, peel, transfer its stickiness to the wire then 
fall off, and makes removing a wire a real pain!  Use wire ties.  These are 
very easy to get (electronics store), cinch up nice-n-tight, look very 
professional and neat.  Another way is to use a plastic tube (the name 
escapes me, someone help?).  It looks like a corrugated tube with a split 
running down the entire length.  They come in several sizes, cut to length, 
and can hold many wires.  You just push the wire thru the slit or thread it 
in one end and out the other.  Keeps wires together and protected from 
chaffing.  I personally recommend against the spiral style as it's a real 
pain to remove or add a wire once it's in place, especially if the wire has 
a connector on it.

Hmmm, a little longer than I thought.  Ah well, good luck!
     Toby Erkson
     air_cooled_nut@pobox.com
     modified '72 VW Squareback 2.0L
     stock '75 Porsche 914 1.8L


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Electrical Question
Author:  type-3-errors@umich.edu at SMTPGATE
Date:    1/6/97 8:49 AM

...

FYI - I just called and only the main wiring harness is available for my
year (and all I would guess) T3.  Price $100.  Goes from fusebox back.

Ok - so how hard would it be to buy the main harness and fabricate the rest
myself?  I imagine it would save time by providing a portion of the wiring.
 I am finally ordering a Haynes manual (T3 Technical Manual. ISBN
0900550848).  Will that have the wiring diagrams that I need?

Emily
'64 Notchback 1500S
'69 Westfalia