Wire an entire Charger?

[ywca]

In response to your question, as others have said, M and H under the dash and Evans under the hood! Pretty easy To do , because most all harness plugs only fit one place ! Good luck, don’t get frustrated, take your time, it’s very doable!

Thanks, JC Cooper, as an old-school mechanic, I never get frustrated ,ever. . I consider everything I do new a challenge. i’ve been challenged all my life, and I always prevailed.

 

[matthon]

For my 62 Dart, nothing is available.
Bought the AAW $299 kit, some Packard male/female connectors, used the plastic connectors I needed from my worn out brittle wire harness, done.
AAW harness comes with way more than $299 worth of wire, modern fusebox, maxi fuse block, alternator kit, etc.

 

[451Mopar]

Question for those who used the aftermarket type wiring;
Did you use bulkhead connector and make plug-in harnesses, or just go directly to the lights, ignition and such?
If you went direct, what was used as the firewall pass-through to protect the wires and seal the firewall?
When I did the Ron Francis kit, I re-used / re-pinned the original firewall connector fir the firewall pass through, and used a weather-pack connector between the dash harness and the rear taillight (and other wires, fuel sender, efi pump power, and some other wires.)
If I did a custom harness again, I would likely use the Metri-pack connectors. Maybe the Deutsch connectors, but I don't care for the large size of the weather-pack connectors.
The original Packard type connectors are ok in size, but it is not a sealed connection.

I'd like feedback on your preferred connector system, pros and cons?

 

[70chall440]

I have done a lot of wiring/rewiring and am in fact right in the middle of rewiring my 71 charger. This will be a long answer so I apologize up front for that.

That said here are the basic options;

1. remove the old harness, stretch it out and inspect thoroughly and repair as necessary. Many people don't like this because they state that the wiring is XX years old etc. but unless it is damaged much of the wiring is usable and fine. This does require some patience and a FSM to understand what does what and how things should be wired/terminated. You will still require the tools of the trade which are soldering iron, strippers, various crimpers and the Packard terminals. The benefit to doing this is that you know it fits the car.

2. Buy a brand new replacement OEM style harness from some place like MH. When I say "harness" this actually means "harnesses" because these cars came with a variety of harnesses such as the dash harness, engine harness, headlight harness, taillight harness, etc. This option can be very expensive up front but you get brand new essentially plug and play harness. The down side of doing this is that these cars typically had many options, mid year changes, etc. that require the new harness to be modified to work with which requires a degree of understanding of the harness and the car (obtained using the FSM).

3. Do a combination of 1 and 2, use the good parts of the original harness and replace the bad parts with a new OEM style harness. The up side here is lower cost but the down side is that the newer harness may not be an exact fit due to many issues (usually this is very minor). You still need all the tools and supplies generally but this is a lot less work.

4. Rewire the car using an aftermarket generic harness. This is a good option especially if you are restomod'ing the car wherein you have a lot of new tech such as a computer/ECU, etc. This is typically what I do and I prefer it because I am not a huge fan of how Mopar wired their cars originally and typically I am adding a number of new things which the old harnesses do not account for plus I am normally increasing the amperage I am going to push through some of he circuits significantly and lastly I want to run/terminate my wiring the way I like it. The up side of this method is that you get a completely custom electrical system suited specifically to what you want/have, the down side is that it takes a fair bit of time, all of the mentioned tools/supplies (and then some) and a thorough understanding of both electricity and how each of the systems in the car works (for example, the dome light is a negatively switched circuit verses a commonly positively switched one). With this said, IMO there is basically 2 methods used in this option:

4a. Strip all of the old wiring out, reuse the necessary plugs/connectors and wire in the new harness as per the directions provided. This will yield a very basic but functional system however it will probably not look all that great and some things may not work as designed. With this option you get rid of the bulk head fitting and close off the hole running the wires from the fuse panel to the various places and connecting them. This is what you see on many "flipper" cars where they are just trying to get them out the door.

4b. In this option you use a new after market harness to replace the factory stuff, you wire in all of the factory switches and functions and you reuse or use a new bulk head fitting and wire the car in the same manner as OEM. This is what I do and am currently doing. This method takes quite a long time and requires a high degree of understanding of how all of the systems and circuits work. The end result is that you get a completely custom yet somewhat OEM electrical system that resembles the factory harness which is what I strive to do. The method typically is not something you do once because all of the tools/supplies are extensive to do this well but for me the end result it worth it.

As to aftermarket harnesses, there are many out there ranging from the ~$100 harness off eBay to some very expensive (over $1K) systems. I personally have used a super cheap harness off of eBay and a couple of more expensive harnesses from Kwik Wire and Ron Francis. I am currently using a Kwik wire 20 circuit Mopar harness in the Charger and I really like it. I am not a fan at all of Ron Francis or Painless (Painless is good but too expensive for what you get).

Wiring is not that hard, it just take patience and some research. You do need tools and supplies as I stated but you can minimize these if you wanted to. I like tools and I have purchase a wide array of electrical tools in an effort to make life easier. I have built a wire rack, dash stand and soldering/electrical station on wheels to facilitate these efforts.

One tool you should absolutely own if you own a Mopar is a Power Probe, it will make life so much better on the electrical side of things and help you keep from burning your car down and/or smashing your head against a wall in frustration.

Another thing that I do that is VERY helpful is to build an electrical book in which I put pull out copies of the factory wiring harnesses, drawings of all of the circuits, diagrams of how all of the switches are wired, all electrical instructions that I get for whatever I put into the car, etc. This becomes my electrical "bible" and will be the go to for as long as I own the car and it will go with the car should I ever sell it.

 

[moparx]

i like to run an alternator bypass, from the alternator's output stud to the starter relay "hot" post from the battery.
this turns the amp gauge into showing just the discharge used with however many circuits are in use instead of running the entire load through the bulkhead and amp gauge.
doing this needs to have an accessory volt gauge installed to keep track of battery condition.

 

[Tdip71]

I just did a 74 charger. I used American Autowire. Wires were well marked and instructuons were pretty good. make sure u have a test light. LOL. I also had a question and called them up. They were very helpful on the phone as well. I would recommend them.

 

[matthon]

Did you use bulkhead connector and make plug-in harnesses, or just go directly to the lights, ignition and such?
If you went direct, what was used as the firewall pass-through to protect the wires and seal the firewall?

Bulkhead connector deleted. I put a plate over it, drilled a hole, put a small grommet in, and the speedo cable goes through it.

Electrical:
All wires going through the firewall, and there were not many, I put into a homemade harness, just by using harness tape, not actual tape.
Except - I kept the 1 power wire going to the fuse box separate.

There was an existing hole right in line of the top of the inner fender about the size of a quarter.
The grommet I used, I know I had it, not sure where it came from.
It looks like a valve cover grommet that has not been punched out.

I had to drill holes through it for the small harness as well as the power wire.

I used plug in stuff for other areas, for example, the turn signals are a separate harness I made using the wiring from the AAW kit.
It was long enough to reach them, but it made it easier to r&r if needed with a weatherproof plug for each.

I used a plug in the trunk for the tail lights etc.

 

[70chall440]

I make the BH with all of the same connectors wired to what I have going on in the car. The headlight harness remains pretty much the same, the wiper harness is the same, the motor harness is different depending on what you have going on.

 

[Jam72]

I opted for the b body set from American Autowire through Year One. It was several hundred dollars cheaper than the model specific set for my 72 Charger. With my wiring experience, I so far have been able to get the dash, interior and rear wiring done OK. There are a limited number of connectors that need to be made up (when wire lengths are a custom cut) , but that is not a problem. I found the kit did not include the tail lights harness but was able to upgrade the existing harness and replaced all the lamp sockets individually as all were corroded. The kit did not include the headlights hideaway mechanism wiring but I managed to upgrade and connect the existing wiring into the new harness headlight switch. Another nasty wrinkle is that it was only for a single wire alternator. So rather than custom revise the harness to accomodate the existing alternator I bought a fancy single wire alternator which cost as much as the saving by using the b body kit instead of the model specific one. American Autowire were very helpful when I had questions. Wire colors do not match OEM but not a problem as the kit schematics do include colors.Keep your old wiring as may need to steal some parts from it. I suggest opting for the model specific harness, first asking if it includes the rear tail lights, the hideaway mech wiring (if applicable) and the wiring to the standard OEM alternator.
First laid out all the connectors and labelled each temporarily.

 

[70chall440]

Kwik wire has large lettering on every wire, pretty easy to read and every wire is labeled plus their instructions are very clear and concise telling where every wire starts, ends and what its function is.

 

[6PKRTSE]

We re-wired my entire car with all this. Everything worked perfectly and car fired up first crank once done.