Do it yourself wiring harness fabrication

[Mike Arman]

Here is how you can make whatever custom wiring harness you need, quickly,
cheaply, accurately and easily.

Yes!

Now this first part is rather convoluted, but is part of the story, so bear
with me . . .

Many, many years ago I dated a young lady who worked in an employment
agency. She was horrified that I didn't have a "real" job (i.e. 9 to 5, $3
per hour, imitation gold watch and pat on the back after 50 years faithful
service, etc.), and insisted that I take a job offered by her company. The
job was described as "automotive wiring expert needed for product
development" at, you guessed it, $3.00 per hour.

Mostly to keep her happy (dumb move, I know, I know), I took it.

The company was making fiberglass replicas of MG-TDs on VW floor pans. They
had things pretty well figured out, but were totally lost when it came to
the wiring. It was taking them as long to wire, then troubleshoot, each car
as the entire rest of the build process, and of course every car was
different.

Problem was the procedure: Mongo would walk to the far end of the warehouse
(250 feet or so), unreel 20 feet of, eenie, meenie, minie, moe, uh, blue
wire, carry it back to the car being worked on, install it, clip off and
discard the extra, then repeat the entire process for the next wire. Duh.

My job was to fix this problem.

Step one: Move the wire spools to the other end of the building, next to
where the cars were being wired.

Step two: Buy four sheets of cheap plywood, a box of little nails, and a
box of crayola crayons - kindergarden selection, a dozen primary colors,
nothing fancy.

Step three: Draw an outline of the car and of the various electrical
components on the plywood.

Step four: Using different color crayons, draw lines between the components
- basically, wire the car on the plywood. Now drive nails into the plywood
where the wire turns.

Step five: Assemble wiring harness by laying wires out on the plywood, red
wire over red crayon line, blue wire over blue crayon line, etc., going
around the nails for length and routing, add tie-wraps, strip ends, take
finished wiring harness and install on car. New time to make harness AND
wire car was about four hours! Furthermore, it worked EVERY time because
now the harnesses were identical, and as long as Mongo paid attention and
wasn't color blind (or blind drunk), everything fit just fine.

Step six: Look for new job. Mongo now had to work for a living, and was
related to the owner. He complained, and I got fired.

Teach *me* to work for a living . . .

Best Regards,

Mike Arman

P.S. - They went bankrupt about six months later anyway. Ha!