Re: IML: '60 wiring harness rubber at doors '61 '62 '63 '64 '65?

["Michael Howlett" <collyman1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Richard,

I pretty much drive '50's cars full time, and all I've seen on the older cars is the rubber sleeve around the wire, and sometimes it is somewhat stiff and moves in and out with the door, which would put the stress point inside the kickpanel under the dash. The other option in older cars seems to be the "S" shaped rubber tubing, stuffed in between the door and the firewall, which causes the stress points to be somewhere there in the door jamb cavity, pinching the wiring in the tubing every time the door is opened or closed.

I've also been looking at newer cars to see how they deal with this, and on my wife's Honda CRV, it is the same as the first method I described above, and then on a recent rental car I rented, I saw the second method (the "S" pinching style) that I also described above.

I am still surprised that 50 years later, that the car manufacturers are still doing things the same old fashioned way.

I also have a third alternative, which (to me) makes a lot of sense, and which I have recently observed on Customized cars at the car shows.

This alternative is a hard plastic type strip about 1 inch wide, and about 4 or 5 inches long. Along this plastic strip are 4 or 5 or 6 or more, silver buttons about 1/4 inch diameter that protrude about 1/4 inch above the plastic.

Two of these strips are required, and one is attached to the door, and one to the kickpanel area, where the door hinges are located. (or I suppose you could also place them on the rear of the front doors to make contact with the center pillar.)

These two strips make contact and the silver buttons transfer the power from the kickpanel to the door when the door is closed, and the wiring is attached to the back of the silver buttons.

There is NO flexing of the wires, and the only drawback would be that you have to have the door in a closed position in order for the door electronics to work.

I am going to try this third method on my cars when get some of the brakework and other things done.

-Mike in Oregon

 

 

 

On 6/15/07, richard burgess <lecrown60@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi Folks,

 

I am trying to finish up my '60 Crown.  I have restored the wiring harness at the doors and need a solution for protection where the wire travels from the firewall to the door.  I had a nice pair of original rubber hoses.  I tried to reinforce one buy inserting another tube around it where it was cracked.  All this did was move the flex point downstream and it cracked there.  I saw a '61 on ebay that showed some diagonal boxes in the door jamb but the rubber hoses were broken off there as well.  At the back doors there is a metal housing that protects the wires and keeps them from crimping when the doors are opened.  Was there a later year that had this kind of metal enclosure that I could adapt to my car?  Too much wire and too much work to just let the wires get broken again.  Solutions?

 

Richard Burgess

'60 Crown

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