Wire stripping and fuse blowing problems

[nj fresh s13]

So when I bought my car it needed the struts replaced and I wanted to go low, so I decided to go with fortune 500 coilovers. Then I decided that the rubbing noise in the fender well was driving me crazy, so I decided to remove the plastic.
Recently I was driving home and my car just died altogether. At first I thought the battery died, but it was full of juice. I also noticed my wiring harness was poking out of the wheel well. After a little searching around, I realized that the ignition fuse was blown.
After about 4 fuses and a time consuming travel home, I was able to start investigating and I found this :




(Sorry for the crappy iphone pics)

So I am wondering what the approach I should take on this is. Does the harness come apart in a way that I do not have to replace the whole harness? Otherwise will I have to tear apart the dash to replacing it? I’m guessing my best option is to wrap each exposed wire in electrical tape, and to the best I can to re-route the wiring through that section. Though searching, I read the best way is along the frame? But I’m not sure how to go about that.

Do you think this is the only solution to my problem of blowing this fuse? Where else should I look?

Any help and/or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Mitsubayati]

So as many of us know, our wiring harnesses were positioned so that if we took off our fender lining, the harness would just rub all the time on our tires. Therefore, the harness would probably be chewed up and your car would begin to act funny or not function at all. Well, good news, there’s a way to relocate your harness safely and cleanly.

Materials needed:

Electrical tape
Zip ties
Wire cover

Tools needed

3/8” Socket Wrench with extensions
10mm socket
Dike (the tool that cuts, not the people. Keep your mind out the gutter)
Flashlight

Level of Difficulty
1 out of 5

Directions

If your 240 is like mine, you will need to take off your side skirts and your front bumper before u can pull the fender off. Otherwise, all you need to do is unbolt your fender from the front bumper.

There are a total of 9 10mm hex headed bolts that hold the fender to the body and 2 10mm hex nuts that hold the head lights to the fender (the two hex nuts for the lights only apply to 240s with a Silvia front, otherwise the 9 bolts should be the only ones that you need to take off).

You can take off the bolts in any order you feel. There are four that are inside the engine bay that line the edge of the fender. One of those bolts has a rear portion that holds the wiper fluid reservoir. It will hold itself in the engine bay, but be sure to realign it behind the hole so that the bolt actually goes into place when you are bolting the fender back up.

There are then two bolts that hold rear and bottom most portion of the fender to the frame. Then there is one bolt whose head can only be seen from inside the passenger compartment. You need to open your door, then you will see, where the fender meets the A-pillar that there is a bolt nestled right there.

The trickiest bolt to get at is one whose head can only be seen while looking from the fender well towards the door. It is between the fender and the frame. This is a where the flashlight would help to see through that small crevice.

Under the car is a brace that holds the front and bottom most part of the fender to the chassis. There is one bolt down there.

Finally for those with the Silvia conversion, the two headlight bolts can be seen after removing the corner lamp. To remove the corner lamp, there is a screw above the headlights that holds a tab that comes from the corner lamp. Remove that screw and then pull the corner lamp away from the car forward of the car to be sure that it slips off of a little round tab. Then after the corner lamp comes off, you can access those two bolts and the fender can come off.

Now that the fender is off, the fun begins.

Note: The wiring harness is on both the driver and passenger side. While I am talking about the passenger side, the driver side is pretty much the same minus a bolt and the wiper fluid reservoir line.

My wires were already chewed up.

If yours aren’t you can skip this part. Otherwise, find every wire that has any copper wiring showing. No matter if it’s real small or not, make sure that you get it covered. You might as well spend the time now that you have done all the work to get your fender off. The plastic covering that protects the wires was pretty chewed up as well, so I decided I would buy a new one and replace it. It was like $7 for 4 feet of 3/4” wire cover.

After cutting off all zip ties and letting the harness move freely, I removed all the electrical tape from all the wiring and proceeded to tape up every wire which had its protective covering rubbed off.




After that, I taped up the two sets of wires as they had been before they were chewed up and proceeded to cover them with the wire cover. Even though the cover shouldn’t come off once you place it on, I decided to zip tie it closed.






After all the cleanup is done, the relocation commences. There’s a small lip on the lower part of the frame which makes for a good perch for the harness and the wiper fluid reservoir line (if you are dealing with the passenger side). There are some holes in the frame where you can put your zip ties through to hold the harness up. Zip tie everything



After everything is done, you shouldn’t have any problems. Bolt up your fender again and anything else you took off and you’re good to go.

It's the same idea for the driver side. If I were you, I'd take the green box by the Brake Booster and bolt it onto the other side of the fram running the wire that connects it outside of the engine bay, this will give you more room to tuck the harness higher.

[harrypotter]

Try here:

http://zilvia.net/f/chat/407974-tuck...like-baws.html

[2.5T_/<ouki]

Damn dude.....thats pretty bad! I've had this happen to me before however it wasn't chewed up that bad.

As others have mentioned, you will need to do a wire tuck.
It's pretty simple, remove fender, zip-tie the harness above the little lip. You may need to drill some holes to make better mounting spots, but it doesn't take any longer than 30 minutes.

[nj fresh s13]

Thanks for all of the advice, I'm going to start taping those wires ASAP. Where can I get the wire cover from, any auto or home store??

[2.5T_/<ouki]

Originally Posted by nj fresh s13

Thanks for all of the advice, I'm going to start taping those wires ASAP. Where can I get the wire cover from, any auto or home store??

It's actually a lot easier to wrap it with Electrical tape rather than using that ribbed cover. This will also make it easier for you to bend the harness into positions or manipulate it anyway. Once you have it tucked up high enough, there is never a need to worry about it rubbing again.

[nj fresh s13]

I had some people tell me so cut, re-soder, and heat shrink the wires? I'm thinking I don't really want to cut it if it isn't already separated. Whats the opinion on that idea?

[Iron_Zenki]

I recently came to find out the previous owner had this issue luckily I started my build found this issue now I have to find a wiring guru to help me out

[Darren]

Originally Posted by nj fresh s13

I had some people tell me so cut, re-soder, and heat shrink the wires? I'm thinking I don't really want to cut it if it isn't already separated. Whats the opinion on that idea?

This wouldn't be a bad idea, however it's not 100% necessary. The good thing about doing this would be that the OEM insulation on the wires is going to be a fair bit better than anything an Electrical tape would be.

[2.5T_/<ouki]

If the wires aren't separated, i would personally wrap each individual wire with electrical tape and then shrink wrap every wire individually until each wire has been fixed. Once fixed, just electrical tap (or big shrink wrap) all of the wires together. This will allow you to have a very flexible harness to work with which in return will allow you to pull and tuck the harness much easier.

[ze12o]

I would cut and replace all of that and extend the harness a inch or two just to have some room to play with. Sometimes even stretching the harness will still rub.

[jacobs13]

Definately cut and replace the stripped area.You really dont want moisture getting paste that electrical tape

[!Zar!]

I would cut and route through the engine bay.