Which wiring harness???
 

What wiring harness is the best for a beetle. I don't plan on putting in a huge stereo or tons of gauges. I will be doing some custom wiring with my 914 gauges that I just bought. What is the best wiring harness for the money???

For the $$$, the one that is in it will work fine as long as it is in good shape. You can make an aux. harness for gauges/ect. and run it along the rt side of the car in the channel used for Rt. hand drive cars. You might as well run some extra wires in the harness for later use.

Well there is no wiring harness left in the car. It was so bad I have to replace it. The car suffered from a bad case of spaghetti wiring. There must have been 5 splices for every wire... :rolleyes: So I should order a stock replacement one...

Im looking into Painless Performance Products for my car...I am running wiring for the necessary systems only....lights, ignition,guages, etc. No extra clutter.

www.painlessperformance.com

I ran a complete Painless wiring harness in my 74 Ghia. Wasnt as bad as I thought it would be. I used the 18 circuit universal.

I used the American Autowire kit sold by Watsons Streetworks. The materials are great -- new style fuse box, labelled wires, good connectors. The instructions are okay -- they look nice, but don't address stock bug light switches and other bug specifics so you have to do some integration between the OEM wiring and the Watsons plan. I like the tiered design of the Watsons wiring layout -- makes more sence than the OEM setup.

The Autowire and Painless stuff are KITs not harnesses. You make the harness from the kit. The flexibility of the kit was nice, but took extra time designing as I went. I went with it for the fuse box, pre-labelled wires, and modern electrical layout. I bought additional wire, looms, and connectors as needed. Also, you need to buy a crimper for the open barrel connectors that come with the kit (~$50).

The Autowire fuse box comes with a mechanical flasher relay. I changed it out for an electric flasher. The electric responds much faster so you get a blink as soon as you hit the turn signal -- good for quick lane changes. Also, the electric unit works regardless of load -- good for LED bulbs.

Thats good to know because I have to replace the entire wire harness for my 69 standard, it had the same problem as your Brendan, and I may have fried the system as well. I was welding on the car and the battery wasn't disconected! Oh well things happen and then you deal with them.

But the info you provided, Bill, was really helpfull as I was wondering company to get a wiring harness from that could handle up to 2400 watts of power, this isn't my GL so I goin huge in the stereo system.



John

Question for those using Painless 18-circuit universal:

Since I am pretty much electrically inept, if you use the Painless product, how do the old VW relays (for blinkers, etc) fit into the equation? I have a 1972 super and most of it (wiring wise) will be to the stock items.

Thanks

Both Painless and Watsons have fuse boxes with turn signal relays and flashers built in, so they replace the VW ones. Other switches and relays are kept. If you want custom install with modern fuse box, go with kit like these. If you want to replace old wires without redesigning the wiring scheme, go with a replacement harness.

I used the Watson street works setup.... very easy to install. great looking too. I did mine over 4 days working on it about 3 hours each day.

Had no problems and everything was there. I am a computer geek and did it, so it can be done by anyone.

I am very glad that I did the upgrade.

I too used the watsons kit on my old ragtop - a few pics can be found here:

http://www.manxgallery.org/gallery/album228

Took a while but was worth it even for someone like me with no previous autoelec experience.
Alan
http://www.manxgallery.org/gallery/a...May8.sized.jpg

Chop a good one out of an old car. The original wiring loom is very hard to beat in terms of quality and functionality..