I found a wire, and another, and another, and another, and another.....

[ChevyCaGal]

I have been trying to pull out an old alarm on my truck. However the underside dash of the looks like a huge mess of wires. I know this is pretty common, but I am not sure if mine is worse then average or what? I am tracing wires that lead nowhere. There is a wire to a switch, a switch which look like someone spilled a soda on. It's all gross and tucked up in the mess. I'm wondering do I actually need 90% of what is there or what? It looks like I can't actually need everything up there! Any pics of a cleaned up wire job floating around? I have a dream of having something where there is less then eleventy billion wires under there. Thanks!

 

[cybrfire]

I've gone through this a few times and I would suggest first make a list of electrical components that don't work on your rig. If everything works then great. If it doesn't work, try to determine if any of the wires that go nowhere are supposed to go to some of these components. No doubt some of the wires in there are not needed. You'll probably have wires that somebody installed for speakers. Probably some for aftermarket lighting and things of this nature. Take your time. Usually you can tell factory wires from owner installed pretty easily.

 

[dyeager535]

Factory didn't use any butt connectors, blade connectors, twist connectors, etc. Any connection you find that is factory will not have multiple color wires joined (IE black wire joined to white wire) and if there are joints (like ground and the courtesy wiring) they will almost always be crimped, then wrapped in black tape.

It IS very easy to tell factory wiring from non-factory. You can almost bet if it looks out of place, it is. Still a good idea to watch out though, depending on how it's wired, you can end up with some mysterious problems. (if you don't already have them)

 

[m j]

welcome to "previous owner land"

 

[chulisohombre]

my previous owner of my truck hacked everything pretty good.im actually not sure if it was him or if it was a junkyard.my truck had a salvage title when i bought it.so for some reason it was junked and then brought back to life.and then killed by the previos owner who used to jump it for fun.he showed me the pictures.haha.i almost didnt buy it after that.i had many grenlins under my dash.i fixed some but some i cant figure out what was done under there.i think the best bet is going to be getting a new harness from painless wiring.for my ride it is only 79 dollars last time i checked.much easier than trying to fix someone elses mess. /forums/images/graemlins/waytogo.gifif anything get a wiring diagram and try and figure it out that way.i just took an alarm outa my buddies s10 blazer.we still dont know where half the wires go.it sits at his moms house till we can get a diagram.