previous owners and MAGNIFICENT wiring they do

[original balzer]

so this 77 has been alot of fun in the wiring department. when i first got it it had daytime running lights ( all lights came on with the key even in ACC position) its a dang 77 it dont need or want daytime running lights so i figure its one of those "kits" right......wrong the guy simply cut the wires off the plug and used a HUGE house wire wingnut and pluged it into a 5 amp fuzed space on the fuse block. so i fixed that and no tail lights i get to lookin and see the tail lights (brown wire) is spliced into the brake lights so when the brake is pushed both elements in the bulbs light up. so i fixed that (id like to note FINDING all this crap was way more time consuming than fixing the problems) you might think *as i did* maybe there was a problem he was trying to fix. well once it was all wired correctly it has no problems so i cant see why the guy even messed with them. on to the havac wiring. so the PO appenarntly didnt ever want to use the AC again (read stripped all the parts out of the heater/AC box on the firewall)it also needed a new heater core and fan motor. so after all the work sealing up the holes he left and replaceing the heater core and fan i pluged everything where it "should" go
jump in the cab turn on the key and try the fanon low...........NOTHING....click the switch up 1 and the horn blows and fan on med speed click it up to high and high wipers and fan on high. WHAT THE F***! it took me several hours to figure out this mess and get things all back to normal and again once everything was wired correctly no problems. also so far nothing have been cut out this has all been done with jumper wires so it was simply finding the jumper wires cutting them out and plugging the correct terminals in. sorry this is so long but this is like the 3rd truck with funky wiring. am i the only one that gets this kinda stuff? also who says it was a moron and who says it was someone thinking they was funny? if he thought he was being funny he went though an awful lot of work to pull a prank.

im done venting now

thank you

balzer

 

[Brocky]

I bought a Toyota Corrolla a few years ago and decide to change the stero. OH MY GOD. The Previous idiot had chopped all the wires out and replaced them all with blue wires. Once I finally figured out the stero my fog lights wouldn't work. It seems that u turn on the fog light switch and the stero comes on. Scratch head and went back under the dash. It seems he used blue wire for the fog lights aswell. So I had to tear it all out and run color coded wires. Also a Sunbird GT I bought had joins in the wires everywhere and the Previous bozo used painters tape on the joins. I figured this out when they chafed thru and grounded out. If you cant wire something reasonable leave it to someone who can.

 

[CheyenneKid]

shrink tube.
labels.

 

[Blue85]

click the switch up 1 and the horn blows and fan on med speed click it up to high and high wipers and fan on high.

You're right, that sort of thing would be hard to accomplish by accident

At least the horn wasn't wired to the brake lights...

 

[ankarback]

I have an old copcar as my daily driver. I've had it for around 2 years and I still find extra wiring that goes nowhere in it. I must have removed over 20 meters of wires by now.

With my blazer it was the opposit thing. The PO have cut everything that he thought wasn't needed. He even cut the wires going to the hardtop instead of just disconnecting them

 

[Russell]

I basically replaced all the wiring in my K25 less the stereo wiring.

We'll put it this way, the fuses had been replaced with paper clips when I got it

There was masking tape everywhere on that wiring harness.

I just yarded all of it out, and got a new harness. Also got a new harness for the engine compartment and tail end, nothing was untouched by my grandfather :S

Now that I got it all working again, I added about 50 miles of wiring for the fuel injection, lol I hope that my truck's next owner never has electrical problems... I made all the harnesses independant from eachother, so if he takes the time to unpin stuff properly, it shouldn't be too tough, but man, there is a lotta wiring in my truck, lol

 

[atho]

Haha, this sounds so familiar. When I picked my truck up, I knew I'd be in for a fun time when I noticed about 15 pieces of wire just hanging out from under the dash. Looking up under, it was scary.
Maybe something shorted out, originally, I am not sure. But like Brocky, most of it was replaced by red wire. The wires were cut and spliced in random spots and most of them had shorted. I accidentally touched one of the "danglers" with my foot and lost dash and tail lights. The fuse box was loose and leaned forward, so whenever I'd push in the clutch it would knock the signal flasher out and it would start to roll around the floor, and go under the brake pedal (yeehaw!).
Also had a few of the paper clips in the fuse box, when I removed those I lost just about everything electrical. Took about 2 days for my dad and I, each working with a multimeter and a huge roll of multicolored wiring, to fix the mess.
The guy had even replaced ground wires with red. And since he was such a nice guy, we would find random rolls of spare red wiring just making taped to the back of the gauges, around the transfer case shifter, and in the glovebox. It was fuuuuuuun.

In my DD (Buick Lesabre), when I bought it the stock stereo didn't work. I wasn't too worried, they suck and the car was really clean, bought from an old lady.
Pulled the stereo out and was greeted with a bird's nest of loose wires.
The tool who took out whatever stereo that was in there didn't even bother to unclip it, they just cut the wires. So I had to track down a wiring diagram and connect each one to my stereo. At least it saved me the $17 at Best Buy for the wiring harness adapter
Later found out that the toolbag had removed the speaker wire running to the driver's side rear 6x9 in the back shelf. WtF??? People are idiots.

 

[Inu-Hanyou1776]

Any vehicle I get in the future with bad wiring I'm just going to turn to my dad and say 'Here. Previous owner hacked the wiring to pieces, you help me fix it.' because he's now got over 20+ years experience working with telephone lines and wires so he knows what he's doing.

But this is truly some crazy stuff I've now heard, though I'm sure dad wouldn't be surprised at all. He's told me that he's now seen so many bizarre things in his career as a telephone lineman that nothing really surprises him anymore when it comes to some people's 'attempts' to improve upon something a TRAINED electrical engineer originally designed.

 

[gravdigr]

I posted this in another thread but it bears repeating here

This year we got a new old dump truck IE. used. It's an 85 F350. We were having some trouble with it just shutting off. We have 3 other F series trucks this model year so I am very familiar with the ignition box problems and noticed this truck had a shiny ignition box hanging on the fender next to an older crusty box that they replaced but never took off the fender . So I get another ignition box and the truck runs fine, for a few days. Coming home one day on a very busy stretch of 2 lane while hauling our 18' trailer the truck decides to die and not start. Then smoke started coming from under the dash and the hilarity ensued. I manage to pop the hood and disconnect the battery before my wife got smoked out. We get a tow and leave it with our mechanic. It turns out the PO added aftermarket dual tanks then removed them and in the process totally butchered the entire harness behind the dash. $160 later and 3 weeks searching local salvage yards we finally find a harness and get the truck running again

 

[beater_k20]

since i know one day i'll be a "previous owner" i think im going to invest in a set of hedge trimmers here pretty soon to make my future wiring jobs alot easier. that seems to be the way that all of my trucks have come to me.

 

[chasone64]

My truck was hacked up also. I found all of the stereo wires were just twisted together & taped.
Some people -

 

[wildbilzrydn]

Oh I feel the pain too, I've had several vehicles that have had questionable if not dangerous wiring jobs done to them. I had a blower motor wire ground out an kick out the fuse on christmas day about 12 years ago in my '82 K5, Looked to me like the PO tried to use it to power the stereo or something. Wouldn't have been such a big deal if my 6 mo. old son wasn't in the car w/ me and it wasn't -5 out...I had to fix it before I drove it home, and my hands got so cold I thought they would break off.
I remember doing some questionable things on some of my cars though (if you cut the heads off off 1/4-20 bolts they make great replacements for fuses), I wired up an ammeter in the car in series with something so the thing always read about 45 amps. I was driving it one night and I saw a big flash under the dash and then everything in the car quit. It took me two days to find/repair the fusible link and then the ammeter wouldn't work after that. Those little wal-mart gauges cant take much punishment.
Oh well I guess we all have to learn somewhere and now that I'm not fixing someone elses crap wiring job I can say that I appreciate the fact that people at least try to do stuff themselves. I was one of them and now I build industrial automation.

 

[diesel4me]

I'm guilty--and have seen worse!

My 74 K20 was an electricians nightmare when I got it--previous owner put a "custom" aluminum stock car style dash he made in it--did a great job on making the dash,looked professional!..but behind it nearly every OEM wire was cut and spliced,and it was a horror show..I just saved an old harness from another truck I scrapped in case the harness ever went up in smoke,and kept fire and theft on it!..

I had the truck 15 years,I had several wiring and electrical dilemas,but to my suprise it never burned!...it was loaded with house "wire nuts",blobs of soldered 10ga wires,and all the tape he put on the splices fell off after a few years..I spent more time jumping wires and changing wires on that truck than anything else..seemed like I'd always drive somewhere,and then it wouldn't crank over!--had to jump the neutral saftey switch,solenoid wires,etc-- always something electrical wrong with it!

When I worked at a friends shop for awhile,we had a few similar cars come in with jerry-rigged wiring..one memorable car was a 1976 Lincoln Continental--owner complained the A/C would keep blowing fuses,so he stuffed a lead fishing sinker in place of the fuse,and it promptly melted..wanted us to diagnose and fix it..

I crawled under the dash,and I came flying back out as soon as I saw the fuse box..my friend laughs,says "Whats the matter,a snake under there or something"??...I said "Take a look at the fuse box!"...there was about 5 fuses missing--and in their place were 5 .22 caliber long rifle cartridges--complete with BULLETS in them!! ..he didn't stay under the dash long either when he saw that!..people are SO stupid!! We told the guy he was nuts to use bullets for fuse sustitutes--he just said "why,is that bad??? DUHHHH!