Thread: Give it a haircut?

I'm nearly ready to drop my old motor in, just waiting for a few last parts, and I'm working on my harness. I have removed a bunch of stuff from the car, including power steering, A/C, EGR has been gone for a long time, I'm not using the stock oil sender, etc. Is there anything that would stop me from clipping off the excess connectors as long as I cap them right and keep them isolated? I'd love to reduce the mess here...

i'm thinking about doing the same thing. let me know how it goes!

I would not cut the harness in anyway shape or form. Just tuck the stuff away.

Best way is to pull all the tape and crap off the harness, and then re-wrap the whole thing. That way you can put all the wires for plugs you aren't using under tape and then extend or shorten whatever wires you do need so they come out right at the plug and you can hug the harness close to the block or firewall or however you are running it.

Brent

hate to say it but i hacked my harness, why try and keep it clean? i dont know your situation but i had to swap over to msd injector clips and a Z32 mafs pigtail, so thats why i continued cutting extra off, i unwound the loom and cut off all the extra wiring for the EGR, PS, AC, and all of the other stuff i have removed

If they aren't connected now and you aren't having any problems, by all means cut them shorter and isolate them, or do what coach said and gut them from the harness entirely. If you ever plan on re-installing that stuff or selling the harness then just tuck the plugs away.

check out squirlz project, he did it.

I'm with Rob on this one... Don't cut anything. If you are going to do anything.. Make them longer and tuck them away. Better safe then sorry.

he never said anything about making them longer, youd have to cut them to make them longer. So it would be defeating the purpose.

Cut it up. Take the whole harness out of the car, cut the loom off, cut all of the tape off, then re-secure the harness with masking tape. Now you can get out your FSM and go to town.
I suggest strongly that you label EVERYTHING before cutting it out. What i did was go to a connector that i know i wanted to remove, followed the whole wire back to where it terminated, which usually was the large connector going through the firewall or the fuse/relay box under the dash, then mark it there with masking tape, and move on.
What you will notice is a lot of wires may run together or split somewhere, in this case i cut them at the junction and when i was all done i went to that junction and finished it with solder and heat shrink.
Once you clear out all of the connectors and wires you do not need then take the connectors apart where they terminate and pull the pins out.
I think it took me 4-5 hours per harness when i did mine but you should see the plastic bag that is almost full of wires and connectors i did not need. I bet it was close to 30lbs in relays, wires, connectors, and modules that i was not using.
And you get to know your car and put things where you want. I have not done the engine or body harness going to the rear yet, but i plan on doing them this winter. If you take your time and keep track of what wires are what everything will work. I have or did not have any issues after gutting the dash and engine bay harness.
Thats just my little tid bit on the subject.
Clink the link below for some details as well.

Another thing i forgot to mention is after you remove everything you want, make sure it is secure with masking tape, then put it in the car and run the wires where you actually want them to go, then re-tape the harness with everything re-routed, then make your final adjustments and finish all the connections, take the harness out and then wrap the whole thing in electrical tape and top it off with loom.