Rhode Island Wiring company

[pmansson]

Has anyone used their wiring harness? They have them for the 2800CS only, but that is close enough, esp for the forward harness going from the fuse box into the left side of the engine room. It´s about $1.050 for this section of the harness. I might tidy the current one up instead.....

 

[craterface]

Good reputation

I have not used their products, but I happened to be speaking to a client today and he just happened to mention that he had rewired his 1950s GM pickup truck using a harness from Rhode Island Wiring. He raved about it. Thought it was very well made. High quality connectors, wires, insulation etc.
Scott

 

[rsporsche]

wow ... 2900 bucks for a full harness for a 2800cs ... 1800+ for dash, body and taillight harness. i guess if you were doing a full resto, where the existing was terrible and you took the car down to bare metal ... this might be easier.

 

[mulberryworks]

a snip and a splice

wow ... 2900 bucks for a full harness for a 2800cs ... 1800+ for dash, body and taillight harness. i guess if you were doing a full resto, where the existing was terrible and you took the car down to bare metal ... this might be easier.

I was looking at a dealer web site, either BMW of Monterey or Atlanta and saw that they sell correctly sized and color coded wire by the foot. I haven't checked to see if what's available is an exact match for the E9 but it's nice to know that that's a possibility.

When I restored my 1954 VW beetle, I took ends from a '64 harness I had salvaged and used solder and heat shrink tubing to make the harness look and work as new. The splices were far enough back that they were inside the harness sheath.

A friend of mine has salvaged the wiring harness from an E39 and I'll be able to use those wires if needed, but again, haven't had a chance to check for size and color coding match.

I don't feel that a reproduction harness is a good investment for my car. It will be nice when I'm done, but not that nice. That's as much as I paid for the entire car.

Ian Sights
1970 2800CS Chamonix

 

[HB Chris]

BMW sells very few colors, another opportunity lost.

 

[Gazz]

Been doing mine - strip the old tape, clean and retape one section at a time to make sure I follow the existing bends.
Sore fingers, headache from cleaning agent fumes, bleary eyes from all that close up work, aching back hunched over for hours and, so far, 4 1/2 25 mtr rolls of Tesa cloth tape. Nearly there and looking good. The main loom is now threaded into the car. Savings - around $3000. Surprised myself with this job; been putting it off because the loom was filthy after sitting in a shed in an open box for 9 years and looked like a huge tangled pile of frustration but once I got started it turned into a mission and I just kept going.

 

[m73]

Been doing mine - strip the old tape, clean and retape one section at a time to make sure I follow the existing bends.
Sore fingers, headache from cleaning agent fumes, bleary eyes from all that close up work, aching back hunched over for hours and, so far, 4 1/2 25 mtr rolls of Tesa cloth tape. Nearly there and looking good. The main loom is now threaded into the car. Savings - around $3000. Surprised myself with this job; been putting it off because the loom was filthy after sitting in a shed in an open box for 9 years and looked like a huge tangled pile of frustration but once I got started it turned into a mission and I just kept going.

Gazz,

You just described what car heaven is like more most (IMHO): lots of hard work, personal sacrifice (physical/emotional), limited budget, goals.....

For something like this, I am sure a dedicated owner is just as important as deep pockets, sometimes a plug & play option is the only way to go but I still think there are more creative options.

Experienced owners should know: maybe a good used section or finding a similar make/model harness, or finding a custom shop that may charge slightly less (I did see one on wheeler dealers in UK...expensive, but maybe not as much)

Good luck,

MF

 

[Luis A.]

Been doing mine - strip the old tape, clean and retape one section at a time to make sure I follow the existing bends.
Sore fingers, headache from cleaning agent fumes, bleary eyes from all that close up work, aching back hunched over for hours and, so far, 4 1/2 25 mtr rolls of Tesa cloth tape. Nearly there and looking good. The main loom is now threaded into the car. Savings - around $3000. Surprised myself with this job; been putting it off because the loom was filthy after sitting in a shed in an open box for 9 years and looked like a huge tangled pile of frustration but once I got started it turned into a mission and I just kept going.

That's the way to do it. I didn't think it was that bad of a job. Most of the filth is near the terminals and the terminals themselves. The latter can be replaced with correct non insulated open barrel crimped terminals and using the correct tool you obtain a crimp identical to that of the factory. The crimp consumes a very small amount of wire so even in the shortest ends I was able to replace the terminals where needed.

A better match than the TESA tape (sorry Gazz!) is the Coroplast tape. It is a very good match for the factory weave and thickness and not as stiff and thick as gaffer's tape or friction tape which also leave a visible white edge where it is ripped to width. Coroplast is available in the odd widths the original tape came in: 9 and 19mm. There is a guy on Ebay now selling it but I purchased mine, and the terminals, at Auto Electric Supplies in the UK.

 

[John S]

proper crimping tool?

Hi Luis,
What type/brand of crimping tool do you use? Thanks,
John

 

[Luis A.]

Hi Luis,
What type/brand of crimping tool do you use? Thanks,
John

I have this one from Ebay. Search S&G crimper

I like the ratcheting action as it sometimes require a lot of leverage to crimp the larger ones.
Just make sure the jaws look like below. That's the shape of the open barrel crimp.

 

[Gazz]

I used Tesa 19mm and didn't find it to be stiff or thick. Easy to work with and was a pretty good match to the fine weave of the original.
The fiddliest of the filth was at the terminals but stripping the old tape left much of the adhesive on the wiring. Over the years the adhesive had oozed off the tape so I had to clean all of this off as I didn't want the new tape to adhere to the slimy old adhesive and not the actual wiring. I used methylated spirits ( denatured alcohol ) to remove the adhesive.

Side note - when denatured alcohol was introduced in Australia the "Alcohol" part was taken to mean it could be imbibed. This of course led to serious health problems so the authorities in their wisdom renamed it Methylated spirits. It has some additives to make it foul smelling and tasting but that still doesn't dissuade some desperates. We call them Metho drinkers.