So, I'm tearing into the interior of my Fiero... it's totally gutted, and I'm adding Performance Sound, upgrading to power mirrors, and re-wiring the power door locks correctly... and I notice something...

I've had this car for about ~15 years now... installed power door locks way back in 1998. I also installed a nicer stereo, but at least had the common sense not to trash the factory wiring. So I'm looking at all of my handywork, and I'm literally apauled by what I did back in the day. I know that I didn't know a damn thing about cars back then, but holy crap... I've never seen such a **** -job every done before in my life... and to think it was me that did it, is down-right emberassing. Somehow... my power door locks managed to work the past 10+ years. The wiring is horrendous. It's like I used whatever I could find to wire it all together. I've counted so far, about 12 of those piggy-back clips that dig into a wiring harness so you can attach a wire onto it.

Man... I'd post a picture of the mountain of crap wires I pulled out of the car, but I'd be too emberassed. I notice however that the factory didn't do a totally awesome job either in some places. There's places that you can tell a wiring harness was SUPPOSED to go through, but they decided instead to route it another way...

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Todd,
2008 Jeep Patriot Limited 4x2
2002 Ford Explorer Sport 2dr 4x2
2002 Ford Crown Victoria LX
1987 Pontiac Fiero SE / V6
1973 Volkswagen Type-2 Transporter

Sounds like a lot of the remote starters and alarms I used to remove on trade-in cars while working for a GM dealer.. A lot of the "pros" use those squeeze-on wire taps, even for high-current remote start wires.. Also was helping a buddy with his system after he had it installed by a place that does Lamborghinis, Ferraris, etc, and was also an "installer school" featured in audio magazines back in the day.. They did a horrible job, including running speaker and power wires through holes drilled in sheet metal, with nothing covering the sharp edges. He paid $$$ for that job too. It was probably a "student" doing it, but still..

Whenever I go back to something I wired, I curse myself for the 100 feet of electrical tape I wrapped everything in. Split loom tubing apparently didn't occur to me back then! At least I'm not tapping power with speaker wires any more......

HAHAHA. At least you finished the job before going back and getting disgusted with your own work.... I started wiring up my 3800 swap over a year ago. Now I'm ready to jerk it all back out to start again. I got to looking at Haus of Guru's thread and noticed the amazing work his wife does and how they put new pins on the ends of the too long wires and run a new wire for any too short wires. Simply amazed... and I've got the crap I did... splice splice splice. At least I solder and heat shrink and stagger them.

Well, at least you have a chance to fix your own hackjobs. But it's even worse because you can't blame someone else. =P

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url=http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1639319][/url]

Yeah, it is fun to see how your skills have developed and been refined over the years...