On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:58:35 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bob wrote in news:1186936610.427720.323340
:

Hi Larry: I just finished talking to a nieghbor up the street. He's
retired and restores really old cars.... His lates is a 1916 Overland.
So Im standing there yacking when I notice a bunch of flexable metal
conduit (3/4" OD) routed to a metal junction box. I asked what that.
the guy says that most of the old stuff used flex metal conduit for
their wiring. Oh, the wire was also straned tinned. Simple....
industructable ... Built like a ship......... 1916. Im not sure modern
is always the best way.

Good luck with your Chev.



I dumped the Chevy. It was my father's. He died last January.

The Chevy's wiring was a bunch of hookup wire of various colors, then
loosely wrapped in cheap electrical tape to make it a "harness", as
opposed to just leaving hookup wire laying all over. I had to fix the
right front door wiring as Dad had it fixed by Mr Goodwrench and Mr
Goodwrench smashed the plastic-covered wires into a sharp object under
the right front door switches, shorting it to ground....stranding all the
power windows open or closed until the short vibrated clear enough and
the 25A breaker ("protecting" the #18 wires?) cooled off and reset.

The Overland wiring reminds me of my favorite car, my 1973 Mercedes-Benz
220D taxi sedan. Its wiring is contained in a plastic harness case.
Every plug and socket on the car is bakelite with brass cross-split pins
into brass matching sockets that never corrode. In the wire end of these
brass pieces, there are two holes at right angles in a solder cup. The
tinned wire is inserted into the cup through the side hole and hand
soldered to fill the cup. Wires pulling loose, in 34 years of service,
simply doesn't happen. The soldering is stronger than the wire, itself.
The plugs don't pull loose as a snap-on bakelite cap, which holds the
individually-removeable/replaceable pins in the bakelite holder also
directs all wires out the side of the plugs/sockets so there is never
linear pull. The pins fit so tight you have to pry the plugs apart with
a screwdriver blade to unplug them. There are matching sockets in all
the stuff, like taillights for instance, these plugs fit into. The
jacketed harness fits into a groove impressed in the steel so it doesn't
protrude, such as in the trunk (boot) floor (deck?).

Mr Goodwrench can make cars like this, but chooses not to. So can't Sea
Ray, but that's another sad story.


Larry, you remind me of the Swedesh guy used to run a Fellows gear
shaper in the shop. He was always bitching about, "Yah, how com 'dis
machine it never break, but my ford car it always break". Finally one
of the guys told him "if you have paid as much for your ford as the
company paid for this gear shaper your ford probably wouldn't break
either."

Quality costs money and I remember a friend who bought a new 190D.
People used to stand around talking about how much more it cost then a
Chevy.
Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)